Not a phone.
This is the only thing we know for sure is that future wealth creation is not going to happen around the phone. The day voice or video became yet another data application, both the smartphone and the mobile network had more or less completed their useful life.
Nothing dies in a hurry and some people still use a keypad featurephone. And I still use a land line. But that is not true for most of mankind. They love their smartphones and cannot imagine a life without it.
But this was true of so many things. Landlines. Horse carriages. Film cameras.
None of them have any relevance.
I have been an insider of the telecom industry from 1985 to 2005. During this period, I helped set up and build TRAI and led the team comprising of NM Rothschild, JB Dadachaji and AF Ferguson that did the corporatisation of Dept of Telecom (Services part) into BSNL. Before that I was involved in the design of the first mobile network in India and the bidding for the first set of private telecom licenses.
In 35 years of public policy work, I have come to just three macro conclusions:
– any kind of sector domination can only come from cartelisation. And domination or cartelisation in any form is bad, not just for the consumer but for the country.
– telecom, banking, insurance, IT Services and soon AI – all work to the same playbook. But they now address a world that they were not designed for.
– governments, bureaucracy and judiciary are not necessarily corrupt. What they lack is perspective and knowledge. And they are thus like five blind men discussing an elephant. One arm never knows what the other arm is doing.
When I put the above three conclusions together to evolve a playbook going forward, I come to three rather unsavoury conclusions:
– the value of currency or real estate or gold or even crypto or shares is all notional. There is no intrinsic value as such. And it all depends on the counter party. To expect that these will remain as stores of value is wishful thinking.
– the concept of territorial borders and nationalist economies is not really viable or sensible. But there is no known alternate. Till territorial borders and tax collecting rulers exist – wars will exist.
– the one thing Trump is right (and probably the only one) is that this green business is a non starter. Climate change is not about making a green chemical fertiliser. It is about eliminating the need for a feriliser.
Add all of the above together and you may want to consider the following scenario:
– Banks, HDFC saga notwithstanding – are not going to have any role in the emerging world. And the same will be true of professions like CA, CS and MBAs
– the entire paradigm of “survival of the fittest” is flawed ab initio. Any model which is not built on cooperation is going to fail.
– Ai is like dot com. Over hyped in the short term. But underestimated in the long term. The challenge for humanity is to stay ahead of the machine. Not to buy more machines.
