It’s AMA day here at The Bleeding Edge…
Thanks to everyone who has written in. Please, keep the feedback and great questions coming. My team and I read everything you all send us.
We’ve got another selection of your questions and comments for today’s Q&A. But first, I have some exciting news… And it concerns all of my subscribers who receive my Day One Investor research publication.
It’s been about six weeks since my return to the helm at Brownstone Research. And it’s been, far and away, one of the top concerns in our mailbag…
Can Jeff provide a newsletter/update on the crowdfunding service? I am hopeful that he will continue this and provide guidance on what to purchase in the future.
– Roger J.
Hi Jeff & team.
Just wondering when you think you’ll get around to an update on all the Day One investment companies. Not sure if I’ve missed anything related to this but sure you’ve got enough on your plate atm but it would be good to see how they are all getting on!
Cheers
– George B.
Now that Jeff Brown has returned, may we please have an update on Day One Investor and the companies we have already invested in?
– Ann N.
Hello, it would be very helpful if we could get an update on all Day One Investor deals at some point in the near future. Thanks.
– David G.
Jeff, glad you are back. I hope everything works out this time around. Let us know when you can share a timeline of when we can expect one of those monthly Day One newsletters/updates like you used to do. Also, we are way behind on the 5 years/50 deals, so any update on that would also be appreciated. Thanks.
– Andrew L.
It seems the question on so many of your minds is this one…
When will Day One Investor be grandfathered into Brownridge?
– Janice F.
I thank you all for your patience in this transition. I’m thrilled to announce that – thanks to the support and collaboration of the team at MarketWise – Day One Investor has officially moved from Brownstone Research over to my private investment research firm, Brownridge Research.
You might recall that I touched on this back in our first AMA, The Bleeding Edge – Brownstone: Back and Better Than Ever, when I was working towards finding the best solution for bringing Day One Investor back to life…
I’ve always been feverishly passionate about the democratization of private investments. It has been an area of investing that historically was off-limits to normal investors…
I always found it bizarre that regulators were OK with gambling where the house always comes out on top, but it wasn’t OK for the same people to invest in high-quality private companies based on a strong investment thesis.
Compounding the problem has been that the venture capital industry has long gone to great lengths to corner the market on private deals… hoarding most of the capital gains for themselves.
But thanks to current crowdfunding regulations – and a lot of hard work – we can gain access to these kinds of opportunities.
Day One subscribers, it’s good to be back.
You should have received my most recent research in your inbox yesterday afternoon, including a report on our latest deal – an early-stage generative artificial intelligence (AI) company that’s building a foundational model for one of the largest industries on the planet.
And for all of you wondering when we will be sending out an update on all current Day One positions, don’t worry, I will begin to provide more regular updates on portfolio companies in the weeks ahead.
OK, let’s get to your Friday AMA… and if you have your own question or comment you’d like me to see, you can reach us right here.
Have a great weekend, everyone.
Jeff
Hi Jeff,
All this hypersonic and supersonic travel plus dozens of other launches must have a huge environmental footprint. Why would someone travel for a meeting when virtual meetings are easily available and free, like Facetime?
If travel wasn’t a tax deduction this would never happen.
– Brian C.
Hi Brian,
I’m glad you asked as there are some interesting facets to your question.
And you’re right, air transportation relies entirely on fossil fuel-based energy sources because those sources of energy are the most efficient.
You might have heard of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), but it’s largely a marketing ploy. It uses fossil fuels to produce and has emissions when burned just like aviation fuel. Kind of an analog to ethanol from corn, which is made using fossil fuels.
To demonstrate how absurd this is, it takes 1.7 gallons of corn ethanol (which is entirely produced using machinery that uses gasoline) to produce 1 gallon of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).
If the U.S. were to reach its goal of producing 35 billion gallons of SAF it would require 114 million acres of corn, which is more than 20% of what exists today. Not only would net emissions be higher than just using today’s aviation fuel, it would devastate food production.
