Listening to an interview with Charlie Munger the other day, it struck me. 'Manias' are a part of life, that's obvious - but they are necessary, essential to the well-ordered functioning of an open economy.
Charlie talked about the Goldman Sachs Commodity trading group in the 1920s as being his first memory of 'fairy dust' - or the perpetual money machine. That desire in all of us to buy a lottery ticket when we know we won't win.....but, what...what if....and those moments of imagination that follow are almost worth the ticket price.
But there is a serious point to this. While Manias are a necessary system clearer, we also need innovation, perhaps the opposite side of the same coin.
The scepticsm with which new ideas are recieved is the skin-thickening that every entrepreneur discovers. "Don't understand", "Why would I need that", "Rubbish" all valid responses to good and bad ideas alike at the nascent stage of development.
We too have faced this, even from seasoned pros. "I dont mind being charged 1..2..3%", "ETF's are fine.....", "My broker does it for me".....
The natural reluctance to try something new is the exact opposite to the conditions of a Mania. "Block what?"....---->..... "Block chain?"..---->.."Ether...really?"..---->."I've staked by DOT on Kucoin". It happens....the tipping point.
Personalised, guided investing is here - it's always been here. It used to have a bowler hat, then it moved to Mayfair with a Bloomberg screen, but it has always been analogue and inaccessible for the 99.9%.
Putting the power of a hedge fund in someone's pocket sounds great/scary/weird depending on your point of view, but it is what we've been working on for these last years.
How to put the power of complete control in people's hands, but with a safety net. How do you scalably allow people to build their own? Well the old answer was $10mm each and hey presto. But how can you do it now?
Well, you need to have a system that can quickly understand each user - a protocol - the understands behaviour and its changes. You also need a product that can be built on the fly for very little. And it needs to be affordable. Not cheap.
The ability to have your ISA, 401k, SIPP, General Investment account (and on and on)..., all in one place. Safe, directed by you, but guided by Upside.
That's pretty cool. It is the future of investing.
