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In the late 90s, the internet minted
millionaires at a speed no one had ever
seen before. By 1999, 7,000 new
millionaires were being created every
week. Between 95 and 2000, the stock
market was absolutely on fire. The
NASDAQ alone soared by over 400%.
Venture capital hit record highs, more
than a hundred billion dollars invested
in a single year. Early Amazon investors
saw 257,000%
returns. And Jeff Bezos personally
turned $10,000 into a fortune now worth
over $170
billion. And all of it happened in just
5 years. Now, most people missed it.
They sat on the sidelines. They told
themselves they jump in when it was
safer. But by the time it felt safe, the
gains were already gone. The blunt
reality is that if you're not in the
market during a boom, you stand to lose
a decade's worth of compounding and
you'll never get that back. You've got
to be in the market when the magic
happens. Now, the good news, today it's
happening again, but faster. The
internet revolution took 7 years to
reach 100 million users. The new
revolution we're going to cover today
did it in just two months. And if
history repeats, millions are going to
get rich while the vast majority get
left behind. So the only question is
which side of history are you going to
be on this time? In times of
technological innovation, America has a
rich history of making a lot of people
rich. But major innovations are rare.
When they happen, they change
everything. But most people sleepwalk
through it and miss the boat. Consider
this. Despite the fact that anyone can
invest in the stock market, a mere 10%
of the US population owns nearly 95% of
all the assets. That is insane. But for
it to change, people have to learn about
the most profound vehicle for wealth
creation available to the average
person, the stock market. And it's never
been more important than right now
because we are living through what is
almost certainly the single most
important technological revolution we
will see in our lifetimes. This is one
of the moments where a lot of people are
going to make an absolute fortune and a
lot of people are going to get left
behind. Artificial intelligence. It's
the most rapidly adopted technology in
human history and it has the potential
to be as foundational as electricity. It
will infuse everything we do as humans.
It is critical to understand that our
extremely broken financial system makes
it impossible to get ahead unless you
own assets. This is precisely why the
rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
If you do not own assets, you will grow
poorer over time. It is a matter of the
physics of money. Without an entirely
new monetary system, this is a
guarantee. You cannot afford to sit on
the sidelines right now. That's why
today in five easy parts, I'm going to
walk you through exactly how to
capitalize on this moment and you do not
want to skip part five because that is
exactly where you're going to learn how
to win. So, welcome to part one. Why
this moment is too big to ignore. As of
2023, AI related companies already
accounted for over onethird of all gains
in the S&P 500. And that number is
growing. Global AI investments are
projected to grow from 67 billion in
2023 to over 1.8 trillion
annually by 2030. And worldwide, there
are already over 1 billion people using
AI. And given its utility, you can
expect AI to be integrated into
virtually every area of our lives. From
refrigerators that track your produce in
order for you to medicine bottles that
know if you've taken the medicine or
not. And we are at the very very very
beginning of that transformation. That's
why this moment is too big to ignore. AI
is going to become a trillionoll sector
just to start. It will be a foundational
layer of our entire economy. the way
that electricity, the internet, and
smartphones have done before. Only this
time, it really is going to be bigger.
The last time we've seen something this
transformational, it killed all of the
dinosaurs. And it is moments like these
that rewrite everything because they are
such a massive leap forward in
capabilities.
Few people understand just how important
innovation is to the economy or how
massively innovation is rewarded. But
every time we get a massive
technological breakthrough that's this
innovative like what we're experiencing
with AI, all kinds of new possibilities
open up before us. And anyone who
understands assets and investing is
going to have an opportunity to win big.
And people that don't get it are going
to miss out. Historically, an investor
would only see one or two opportunities
of this magnitude over the course of a
very long career. So, when they happen,
you'd better position yourself to
capitalize on the moment. Historically,
if you invested in the S&P 500 and
reinvested your dividends, it would take
about 7 to 10 years to double your
money. That's the compounding effect of
steady, predictable growth. But during
the internet boom, entire portfolios
were doubling every 12 to 18 months.
sometimes faster for those holding the
right tech stocks. In fact, between 1985
and 1999, the NASDAQ nearly quadrupled
in value, meaning it doubled not once,
but twice in less than 5 years. If
you're not familiar with investing, it
can be hard to wrap your head around the
magnitude of those kind of gains. But if
you've ever wondered why the rich get
richer and the poor get poor, this is
why. But unless you're going to abolish
the Fed and stop stealing people's money
through inflation, which is probably
never going to happen, and it's
certainly not going to happen before
millions and millions of people make
their money off of AI, you're stuck with
dealing with the situation that we have
right now. Now, if that doesn't already
have you sitting up straight, I want you
to hear this. Some AI link stocks have
already doubled in value in less than
six months. six months, Nvidia's market
cap alone jumped from 360 billion in
January of 2023 to over $1 trillion by
August of 23. A leap so fast it
shattered records for companies of that
size. Now, I know there is a lot of doom
and gloom in the world right now, but
there is also truly unprecedented
opportunity. So, if you've ever told
yourself, the next time something truly
spectacular happens, I'm going to move
fast, congratulations. This is that
moment. Now, I've learned one immutable
truth. Not everyone is going to care
about the potential opportunity here.
