A friend of mine who is a former Goldman exec, recently articulated something I too have been feeling for some time; namely that we are at a particularly exiting period of disruptive innovation … with implications both sectoral, and cross-sectoral.

Accelerating advances in Genomics, Energy (both generation and storage), Blockchain (and decentralized finance - or DEFI), Web3 (and the Metaverse), Robotics/Autonomous driving, 3D printing, AI, etc. are creating an opportunity for seismic shifts in healthcare, supply chains, transportation, finance, entertainment, etc.

As with all periods of disruptive innovation, there will be winners and losers, in both new and legacy industries. And with any early stage of disruptive innovation it won’t exactly be clear who the winners and losers will be.

Ignore this at your peril though … there are fundamental implications for many companies and many industries … and if you are a business eater (in any business) you need to understand them.

Although it has recently become the family of funds that people seem to poking fun at (due to a temporal downfall in value as investors have shifted to “risk off” assets), I have a huge amount of respect for the mission, vision and approach taken by the team at ARK Invest. I will leave it up to you to make your own investing decisions, but one thing I would recommend is that you look at their research, it’s both accessible and informative.

Each year, they publish a Big Ideas presentation. It’s available in PDF from their website, but below is their annual Big Ideas Summit. It’s a thorough look into a range of emerging technologies and their inherent disruptive potential.

Who knows how much of this will come to light, and in what way. And who knows which individual investments will be winners and which will be losers. But, if you are not conversant in some of the these areas, I suggest you become so.