2020: The Year of Technology Revolution
About a year ago, I made three predictions for the coming decade.
I predicted the end of oil. I predicted the rise of the Machine Internet, and I predicted DNA would become a programming language.
Because of the pandemic, 10 years of change have been compressed into one, and we’re well along on all three roads.
I didn’t mention working from home because I’d been doing it for 36 years and figured it would just evolve. Because of the pandemic, it didn’t. It ripped through the mass market faster than Facebook. All the side-effects of that, from the dominance of the Cloud Czars to the movement against them, stem from this revolution.
Entire industries, from videoconferencing to ghost kitchens, appeared as if by magic. The movement away from oil accelerated dramatically. Driving is increasingly done by fleets, and fleets can turn to electricity quite quickly, because electrics have fewer parts, they’re more reliable, and they can be recharged on a schedule. I live next to a MARTA rail station that’s now emptier than it was when I came here in the early 1980s. Instead, I see Amazon trucks, both badged and unbadged, UPS trucks FedEx trucks, and the occasional Uber. The “rush hour” that once ran for four hours each day now happens on the weekends, when people are desperate to get out of the house.
These changes are permanent. Restaurants and stores will re-open, but if you want to do business you must do most of it online and mobile. Stores are now open 24-7. With ghost kitchens, restaurants soon will be. This is creating enormous knock-on effects in the real estate market, in the oil market, and in how we bank.
It’s the efficiency of this year that will be most difficult to deal with. Because policymakers could only support the rich with cash, our K-shaped recovery is socially dangerous. The recent election was close, but future elections won’t be, because only Democrats are prepared to deal with the result. Democrats want to invest in new demand. They support managed care, education, and infrastructure. These areas, too, will see revolutions. Online learning will continue to accelerate, managed care will cut costs, and infrastructure will turn electric. I suspect that at some point in the next 10 years, the MARTA rails near me will be paved over, turned over to self-driving electrics and bicycles. There’s just no demand.
My third prediction, about DNA, got a huge lift from the vaccines. Moderna and BionTech, which used Messenger RNA to tell cells how to make antibodies against the disease, instead of creating crippled versions of the virus itself, proved the right way to go. I told investors a year ago to buy Moderna when it came public at about $18. Now it’s at $140, and soon you’ll be able to buy it again. That’s because, like Regeneron, whose VelociSuite offers a system for drug discovery, and like CRISPR Therapeutics, whose CRISPR-CAS offers a system for cutting DNA, Moderna offers a technology, not just drugs. All sorts of conditions could be prevented or treated, quickly, with mRNA techniques. Moderna put together its vaccine candidate in a day. The whole year was spent on testing. With the technique proven, this can accelerate.
What this means for the next decade is that a lot of drug companies are going to look like solar panel makers did in the last decade. Yes, they’re selling and scaling, but the prices they’re getting for the finished products will go down. There will be multiple treatments for many diseases, all effective, so governments and managed care companies will have more control over the market.
The main story of our time remains deflation. It’s still not talked about enough. Working from home has created enormous efficiency. Efficiency leads to job loss. What are today’s Uber drivers going to do when autonomous Amazon and UPS vans start dominating the roadways? What about the ambulance drivers, the bus drivers, the long-haul truckers? We must find new things for these people to do, and there are huge jobs awaiting us. But most involve what I call “social goods,” for which the government must make a market. Government must create demand for the new products technology will produce. If it fails people will revolt against the Cloud Czars, and the Cloud Czars know it.
In 2021, the government story will become regulatory capture. Reporters today are spilling gigabytes on threats to “break up” the Czars, and China’s Cloud Emperors, or at least regulate them to death, or prevent their growth in the name of “competition.” I predict the pushback will soon begin. It must for the Czars to maintain their fortunes. As in previous generations, regulatory capture will mean control of the government by a dominant industry, one that will cement business relationships.
In the oil era, where I lived most of my life, the resource economy meant that control over land was paramount, even if control meant violence. Money came out of the ground. In the tech era, it’s people that matter. Controlling them isn’t enough. They must be educated and empowered. Their imaginations must be fired, their creativity inspired. People are also a declining resource in the 21st century. Most of the world is facing a demographic cliff. The value of free labor is going to rise and rise. What else is money for, except to serve people?
This year has been a horror show, but it has compressed time like nothing has since World War II. It is forcing people, business, and government to change. This was the birth of a new era. Now our children get to raise it.