There are two types of people in the
world. Those that move towards things
and those that move away. So, if you're
a move away from pain type of person,
consider this. The American dream is
dead. Debt, deficit spending, money
printing, endless wars, and bank
bailouts have guaranteed. The American
dream is dead. Housing is out of reach
for most. And that's the only asset that
the average person understands
intuitively. And in a world where the
government is deficit spending, it's
roughly $37 trillion in debt and
printing money like mad, you must own
assets if you're going to avoid the
devastating financial consequences of
inflation. Now, I know government
propaganda has convinced you that
inflation is no big deal, but it is the
reason that houses are unaffordable and
the American dream is dead. Inflation is
man-made and it is the single most
destructive economic force that there
is. And there has been 25% inflation in
the last five years alone. So if $100
bought you $100 worth of stuff in 2020,
that same $100 now buys you $75 worth of
stuff. The government took the rest via
inflation. That's how the system is
rigged against you. There's no getting
around it. If the government wants to
tax you more than you're willing to vote
for, they simply use inflation. And the
worst part, our financial system is
broken by design. It's designed to allow
banks to gamble like mad with our money
and then get bailed out with our tax
dollars when something goes wrong. This
is one of the many ways that inflation
is created. They try to keep it at 2%,
but that's impossible when they're
adding $1 trillion to the national debt
every 100 days. That's real. Want to
know how they fund endless wars or
foreign aid? COVID relief inflation.
Hence the 25% in the last 5 years. The
dollars you hold and are paid in are
worth less and less every single day.
Over 40% of all US dollars that have
ever been created were created out of
thin air between 2020 and 2023. What was
the knock-on effect? Housing prices
jumped 45% in just 3 years. Housing
affordability in the US is at its worst
level in nearly 40 years. The cost of
food has spiked over 20%. And meanwhile,
the average savings account paid less
than 1% interest. You're getting eaten
alive by inflation. And guess what the
solution is? Own assets. Assets are the
only thing that goes up in value as debt
goes up and money is printed. And right
at the time when you need an amazing
asset class that you can afford and that
stands a chance of doing well, what
comes along? The AI revolution. Thanks
to the stock market and fractional
shares, you can literally get into
assets, AI, or anything else you think
is going to go up in value for very
little money. Now, you should be mad as
hell that you're being forced to gamble
in the stock market, and it is gambling.
But at least you have a way to escape
the devastating effects of inflation. If
you've ever looked back at the internet
boom and thought, "Man, if only I had
bought Amazon or Microsoft or Google
early, this is that moment for AI,
except the growth could be even bigger.
It could also, of course, be a bust. But
that seems like the least likely
outcome. Just keep in mind, just because
it's accessible doesn't mean it's safe.
This is where the system works against
you in a different way. And if you don't
understand it, you're going to make the
same mistakes most people made during
the last gold rush, the internet boom.
Most people got greedy, thought they
were smarter than they were, and went
bust. That's why before we talk about
how to capture this opportunity, we have
to talk about what happens when you miss
it, and just how wrong things can go if
you're not very, very careful. So,
welcome to part two, the risk of missing
out on this opportunity. History is
littered with people who had the chance
of a lifetime and let it slip through
their fingers. Buckle up because you are
going to hate these stories. In 1976, a
guy named Ronald Wayne joined Steve Jobs
and Steve Waznjak as one of the three
co-founders of Apple. Just 12 days in,
worried the company would fail, he sold
his 10% stake back to the boys for $800.
Today, that stake would be worth over
$200
billion,
a sum that would make him one of the
richest people in the world. In 1962,
Deca Records passed on signing a scrappy
little band from Liverpool because it
was obvious that, and I quote, guitar
music was on the way out. That band was
none other than the Beatles, one of the
highest selling bands of all time. They
went on to sell over 600 million
records. In 1998, Yahoo had the chance
to buy Google for $1 million, but they
passed because they didn't think the
company was worth it. They were wrong.