At a high level, aviation only contributes to 2% of energy-related CO2 emissions on a global level. If we compare that to road transportation at 12%, it’s much smaller.
Hypersonic and supersonic travel will largely replace other forms of air transportation, so I don’t believe these new transportation technologies will be responsible for increasing emissions. Passengers will simply choose one method of air transportation over another.
So, the bigger question is about human nature.
The pandemic was an interesting test. So many of us were forced to stay home and use Facetime and Zoom, as you suggested. We did it for years, and we got used to it. Even many meetings today still take place by Zoom instead of in person.
But have we maintained those habits? Or are we traveling again? Let’s check the numbers…
In the U.S., air travel is shattering records with seven of the 10 busiest travel days in history occurring between May 23 and June 27 this year. Seven of the busiest travel days, ever, in just over one month this summer.
And 2024 will exceed the air travel highs pre-pandemic in 2019. And on a global level, this is true as well. Global air traffic will reach 9.4 billion passengers compared to 9.2 billion in 2019.
So, we have the technology and adapted to it during the pandemic, yet we’ve chosen as a whole to get back to travel.
And I can share from personal experience having been an international high-tech executive for so many years, it’s not that I wanted to travel so much, it’s that I had to travel so much.
The reality is that if I wanted to earn a customer’s business and win a large deal, I had to be there in person. A Zoom call for important business interactions can have a negative impact. Being in person enables us to develop deeper relationships with our customers.
We can see things that we wouldn’t have seen on a Zoom call, meet more people who are part of the decision-making process, better understand the decision-making process, and, of course, spend more time together.
Being in person improves communication, reduces friction, and adds context.
Even today, I travel. I don’t sit in front of a computer all day. I just returned from the corn fields of Iowa, Wisconsin, and Ashburn, Virginia. Why? I was doing boots-on-the-ground research for my subscribers.
I was walking through dirt and mud researching massive data center facilities that are being constructed around the country. It’s one thing to read about it, it’s another to witness it.
Even when I’m researching companies or technologies or services, I always aim to get out there and experience it. It makes a huge difference. Context is important, and it’s amazing what insights occur when you’re there in person.
But in the future, to your point, for many jobs, telepresence will be sufficient. Google’s Starline project has given us a feel for what that might look like in the future.
It still won’t be as good as meeting in person, but technology like this will be so much better than Zoom…
Thank you very much, Jeff, for your ongoing Bleeding Edge analyses! I understand the impact of Meta’s new AI platform, thanks to your description.
As an individual non-technological user, I have found ChatGPT to be pretty useful. I’m not sure if Meta’s new AI is accessible or usable for an individual. Can you comment on the most useful AI applications, or LLMs, that are available to individuals, off the shelf, as it were, even if at a subscription cost? Thank you sincerely.
– Richard S.
Hi Richard,
Yes, Llama 3 is available, and you can download it here, but you’d have to know how to work with it. Open-sourced models like this are primarily for software developers so that they can be plugged into another software application. Other products are designed to be user-friendly like ChatGPT.
OpenAI has made GPT-4o, its most recent LLM, available through ChatGPT, which is very accessible. It’s a standout name in AI for a reason. You can trace the AI frenzy back to when OpenAI released ChatGPT back in November 2022. It set a record when it reached 100 million monthly active users just two months after launch. Subscriptions aren’t too expensive, and I agree with you, it is pretty useful for many tasks.
If you’d like to see how fast AI LLMs will work in the future, I highly recommend going to Groq and setting up an account. Groq is a semiconductor company that specializes in semiconductors for running the LLMs after they are trained – known as AI inference. Please go here and try it out for free. It’s lightning-fast and just unbelievable.
You can also try out Character.AI for more personal interactions with AI. You can practice for an interview or get book recommendations as if you’re talking to your local librarian. The idea behind Character AI is that it’s more personable than a chatbot like ChatGPT. There were some recent rumors that Musk’s xAI might buy Character.AI, but that has since been denied.
