When I was just starting out in the working world, I got a job at the still relatively new pay TV station M-NET. In those days, there were whiteboards detailing how many thousand decoders had been sold, and as big milestones were reached (100,000 decoders; 200,000 decoders …) there were celebratory parties and everyone would get hyped up! As an impressionable twenty something, I remember feeling as though I was part of something, something exciting. I started with MNET as temporary secretary, but that was short lived thankfully, and I was soon offered a job in the computer room doing anything from pulling cables under the raised and air conditioned floors, to testing new software programs – like WordPerfect and daVinci email.
The department that I worked for was broadcasting data on the back of the TV signal. It was complicated and technical and I am not sure that I ever understood it. But there I was learning about dial up modems (remember those) and “packets” of data that were being transferred, and quite often not getting where they had to go – but that was above my pay grade, and I just got on with what I was ordered to do! During this time we were all invited to the Sandton Sun for a breakfast where Koos Bekker was giving an update on the business.
Although it was mid morning, we were in a darkened room, with spotlights, smoke machines and lasers – it was that glitzy!! Koos spoke about the convergence of technology and to my little mind it was like science fiction. I was living at home with my parents, with one land line in the passage, and absolutely no privacy of conversation. And if we were on the phone for more than five minutes my father would stand at the top of the passage tapping his watch. Now, in the smoke and glitz of the Sandton Sun, I was hearing about how one day, everyone would have their own phone number and their own device and would be able to make and receive calls wherever they were. It was mind bending stuff. My boss had a mobile phone. It was a heavy old thing with a shoulder strap, and really it was only ever used in the car in an emergency. But Koos went on the talk about receiving messages on the phone, and considering that not everyone had email yet, that was pretty far out! And then he said … we would even watch TV on these mobile devices. I went home to my parents and told them about these amazing ideas, not realising that I was living within this sci-fi environment in our little computer room!! Broadcasting data didn’t work particularly well, but the department went on to become the beginnings of M-Cell and ultimately MTN. I was living through this innovative time, but didn’t actually realise it!
Time has marched on, and with it continuous innovation. We adopt incremental changes with ease, and when you look back it is hard to imagine that it wasn’t actually that long ago that I was making calls in the passage with my family eavesdropping on my affairs of the heart and everything in between!! It was around 1994 – the same time as South Africa had their first democratic elections – that mobile telephony started to become a viable offering. Thirteen years later, in 2007, Steve Jobs launched the first iPhone! It was amazing – 3.5” flat screen; internet connectivity and a built-in camera! We take all that for granted now. Now we have apps – weather, maps, podcasts, GPS tracking. Gone are the map books, no more waiting for the weather segment that followed the news and hey, if you’d like your favourite author to read you their latest book, just download the audiobook and wala! What a time to be alive!
It’s taken less than twenty years in my lifetime to go from what felt like a sci-fi world to the reality we live in today. You could also make the argument that the rate of change and innovation, especially the speed of innovation is growing exponentially. If we look to industries like healthcare, finance, retail and even farming – where artificial intelligence is being used to analyse vast amounts of data collected from increasingly sophisticated sources, to help farmers get the best yield from their crops in changing conditions – innovation is unlocking more value and more opportunity than any other time in the history of the civilised world.
The Bitcoin whitepaper was first published just over 13 years ago. Now you could say “well I just don’t understand it” and ignore it. I would argue that you don’t have to understand how the internet works to call your family on a Whatsapp group chat? Bitcoin may just be the future of money. The trusted medium of exchange for commerce online. I’m not saying that it is, but it may be. It’s proven its resilience over 13 years and if you start to scratch the surface of what’s possible and look at what smart people are building with the technology, you may be surprised. In the nineties there were people and mainstream media who believed that the internet was just a fad and people would get bored of it.
If you have discovered Podcasts, search for the series called “Great Leap Years” by Stephen Fry. It’s a fascinating look back through history and how key innovations like farming and the printing press have shaped the course of human civilisation. How vacuum tubes started off the age of information; and in the last episode touches on exponential growth of new technologies like the internet of things, quantum computing and brain machine interfacing. It is easy to listen to, and the content is as entertaining as it is engaging.
I think it’s really interesting to take a step back every now and then to appreciate just how far we’ve progressed in a relatively short period of time. If so much can happen in the last thirty years, just imagine what change awaits us in the next five, ten or twenty years.
The break neck speed of innovation.
