Booking.com replaced OTA's. SIG replaced pit traders. The best car companies invest crazy amounts into robots, as does Amazon. Machine learning and self-driving cars seem like crazy game-changing technology because of how it can automate large tasks away.
The supply-chain issue after Covid has helped me understand how much of the world is about moving atoms and not bits. Most of our population is employed and hard at work, and the world is moving to try and make people more productive. There are builders, electrical technicians, hotel staff, salespeople for every product, train conductors, scientists, miners, cashiers, truck drivers, delivery people, designers, artists, chefs, etc.
Over time, the companies that help automate tasks away will do well, and because it is a relative game, companies need to do this better than other companies can. This is why investing is so hard, because capital goes towards the best use and things improve and others catch on and a company may press a hard advantage for some time, but competitors will come.
That said, I'm not sure how I feel about companies that buyback stock. I used to think it seems like a great use of capital, but Mohnish said something about Tencent and Amazon - that they are the only 2 tech companies that like to keep a net zero cash balance. They are furiously investing for the future, and that's the way it should be.
Well, this has been more of a rant than a post about automation so perhaps I'll just end here.
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