Google's market cap today is over two
trillion.
In 2005, Blockbuster was offered the
chance to buy Netflix for 50 million.
They actually laughed at the price.
Whoops. Netflix is now worth over $250
billion dollar while Blockbuster has but
one remaining store left in Bend, Oregon
that sells merch. There are so many more
of these stories I could literally go on
for days, but the point is simple. It's
not enough to live during a revolution.
You have to recognize it and take action
before it becomes obvious to everyone.
And with AI, that window is getting more
narrow by the day. It is already
terraforming the technological and
professional landscape. By 2030, AI is
projected to eliminate or transform up
to 800 million jobs worldwide. That's
nearly one in five workers on planet
Earth. In 2023 alone, the number of
corporate earnings calls mentioning AI
surged over 360% compared to the prior
year. AI related IPOs in 2023 raised
over 11 billion, the highest total for
any sector that year. And the average AI
related ETF gained over 50% in 2023,
more than quadruple the S&P 500's
10-year average annual return. Over the
last couple of years, if you weren't
invested in AI, odds are you missed the
boat. Goldman Sachs estimates AI could
drive $7 trillion in global GDP growth
over the next decade. And yet, most
households own zero AI linked assets.
That is insanity. As inflation robs
their purchasing power, they are sitting
on the sidelines. Here is the harsh
truth no one wants to face.
Opportunities like this have an
expiration date. Once adoption hits a
certain point, the upside collapses and
whoever owns the right basket of stocks
wins and everybody else loses. History
shows this time and time again. When the
personal computer revolution took off in
the 1980s, early investors in Microsoft
saw 50,000%
returns over two decades. But if you
bought after 2000, you were looking at
singledigit annual growth. The rocket
fuel was spent. During the internet
boom, Amazon went from 7 adjusted IPO
price to over $3 within 2 years, a
4,000% gain and much, much more if you
held longer. But by the time the average
investor felt safe to buy in, those
gains were history. Late comers both
miss the upside and take the
inflationary hit of holding their money
in cash or best case underperforming
assets. Now layer AI on top of that same
pattern and you get moving at warp
speed. AI's adoption curve is so steep
that the window for massive early stage
gains is being measured in months, not
decades. Companies are hitting
valuations in 1 year that took internet
giants a decade to reach. The AI chip
market is projected to more than 5x from
2022 to 2032. More than half of Fortune
500 companies are already integrating
generative AI into their core
operations. In 2024, Google, Meta,
Amazon, and Microsoft collectively
invested over $400 billion in AI
infrastructure, surpassing the US
government's spending on social
services. And for 2025,
big tech is planning to spend over 300
billion more on AI infrastructure.
Things are moving so fast. You need to
do your research now. If you don't
formulate an action plan quickly, which
is what I'm going to help you with
today, the exponential growth phase is
going to be over. And like so many
before you, you're going to be buying at
the top, fighting for small gains while
early adopters reap the benefits of
moving fast. And while I'll talk about
this more later, the goal is not to try
and be the smartest or most informed
investor on the planet. Most people
simply do not have time for that. Find a
broad way into the sector and avoid
getting seduced by headlines. Time in
the market is better than trying to time
the market. This is the world we live
in. If we kill the Fed, we harden money,
balance the budget, and only use debt to
spur outside's growth, then you can go
back to just saving your money. But
until then, you need to remember that
the middle class is being torn in half.
Half are being yanked down into the poor
and working class and half are being
propelled up into the upper class. The
thing that determines which way you go,
assets. While you think about that,
remember what I said earlier. The
internet boom created a million
millionaires in 5 years. AI is moving 10
times faster. If you do the research and
decide it's not for you, fair enough.
But don't fail to at least evaluate the
opportunity and burn this idea into your
soul. In an inflationary environment
like the one we're all living in, owning
assets is not an option. Find what's
right for you and make your move. But
doing nothing is the same as
guaranteeing that you are going to get
eaten alive by inflation. It really is
that big of a problem. No matter what
anyone has told you. And on top of that,
no matter how well any of us think we
understand what's coming, the only thing
I can guarantee you is that we are going
to be surprised. So, welcome to part
three. AI is guaranteed to surprise us
all. In the past year alone, AI has
resurrected the direwolf, which hadn't
walked the earth for more than 10,000
years. Mapped 2.2 million new
crystalline materials for use in nextgen
semiconductors and batteries. discovered
a powerful new antibiotic effective
against a known superbug. Designed
enzymes that break down plastic in days
instead of centuries. Synthesized 41
entirely new chemical compounds using
robotics and machine learning. Mind
extinct animal DNA to find new peptides
capable of killing drugresistant
bacteria. Detected cancers years earlier
than any of the best doctors. And yet,
despite breakthroughs like these, some
of the brightest minds remain publicly
unconvinced, arguing that AI is
overhyped, constrained, or won't live up
to the promise. History is full of
experts just like this who thought they
knew the future and were spectacularly
wrong. In the 1970s, tech founder Ken
Olsen famously said, "There's no reason
anyone would want a computer in their
home." In 1903, a famous banker said,
"The horse is here to stay, but the
automobile is a novelty, a fad."