Anthropic’s Claude is also worth trying out here.
All of these LLMs are being used widely now. About 90% of software programmers are now using AI tools to write higher-quality software code faster than ever before. Using AI for legal purposes has also found a quick niche that is incredibly useful.
LLMs are fantastic at reading, reviewing, and summarizing large documents. Major time saver. And the best LLMs can understand context, so if we’re looking to determine if there is a certain leaning in a document, that kind of information can be extracted easily by an LLM.
We’ve even seen the use of generative AI in the life sciences industry now. Since we have massive data sets now, we can train an AI on that data, and then query the AI about things like a new drug’s efficacy, toxicity, and any potential interactions with other drugs.
Every month that passes we’re seeing a widening of applications for this technology. It is an incredibly exciting time.
Dear Jeff, I was recently reading about quantum computers, and there was apparently a breakthrough regarding this upcoming technology, specifically in its used components, making reference to “ion trappers,” which could potentially allow a commercial deployment of this technology. Any thoughts about these developments? Do you think we could envision working on a quantum laptop in the near future?
I hope you and your team are doing well, and thank you all for your great work.
– Yannick Le G.
Hi Yannick,
Thank you, we’re doing great and very energized to be back together and at it again. We’re rebuilding and working as quickly as we can to add value for our subscribers.
The trapped-ion approach to quantum computing definitely has short-term advantages over all approaches. Trapped ions have higher coherence (the ability to maintain a quantum state) and higher fidelity (fewer errors). This is advantageous because these are the two most significant challenges of quantum computing.
IonQ is a company pursuing this approach, and by the end of next year, it will have a 64-qubit trapped ion quantum computer. And that 64-qubit computer will have 18.4 quadrillion possible encoded states.
This is about 100,000 times more powerful than a classic supercomputer like Frontier, which is currently the world’s fastest supercomputer.
It’s hard to fathom. But I’m making a point with this example.
For a laptop, we just don’t need that kind of horsepower.
Quantum computers are being developed to solve incredibly complex problems with many variables. These are not the kinds of things that we need to tackle on our laptops.
And probably more relevant is that quantum computers require very specialized environmental conditions and control systems to function. This is not possible on a laptop computer.
But – we can access quantum computers via our laptops. Google Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Amazon Web Services all have quantum computing infrastructure that can be accessed from anywhere in the world. IonQ, for example, makes its technology available via all major cloud service providers and even has a cloud service of its own. You can see this here.
Dear Jeff and team members, I have a question about the fascinating clean and cheap energy that will be produced in the near future by nuclear fusion reactors.
How will this cheap (and clean) energy impact the bitcoin miners and what will be the effect on the bitcoin price and the blockchain?
Thank you in advance for your comments, Kind regards
– Ignace Van De V.
Hello Ignace,
This is an interesting question and something that the blockchain community is very in tune with. After all, to support any blockchain network, bitcoin or otherwise, there are two critical inputs: the cost of the hardware and the cost of the electricity.
Bitcoin, and other miners, have always been very aware of and sensitive to the price of electricity since bitcoin mining requires an incredible amount of power. That’s why many miners co-locate where they have access to the cheapest forms of electricity, like natural gas.
Once nuclear fusion is commercially available, miners will build out their data centers close to fusion reactors for exactly this purpose. We’re already seeing data centers do this now close to nuclear fission power plants. It’s an accelerating trend.
As for bitcoin… As we know, over time, each bitcoin becomes more and more difficult to mine. It requires more computational power and more electricity. Cheaper electricity will definitely help make the miners more profitable but will have less of an impact on the price of bitcoin.
The real benefit of nuclear fusion will be an abundance of clean, cheap electricity capable of powering the world’s electricity grids 24/7.
Dear Jeff, welcome back!
I enjoyed the recent article and can see how nationally and globally the internet is critical. But surely without electricity, it has restricted value. I have managed very well without the internet when it is down, but I struggle without electricity.
