How the American perspective can skew our ability to see opportunities and trends.
Let me get this out of the way upfront, no this isn’t a shot a America, or any other nation or people for that matter.
From an investment perspective, there is often a lot of focus on new trends here, new opportunities for growth here, ways to solve problems we face here. In fairness, it’s largely justified as we have the worlds largest economy, the highest consumer spending, and a framework of capitalism that’s enabled some of the most important innovations known to man.
Therefore, you may think that what happens here is always first, or most significant. I think that’s flawed, but I can see how one may reach this conclusion. At the same time, there are many parts of life that we often take as a given, and therefore misjudge the impact of a new trend or new technology on others.
Ill give you an example, my wife and I once travelled to East Africa to see the mountain gorillas and observe the great migration. It was one of those “trips of a lifetime” that we still think and talk about all the time, the things we learned and the experiences we enjoyed. One day we had an excursion to a local farming village and visited the Maasai, a nomadic group of farmers, hunters and warriors. We spent a couple of hours learning about their way of life, which included visiting their homes and shelters made of locally available and all natural materials like grass, twigs, cow dung, etc. As we approached, I noticed something particularly electronic on the roof. Once close enough I could make out that it was a small solar charger. I thought okay this makes some sense that they’d want to have some ability to generate power, maybe for light or heat. As we went inside their home I noticed various SIM cards scattered about, and the proverbial lightbulb went off. Here we were hundreds of miles from a major city, and with no access to grid electricity, among a group of Maasai who are possibly most well known for hunting lions as a rite of passage, and the technology they care about most is the ability to communicate across distances.
Back to America, this is engrained in who we are, generations of people have been able to communicate with little friction, whether it’s been at the spin of a rotary phone, or these days at the typing of a few characters in a tweet.
So my point is, we don’t always see the enormous growth potential that may come from developing nations acquiring things we’ve come to expect as basic table stakes, simply because we’re accustomed to it already, or don’t realize how new innovation can enable millions very rapidly.
In this way, I think many of today’s pundits are overlooking the potential for both economic and social expansion from both 1) crypto and 2) fintech products.
Globally, there are approximately 5.7 Billion people age 15 and older, and according to the world bank, roughly 1.7 Billion adults are unbanked, meaning without an account at a financial institution or through a mobile provider. That’s almost 30% of all adults on the planet?!?!?!?
As someone with a middle class upbringing in the US, I had my first bank account in elementary school, and like many Americans, maintain a number of banking and credit accounts with various providers as an adult. I don’t really think twice about it, if I need another one, I’ll go open it.
However, for the 30% who are unbanked, the ability to transact in a global market place, without reliance on a robust and traditional banking system, could serve as a major factor in liberating their economic futures and enabling growth in a major major way.
I don’t know if it’s Bitcoin or another crypto asset that will serve this need, and I’m not advocating for one in particular here.
I’m simply making the point that whether it’s communication, or transaction, or something else, established perspectives often struggle to see the merit in innovation because they aren’t recognizing the problems it solves as a problem that needs solving.
Being able to recognize this limitation is incredibly valuable in making big investment decisions, and building successful businesses.
In the words of Bill Belichick, Ignore the Noise.
Streams of Consciousness 