The State of the Art

There's a lot going on in the world. I wanted to take a few moments to reflect on the state of things and make a few predictions. The driving motivation is that I wish I had done this a decade ago and could look back on it now to see what I was thinking, what stood out at the time, and of course how close my predictions came to reality.

Let's dive in.

The past decade

Here are some things that stand out in my memory. Lot's more happened of course but this is a subjective perspective:

• Massive economic growth. I'm talking mostly from the perspective of the US stock market. The 10 year run after the financial crisis of the previous decade was huge and as of this writing it hasn't ended yet. Covid hit and there was a blip of downward pressure, but with the exception of a few notable verticles (airline industry...) prices are right back up.
  • There was more centralization of talent and rising housing prices. I have no data about rural areas, but there seems to have been a flight to cities where economic opportunities were strongest.

• The decade of mobile
  • Apps took over the world, and not in a good way. These days every company seems to feel the need for an app, even when it's not justified. Some great things have happened in the world of apps to be sure, but it's gone a bit overboard.
  • The rise of apps also means the rise of closed systems and the need permission-granting entities (i.e. those who control the app stores). This is an unfortunate trend. The internet in the past thrived on being permission-less.

• VR was going to be cool and then was just... meh.
  • I was swept up in the VR fervor so it's a bit disappointing it hasn't quite changed the world, but I'm still hopeful for it. More on this later.

• SpaceX started landing their own rockets.
  • Even now in 2020 the implications of advances in rocketry haven't played out, but it was supremely exciting to see the progress made in this field.
  • They also launched a Tesla into space, which was mostly just a media sensation but fun to watch nonetheless.

The decade to come

This section is a mix of observation and prediction. It should go without saying but I like to be explicit: I may be totally wrong about any predictions made here.

That being said, let's look at some trends.

COVID-19

A pandemic the likes of which we've not seen in the lifetime of anyone living. This pandemic forced hundreds of millions to isolate themselves and minimize their exposure to the world outside their immediate dwelling.

Remote work and working from home (WFH)

I distinguish the two because they are slightly different.

• Remote: You work somewhere other than an office, full time. No geo restrictions.
  • Ex: You can work for a Hong Kong based company while living in Lisbon.

• WFH: You work outside the office but generally reside in the same geographic area as the office. You might mix a few days a week of WFH with a few days of "work from office."

There's some overlap here to be sure. The core distinction is that WFH is generally still geographically tied to the company you work for, while remote isn't.

Urban Dispersion

Decreased Business Travel

Better VR

I'm super biased here, because I really want VR to be a thing. So far it's been very lackluster but if the trend towards more remote interactions increase I predict...