My frozen food goes to waste after a few days. I risk falls in the semi-dark, no joke when nearly 80. Fortunately, I don’t need medical aids that are dependent on electricity. Nor am I reliant on electricity for transport. I often wonder how those with electric cars fared when Scotland had a blackout for three weeks.
So while I can appreciate how dependent the world is on the internet, I do not understand your ranking. Kind regards.
– Suzanne B.
Thank you, Suzanne!
You are of course correct. I don’t think my sense of humor came through when I was writing about this topic. It was meant as a bit tongue-in-cheek. Computers clearly don’t work without electricity.
But you do raise a great point, even today in 2024, the power goes out. And depending on where we live, it can happen frequently. For me, I have my power go out several times a year for extended periods, sometimes even days. Usually, it’s because a tree takes down a power line in a big storm.
And because I need to stay connected, I have a power generator with a propane tank that keeps me running. I couldn’t live without it.
More modern solutions are large battery backup systems like Tesla’s Powerwall.
A generator or a Powerwall might be a good solution for you to keep the most vital things running like refrigerators, freezers, some air conditioning, and, of course, computers and the internet. 😉
Jeff, I haven’t heard much lately regarding the 5G network. Can you provide an update on the network? Are there still investment opportunities in this area?
– Wayne P.
Hi Wayne,
Yes, the whole industry is still humming along. On the global level, about 50% of the world’s population was covered by 5G networks by the end of last year. It was about 90% in North America.
And by 2029, about 80% of the world’s population will be covered by 5G networks. It’s always the last 20% that’s the hardest because it is the areas that are the least populated, which means less economic incentive to provide coverage.
And ironically, it’s by 2029 that we’ll start to see early deployments/testing of 6G wireless technology.
This is such a massive infrastructure build-out that requires fiber optics, semiconductors, transmitters/receivers, antennas, and of course smartphones. In 2023, about 59% of all smartphones are 5G enabled, so there is still a lot of room for growth.
And more data, more bandwidth, and more powerful computing will always result in the need for more data centers to move and process information. We’re really in a boom for this kind of technology.
Hi, Jeff. Welcome back!! I’m looking forward to logging into the Brownstone portal daily! I was wondering what think of the current status of the metaverse. At first, it seemed like the train was leaving the station, but now it seems like now the train ran out of fuel. Any input and timeline for if/when the metaverse goes mainstream would be greatly appreciated.
– Chris V.
Hi Chris,
Thanks. And you’re right. There isn’t a whole lot of talk about Metaverse recently. But since you’re interested, there is a good book recently published by author Matthew Ball about the subject titled The Metaverse: Building the Spatial Internet.
There isn’t and won’t be just one Metaverse. There are many. And I would argue that the technology is already here in several forms. Fortnite is a Metaverse, as is Roblox. These are gaming-centered metaverses, but they are real.
And, of course, there are several that are blockchain-related. Some incredible work has been done over the years that continues today.
What really happened is that the latest developments in AI took priority. A perfect example is Meta, which literally changed its name for the Metaverse, but realized that it was too early and needed to refocus on AI.
AI is so tangible and has such incredible utility that tech companies have gone all in on the technology. It’s just a matter of a better return on invested capital.
And the reality is that AI will help build out more compelling metaverses a lot faster and cheaper than we can do ourselves. AI is already being used for 3D design, graphics, and even video clips. As the technology becomes more powerful, it will help create both graphic and hyper-realistic metaverses that we’ll be able to experience.
I’d need to give this some more thought, but off the top of my head, I’d say that we’ll see some major advancements in metaverse offerings in the 2028/2029 time frame.
Thanks again to everyone who wrote in for this week’s mailbag. We’ll be back with another round of questions next Friday, so make sure you write us here at feedback@brownstoneresearch.com.
Jeff
The Bleeding Edge is the only free newsletter that delivers daily insights and information from the high-tech world as well as topics and trends relevant to investments.
The Bleeding Edge is the only free newsletter that delivers daily insights and information from the high-tech world as well as topics and trends relevant to investments.