Legendary film producer Daryl Xanic
said, "Tlevision won't last because
people will soon get tired of staring at
a plywood box every night." Steve
Balmer, the former CEO of Microsoft,
said, "There's no chance that the iPhone
is going to get any significant market
share." Whoopsies. They were all wrong.
Or, and this one's my favorite, the 1995
quote from the brilliant, literally
brilliant technologist Robert Metave.
The internet will soon go spectacularly
supernova and in 1996 catastrophically
collapsed. He was so wrong that he later
literally printed out a version of that
column and ate it to acknowledge just
how wrong he'd been. My point is, we'll
get back to the show in just a second,
but first I want to talk to you about
something that is very exciting. Picture
this. You're sitting across from a
potential investor. Bitcoin is about to
hit 120K. Your portfolio notification is
buzzing in your pocket, but you can't
check it. The Even G1 puts live market
data directly in your vision. Portfolio
alerts, breaking news, all invisible to
everyone else in the room but you. You
maintain eye contact. You stay engaged,
but you know exactly what's happening in
the markets every single second. In
fact, I'm wearing them right now. You
can even use a teleprompter feature with
these bad boys. They feel like real
glasses. This is advanced display
technology created for everyday wear.
The build quality is what you'd expect
from premium eyewear. Magnesium alloy,
lighter than most regular glasses, plus
the battery lasts up to 36 hours, and
the charging case extends that to five
full days of use. This is the kind of
technology I have been waiting for my
entire life. If you're ready to stop
living in the past, step into the future
with even G1 smart glasses. Stay
engaged. Stay connected. And now, let's
get back to the show. You're going to
hear a lot of people tell you that AI is
overhyped, that it's going to hit a
wall, that it's not going to be as
disruptive as people are saying. And
that runs the risk of lulling you into a
sense that there's going to be plenty of
time to react, or that there's not going
to be anything to react to. And that's
exactly how you end up missing this
opportunity. Now, no one can see the
future clearly, certainly not myself.
But the reality is that AI is already
changing every aspect of our lives, and
the depth and rate of change is
accelerating. The only promise I can
make is that AI is going to surprise us.
It's going to do things that we can't
even yet imagine. So, if the stuff it's
already doing is phenomenal, imagine
what the future holds. As both a video
game developer and investor, I am trying
to see around the corner to figure out
what's actually coming. And I know my
predictions are not going to be
literally right, but as long as you're
tethered to the laws of physics, you
really can start to get a pretty good
idea of what's possible, at least by way
of general direction. So, here's a
snapshot of what I think is coming.
Talking teddy bears that help teach kids
and alert parents of danger. Okay, that
one's already real. Self-driving
personal helicopter. Oh, wait, that's
also already real. How about drone
delivered food, drone warfare, movies
that are prompted and not shot, robot
personal assistance, and so much more.
Actually, sorry, those are all already
real. Now, none of them are perfect. AI
movies are pretty awkward, and so much
of it isn't commercially available yet,
but they are coming. And I assure you,
there will be a slew of things that we
can't even dream up yet. Future is never
quite what we expect. If it was
predictable, everyone would get rich,
but that's not how the game works. But
that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to
build a mental map because you
absolutely should. And a big part of
that mental map should be that AI is
guaranteed to take us by surprise.
Famous Go player KG once said that
playing against AI was like playing
against an alien intelligence. That's
the right framing for AI. It's like an
alien intelligence. The only question is
how smart is this alien going to get?
And because it's impossible to know the
answer to that, as you approach
investing in AI, do so with a massive
amount of humility. No one has a crystal
ball. There are no guarantees. You're
trying to predict an alien intelligence.
And it is possible that the naysayers
end up being right. But nonetheless,
building a rough mental map of where you
think things are going to go will be
very useful for thinking how to best
position yourself in AI as a sector.
Here's a quick rundown of the different
avenues of opportunity for AI
investments that are already available.