When I was just starting out in the working world, I got a job at the still relatively new pay TV station M-NET. In those days, there were whiteboards detailing how many thousand decoders had been sold, and as big milestones were reached (100,000 decoders; 200,000 decoders …) there were celebratory parties and everyone would get hyped up! As an impressionable twenty something, I remember feeling as though I was part of something, something exciting. I started with MNET as temporary secretary, but that was short lived thankfully, and I was soon offered a job in the computer room doing anything from pulling cables under the raised and air conditioned floors, to testing new software programs – like WordPerfect and daVinci email.
The department that I worked for was broadcasting data on the back of the TV signal. It was complicated and technical and I am not sure that I ever understood it. But there I was learning about dial up modems (remember those) and “packets” of data that were being transferred, and quite often not getting where they had to go – but that was above my pay grade, and I just got on with what I was ordered to do! During this time we were all invited to the Sandton Sun for a breakfast where Koos Bekker was giving an update on the business.
Although it was mid morning, we were in a darkened room, with spotlights, smoke machines and lasers – it was that glitzy!! Koos spoke about the convergence of technology and to my little mind it was like science fiction. I was living at home with my parents, with one land line in the passage, and absolutely no privacy of conversation. And if we were on the phone for more than five minutes my father would stand at the top of the passage tapping his watch. Now, in the smoke and glitz of the Sandton Sun, I was hearing about how one day, everyone would have their own phone number and their own device and would be able to make and receive calls wherever they were. It was mind bending stuff. My boss had a mobile phone. It was a heavy old thing with a shoulder strap, and really it was only ever used in the car in an emergency. But Koos went on the talk about receiving messages on the phone, and considering that not everyone had email yet, that was pretty far out! And then he said … we would even watch TV on these mobile devices. I went home to my parents and told them about these amazing ideas, not realising that I was living within this sci-fi environment in our little computer room!! Broadcasting data didn’t work particularly well, but the department went on to become the beginnings of M-Cell and ultimately MTN. I was living through this innovative time, but didn’t actually realise it!
Time has marched on, and with it continuous innovation. We adopt incremental changes with ease, and when you look back it is hard to imagine that it wasn’t actually that long ago that I was making calls in the passage with my family eavesdropping on my affairs of the heart and everything in between!! It was around 1994 – the same time as South Africa had their first democratic elections – that mobile telephony started to become a viable offering. Thirteen years later, in 2007, Steve Jobs launched the first iPhone! It was amazing – 3.5” flat screen; internet connectivity and a built-in camera! We take all that for granted now. Now we have apps – weather, maps, podcasts, GPS tracking. Gone are the map books, no more waiting for the weather segment that followed the news and hey, if you’d like your favourite author to read you their latest book, just download the audiobook and wala! What a time to be alive!
It’s taken less than twenty years in my lifetime to go from what felt like a sci-fi world to the reality we live in today. You could also make the argument that the rate of change and innovation, especially the speed of innovation is growing exponentially. If we look to industries like healthcare, finance, retail and even farming – where artificial intelligence is being used to analyse vast amounts of data collected from increasingly sophisticated sources, to help farmers get the best yield from their crops in changing conditions – innovation is unlocking more value and more opportunity than any other time in the history of the civilised world.
The Bitcoin whitepaper was first published just over 13 years ago. Now you could say “well I just don’t understand it” and ignore it. I would argue that you don’t have to understand how the internet works to call your family on a Whatsapp group chat? Bitcoin may just be the future of money. The trusted medium of exchange for commerce online. I’m not saying that it is, but it may be. It’s proven its resilience over 13 years and if you start to scratch the surface of what’s possible and look at what smart people are building with the technology, you may be surprised. In the nineties there were people and mainstream media who believed that the internet was just a fad and people would get bored of it.
If you have discovered Podcasts, search for the series called “Great Leap Years” by Stephen Fry. It’s a fascinating look back through history and how key innovations like farming and the printing press have shaped the course of human civilisation. How vacuum tubes started off the age of information; and in the last episode touches on exponential growth of new technologies like the internet of things, quantum computing and brain machine interfacing. It is easy to listen to, and the content is as entertaining as it is engaging.
I think it’s really interesting to take a step back every now and then to appreciate just how far we’ve progressed in a relatively short period of time. If so much can happen in the last thirty years, just imagine what change awaits us in the next five, ten or twenty years.
Asset Class Returns
The table below represents a rolling year view of the major asset class returns that we track. It offers a view of the asset classes we use to diversify your portfolio.