“What goes up will go down” is just such a fundamental and universal concept you can apply to anything: physics, emotions, life, financials. In this post I want to have a bit of a technology view on this and also try to understand if we can ever predict and catch the “up” wave. Do you wish you had invested in NVIDIA in early 2023? I definitely wish so.

First of all let’s have a look at some of the promising technologies from the past that rode on hype and then declined in their popularity:

• Bitcoin
  • UP: Do you remember all the crazy hype surrounding bitcoin and people getting rich out of nowhere? I personally have a very small amount in a Bitcoin ETF (which didn’t grow much), but know a friend who lost keys to a wallet with a dozen bitcoins, and another one who kept telling me that one bitcoin will be worth like 4 apartments in NYC.
  • DOWN: Well, bitcoin as well as the blockchain technology behind it didn’t disappear, but the hype is definitely not there any longer. It is very likely we won’t see a huge rise again (or maybe we will see?). Scalability, regulatory and other reasons made this slow down. Some niche applications of blockchain are thriving though.
• Windows Phone
  • UP: Ok, you might be asking “what is this?” or “why is it here?”. I included it here because I personally worked for about 1 year on a Windows Phone project back in 2011. The promise was that this will rival iPhone and Android devices.
  • DOWN: the market simply did pick this one up, there wasn’t enough of app development and MS eventually pivoted to something else.
• Augmented/Virtual Reality
  • UP: Another major hyped technology. Think about Google Glasses or META’s Oculus or Microsoft’s HoloLens, these technologies promised to revolutionize gaming, work, entertainment, and everyday life.
  • DOWN: I didn’t buy this hype myself because it somehow makes me disgusted imagining myself living and interacting with people in a virtual world instead of the real one. Again, some niche applications still exist.
• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
  • UP: So I’m sure you have read about multiple waves of AI technology, early 50s when it first appeared, 80s when expert systems were promising to change everything and (drumroll…) now when Generative AI is the next big promise.
  • DOWN: I don’t know when the exact time for the downturn will come, but there are obvious problems with it (high compute costs, wrong facts, plagiarism – I make it a point not to copy anything from GenAI into my posts).
• Many other technologies of different scale (3D printing, 3D TV, BlackBerry, delivery drones, Fire Phone, etc, etc)

Potentially we can generalize abovementioned technology trends into three categories of downfall:

• Complete disappearance: VHS, CD, BlackBerry, etc.
• Reduction to niche usages: VR for gaming, 3DPrinting for specific applications, etc.
• Enduring: Personal Computers, Internet

Now, where am I going with all of this? I’m trying to ask myself a question: is it possible to guess for any new technology if it is going to disappear, get reduced to a niche use, or will endure beyond our lifetime? Additionally is it possible to catch the “up” wave and ride it until the peak?

Let’s take the case of NVIDIA. If AI is a gold rush, NVIDIA is selling shovels. I found an article from 2019 arguing that NVIDIA will supras Apple in market cap, the argument states that the AI market will grow to 15T$ and that the computer is switching to GPU which logically makes sense.

Here are some recommendations for my future self to be on the lookout:

• People have entire careers dedicated to spotting these trends so it makes sense to be aware (re-subscribed to weekly TechCrunch newsletter).
• Spot tech industry trends using professional networks.
• Spend dedicated time once monthly thinking about well positioned companies (scheduled time for myself).
• Do my own numbers once anything appears interesting (this is a difficult one, but it would set you ahead of others, think of “The Big Short” movie).
• Risk here and there.

Do you have any thoughts on the topic? What is that big thing you missed, you think you could have caught?