Think of this as your quick start guide
to the different AI sectors that you
could invest in. One, compute and
infrastructure. This is chips, data
centers, power. Why does it matter? AI
models run on GPUs, memory, cooling, and
megawatts. This is the steel and track
of the AI railroad. Things to consider
in this part are our chip makers selling
out? Are new data centers and power
projects breaking ground? Is cooling
tech actually advancing or are we
stalling out? Two, foundational models
and supply chains. Why does this matter?
Llms, vision, and multimodal models
power basically everything right now.
Winners dominate via cost and
ecosystems. The things you want to
consider when looking at this part, are
they getting faster, cheaper, safer? Who
controls distribution and integration?
And how's that going to play out in the
winners and losers? Three, integrated
AI. Why does this matter? Because AI is
going to drive revenue and workflows
like healthcare diagnostics, legal
contracts, or manufacturing quality.
People are going to be putting AI
basically everywhere they can.
Ultimately, AI is going to drive
outcomes. Things to consider when you're
looking at this. Can you point to clear
ROI, dollars saved, errors reduced, more
sales, or is this one just hype? Every
company is going to be claiming that
they're using AI in some novel way, but
very few of them actually are. Four,
agents and workflow orchestration. Why
does this matter? Because right now, we
engage with AI as something that we have
a backforth dialogue with, but in the
future, we're going to ask AI to do
something and it's just going to go off
and do it. It is going to be an
absolutely transformational moment.
Things to consider. Do agents actually
complete work without human help or is
this something that right now is more
hype than reality? Right now, this one I
would say really is more hyped than
real, but in the future, I imagine as we
begin laying all the infrastructure for
digital interactions that AI is going to
be able to do things that right now just
isn't possible of doing. And that is
going to pick some massive winners and
losers in the space. Five, safety,
security, and governance. Why this
matters? Because enterprises need
audits, red teaming, and compliance to
deploy AI safely, as well as going up
against black hat hackers that are going
to be using AI. Right now is a bit of a
free pass, but in the future, AI is
going to be weaponized aggressively. And
it isn't just going to be calling up
your grandmother and using an AI that
sounds like you. It is going to be
things behind the scenes are using AI
agents to try to hack systems. It is
going to get very sophisticated very
fast and there are going to be very
large companies that get very good at
doing this thing. Things to consider as
you look at this are new laws creating
must-have tools that people are forced
to implement and is there growing demand
for safety checks using AI and what
companies are positioning themselves
well to be at the forefront of that six
data labeling data creating synthetic
data and then leveraging that to train.
Why does this matter? Because models
thrive on data. The better the data, the
more copious the data, the better the AI
gets at navigating the real world. As we
integrate AI into more things, it's
going to need an inhuman amount of data.
And the companies that identify how to
train AI with synthetic data are going
to be the ones that push forward. Now,
things to consider, who owns the most
valuable data sets? This is exactly the
battle that Elon Musk is trying to win
by buying up Twitter and having all of
that data by generating so much data
from Tesla cars as he's hoping to build
an insanely valuable data set and deploy
that against robotics in the future.
Seven, embodied AI and robotics. Now,
why does this matter? Because this is
going to change everything. As AI allows
us to drive energy costs down, labor
becomes the next biggest cost that it
can disrupt. When you have warehouses,
farms, elder care, all of it being
staffed by robots, it is going to be an
incredibly different world. And there
are many people right now looking at
robotics saying that that is going to be
the biggest product line that has ever
been built. Some people are estimating
that there will be more robots by orders
of magnitude than there are humans.
Things to consider. Are pilot robotics
being turned into actual scalable
deployments? And at what rate can they
be manufactured? Who's doing it well?
What robots put humans in danger? Which
ones can be integrated safely? And what
legislation is going to be passed to
slow replacing humans with robots? That
is almost certainly coming. Eight. Media
design and synthetic content. Why it
matters? Because the way that we engage
with entertainment is going to change
radically. AI/cost for ads, videos,
storytelling, 3D assets. It's going to
change video games, commercials, film,
TV. Things to consider. What are the
legal protections in place? The future
of AI generated content has not been
fully litigated yet. There is still a
lot of uncertainty. Also, the odds that
people start out with like a skumorphic
version of what entertainment is going
to become, mimicking what we have now,
but just made with AI, is probably
eventually going to give way to a
totally new form of entertainment that
right now we can't even imagine. So, be
careful not to overesteem your ability
to predict the future. Nine, edge, AI,
autos, internet of things, on device.
Now, why does this matter? Because AI is
going to be integrated into everything.
the one that makes everybody a little
squeamish, but I think this is
absolutely brilliant. Imagine a toilet
that can read what's going on inside
your body based on the samples that you
give it. It will be able to detect
disease early. It will be able to give
you feedback about whether there's sugar
in your urine, uh whether you're in
ketosis. There are going to be all kinds
of things that you will be able to
detect from the things that you leave in
the toilet. It is going to change things
in a way that we can't even begin to
understand. Everything you interact with
is going to be intelligent. Things to
consider are privacy. What industry are
people really going to care about making
something intelligent? And where is it
that people will actually be willing to
pay for that level of intelligence?
There are certainly going to be winners
and losers, things that are hype and
things that are actually advantageous.
10. Defense and national security. Why
this one matters? AI is going to be
weaponized. The great battle that's
happening right now behind the scenes is
the AI war between the US and China.
Whether it is cyber warfare, cyber
defense, AI, drones, threat analytics,
all of this stuff is going to matter and
the stakes are going to be incredibly
high. So, the companies that are most
effective at winning government
contracts for protecting their nation
are going to see the kind of returns
that we have typically seen in the
military-industrial complex. 11.
Sustainability and climate AI. Needless
to say, this is one of the most hot
button issues of our time. And people
are going to be using AI to figure out
exactly what's happening to build enough
data that we can build predictive
models. Climate systems aren't
unknowable. They're just incredibly
complicated. Exactly the kind of thing
that AI could be used to improve. Now,
things to consider. How complicated is
this? How long into the future are we
going to be before we start seeing
results? What are the companies that are
going to be able to bridge the gap
between this is a great idea all the way
to actual profitable monetization? And
that is a huge chasm that a lot of
companies are going to fail to cross.
Now, while I have done my best to be
exhaustive here, assume I have missed
something and conduct your own research
and know that for sure this is going to
change over time and we're all going to
need to stay engaged with the space to
avoid missing something important. Also,
don't try to master every aspect of the
AI industry. My real advice is to remain
diversified across the entire field of
AI as the future is guaranteed to be
shocking. But if you really want to
start going deep and gaining a level of
mastery in the space, follow the
following playbook in the early days.
Pick two or three segments that interest
you the most. For each, zero in on two
or three companies doing the most
interesting work and that have strong
fundamentals that indicate they're going
to be able to cross that chasm into
profitability. If they're already
turning a profit, that is a very strong
signal. Start identifying core metrics
that drive their business. Ironically,
you can work with AI to do that. We're
talking about public companies here, so
they're going to be required to report a
ton of data. Start using AI to dig
through all of that data to find out
what matters and why. Build a map of the
risk factors that could slow or kill
growth in the particular segment of AI
you've decided to focus on. and only
start picking individual stocks when you
feel you have an unfairformational
advantage over the vast majority of
other investors. And remember that
you're going up against professionals
who often use AI to trade and care about
how many milliseconds it takes to
transact. So don't get cocky. And
speaking of not getting cocky, welcome
to part four, lessons from the.com boom
and bust. Between March 2000 and October
2002, the NASDAQ lost 78% of its value,
wiping out more than five trillion
dollars in market capitalization.
Pets.com raised $82 million in its IPO
in February of 2000 and was bankrupt
just 268 days later. Web van burned
through $1.2 billion in funding before
collapsing in under just three years.
Amazon. Yes, Amazon lost over 90% of its
value between 99 and 2001, trading at
just $6 a share. Now, it would go on to
become one of the most valuable
companies in the world, but not before
it would wash out all of the people who
panicked or bought in on leverage. There
are ways to do a boom right, and there
are ways to do it very, very wrong.
Don't believe me? Of the thousands of
internet companies founded in the 90s,
less than 50 still exist today. Everyone
thinks they're smart, but most active
traders get wiped out. The.com boom may
have minted millionaires overnight, but
it also erased fortunes just as fast. AI
is the new gold rush. But if you think
every player in this game is going to
win, you're ignoring history. It's
tempting to look back now and think
Amazon was obviously going to make it,
but there are no guarantees. In 2001,
analysts were predicting Amazon's
bankruptcy, and it certainly could have
happened. You don't have to be stupid,
to get something spectacularly wrong.
That's why it's humility, especially in
the face of so much uncertainty, that
civilization has tried to teach every
generation of kids from time immemorial.
It's only in hindsight, that Google,
Amazon, Apple, Netflix, and Meta are
obvious. Google was a small search
engine in a crowded field. Apple almost
went out of business. Microsoft didn't
even really believe in the internet at
first. And for years, Meta wasn't even
sure what its business model was going
to be. The survivors had two things in
common. They solved real problems and
burn that into your soul. When I'm
teaching entrepreneurs, the one point I
beat home endlessly is that companies
that grow are the ones that solve a
burning problem in a really compelling
way. The best companies are going to be
the ones that solved problems painful
enough that customers will eagerly pay
for the solution. The companies that
survived were also the ones that created
a self-sustaining economic engine. They
just made more than they spent, and they
managed capital ruthlessly, cutting burn
rates, focusing on core offerings, and
grinding through what is often years of
uncertainty. That same pattern is almost
certainly going to play out again. Right
now, we're in the AI equivalent of 1999.
The market is super frothy. Valuations
are almost certainly inflated and money
is pouring into every conceivable idea,
even the bad ones. Some of the ideas are
going to be foundational to our future.
Others are going to simply vanish and
take investors money with them. The key
is to remember that the winners aren't
obvious. If they were, there'd be no
money to be made. Take Tesla. Some look
at it as an overvalued car company.
Others look at it as a data company
that's going to make its real money off
of robotics. only one of them is right.
The other will miss the opportunity or
just outright lose money. Everyone
thinks they're right, but they're not.
And that's the most important lesson
from the do-com bubble. Be wary of
trying to pick individual winners. If
you invest in this space, and I'm
talking about with your money, your
time, or even your career, you have to
be prepared for volatility and massive
uncertainty. While it is absolutely true
that the biggest fortunes are made by
making a single concentrated bet that
everyone thinks is crazy and then being
right. The flip side is also true.
Namely, the biggest fortunes are lost by
making one concentrated bet that
everyone else thinks is crazy and then
being wrong. Remember, in every gold
rush, more money is made selling picks
and shovels than chasing gold directly
because you reduce your risk. The goal
is to bet in a way where you win no
matter who wins. After the dot crash,
analysts discovered that diversified
portfolios recovered significantly
faster than the people who had placed
concentrated bets. A balance fund
returned to its pre-crash high in under
three years, while tech heavy indices
took over a decade. A sobering study of
30 companies from 95 to01 shows
financial fundamentals mattered the
most. Total sales, net income, and
manageable debt were positively linked
to stability, while sheer asset size was
not. So, be very wary of hype with no
sales. And remember that growth demands
financial discipline, not excitement. In
short, remember these lessons from the
dotcom mania. Number one, play the long
game. This isn't about fast money. A
balanced portfolio will recover even if
the road is rocky. Two, don't trade on
leverage. Excitement will make it seem
like you can't lose, but you most
certainly can. Three, distinguish hype
from a business that solves a real
pressing problem. Growth without a path
to profit is a path to nowhere. Four,
diversify. You'll make less money for
sure, but you'll also take on way less
risk. All right, with these lessons in
mind, welcome to part five. How to move
forward and take advantage of this
incredibly unique opportunity. If you
had put just $1,000 into Amazon's IPO in
1997 and never sold, today you'd be
sitting on over $2 million. That's the
power of getting in early, picking
right, and holding on while everyone
else bails. If that doesn't have you
locked in, how about the fact that
missing just the 10 best trading days in
the S&P 500 over the last 20 years would
cut your total return by more than 50%.
10 days accounts for half of the gains
over 20 years or one more. In the first
six months of 2023, just seven AI link
stocks were responsible for 100%
of the S&P 500's total gains. Without
AI, the stock market wouldn't have even
been flat. It would have been negative.
AI is the game. You ignore it at your
peril because you live in a world with
inflation. Your purchasing power is
being stolen from you, and you
absolutely must find a way to fight
back. That's what this is all about. But
what now, right? What should you
actually do? We've covered the scale of
the AI opportunity. We've looked at the
risks of missing it. We've mapped the
sectors most likely to win and examine
the brutal lessons of the dotcom boom.
Now, I want to walk you through how to
take intelligent action. The first thing
to understand is this. There's no single
correct way to win. In every
technological revolution, fortunes have
been made by people who built companies,
by people who worked for equity at the
right companies, and by people who
invested early in the companies that
went on to dominate. Investing isn't the
only path forward. If you're a builder,
focus on solving a massive burning
problem that people are willing to pay
to have solved. If you've got an AI
skill set, you're in business, people
are throwing around billion dollar
salaries. This is wild. I don't know if
we've ever seen anything like this, but
if you're neither an entrepreneur nor
one of the most skilled AI engineers on
Earth, you still can afford to sit on
the sidelines. Your focus is going to
have to be investing. And if you're
investing, here's the playbook. It's
very simple. One, start now. Even small
amounts count. Waiting for the perfect
entry point is how you miss decades of
compounding. Even $50 to $100 a month
into the right assets adds up over time.
Fractional shares mean you don't need
thousands to start. You can buy a piece
of Nvidia or Microsoft today. Two, build
a diversified AI portfolio. Think in
buckets, not single stocks,
infrastructure, chips, cloud, data
centers, companies grouped up like
Nvidia, AMD, TSMC, etc. You can find
them in clusters. Core AI models. the
companies building foundational AI
models like XAI, OpenAI, Google Deep
Mind and Anthropic and all of the other
players that may come into the space.
Integrated application layer, eg
companies that are integrating AI into
highv value industries like healthcare,
manufacturing and finance. Again, not
one, the whole space. Picks and shovels,
cyber security as a whole, governance
and developer tools that every AI
company are going to need. You could
also easily be broad and spread your
money across multiple buckets. That way,
even if an entire bucket flops, the
other buckets will still carry you
forward. Three, avoid leverage so you
can play the long game. Margin and
options make people feel like a genius
on the way up because you're using
somebody else's money, but it will wipe
you out if there's even a temporary dip.
You have to be so careful with leverage.
Just like you would never take out a
loan to gamble at a casino, don't ever
take out a loan to gamble in the stock
market. Now, that is not going to be
common advice. A lot of people are going
to tell you to do it on margin, but baby
oh baby, I'm telling you that is how you
get yourself in trouble. Four, use
dollar cost averaging. Invest a fixed
amount on a regular schedule, weekly,
bi-weekly, monthly, whatever, regardless
of the price. This removes the need to
time the market and keeps you buying
even during dips, which is when the best
long-term gains are made. Five, reinvest
your gains. Dividends and profits should
be reinvested into your positions or
into other AI opportunities. By all
means, balance it out. So, if you've got
one that's just absolutely crushing it,
you want to spread those wins to other
areas just in case, do it. But by doing
that, you accelerate the compounding,
the single biggest driver of long-term
wealth. Six, keep a cash buffer. Never
invest money you can't afford to leave
alone for 5 to 10 years. Having 3 to 6
months worth of expenses in cash keeps
you from panic selling when the market
inevitably dips. Seven, commit to
staying in. Booms come with volatility.
AI stocks are bound to have massive draw
downs as we move into the future. The
companies that ultimately win will
recover and surpass their previous
highs. But that only helps you if you
didn't panic sell. Eight, remember the
number one rule of investing. Buy low,
sell high. Now, this has become a joke,
but the truth is most people buy high
and sell low. They get in on hype and
then they sell on fear. Dollar cost
average in hold for the next decade
plus, no matter what's happening. That's
the play. Time in the market versus
trying to time the market. Right? If you
follow this, you're not going to be
trying to predict the next Nvidia or
Amazon. You won't expect or need the
winners to be obvious. You're going to
own a broad slice of the entire AI
economy and let the leaders emerge
naturally in your portfolio. Because in
the end, in an inflationary world,
owning assets, even in an uncertain
market, isn't optional. This is your
moment. Pick your lane, get in the game,
and stay there long enough to let the
compounding work its magic. Moments like
this really do not come around often.
And when they do, they don't last. The
last time we saw a shift this big, a
million people became millionaires. Not
because they were the smartest, but
instead because they were in the game
when the market bmed and they didn't
have to panic sell when the market got
rocky. They rode the wave all the way to
the shore of Wealthy Island. And now
it's your turn. AI is the new wave. It's
bigger and moving faster than anything
before it. You can watch it pass you by
and spend the next 20 years wishing
you'd take an action. Or you can take a
position now, wax your board, and get in
the water. You'll probably swallow a
couple mouthfuls of seaater along the
way. But if you avoid debt and let time
and compounding work their magic, you'll
likely come out ahead. The future is
going to belong to the people who move
wisely today. Because by the time it's
obvious, it's already too late. All
right, guys. If you want to watch me
explore topics like this live, make sure
you join me on YouTube Wednesdays and
Fridays at 6:00 a.m. Pacific time. I
will see you there. Until next time, my
friends, be legendary. Take care. Peace.
If you like this conversation, check out
this episode to learn more. We are
living through a brutal moment. The
economy is broken. It's rigged. And it
is rigged to the benefit of the elites
at the expense of the poor and middle
class. But how we solve the problem
matters a lot. And to solve