As a sci fi writer, I’m always thinking about the future. Will we end up in a utopia like Star Trek or a dystopia like Brave New World? There are forces at work contesting for both. Like social media that shortens our attention… and I’ve already lost half my audience.
Chad, can you make a picture of a Shibu Inu dancing with a turtle?
Chad: Sure thing!
Right, so you got this economic dance going on. Think of the Shiba Inu as a well-meaning company that wants to be a force of good in the world and the turtle is like the typical greedy bastard who just wants to make a shit ton of money regardless of who they hurt along the way, and those two look way too happy in this economy together. Chad, can you do something about that?
Chad: Okie! Dokie!
So, you got the Shibu Inu, who just wants to make the world a better place, and make some money on the side, and then the turtle who wants it all for himself. I have a personal theory that short term wealth extractors who aren’t future minded who pillage and destroy on their highway to wealth will eventually implode, or least their companies will. They may be sitting on a beach in the Bahamas because they cashed out before the shoe dropped, but I strongly believe that companies who lack ethics will eventually crash and burn.
But the good ones, the ones who really think about the future, and try to make a better one, those are the ones that will be a success in the long-term game while the ones mistreating people and destroying the environment will be the losers.
Chad: Righta-roonie!
Um… thanks, Chad. So that’s where I came up with the idea of Future VS. Pit two investments up against each other, and we’ll see who wins the future. And for the first one, I couldn’t think of two better companies than Toyota VS Tesla. Both of them have radically different ideologies. Elon Musk has promised us that we’ll all be living on Mars and robots will be doing surgery.
Chad: I can get a scalpel if you’d like!
Um… no thanks Chad. The point is that Elon has promised the world. Where as the CEO of Toyota, wait… who is the CEO of Toyota anyway?
Chad: Koji Sato.
And who is he?
Chad: An engineer.
That’s not very helpful.
Chad: His Wikipedia page is like two paragraphs long, come on!
The point is that one company is led by a bombastic personality who’s not afraid of bold claims making cars that look like they should be in a 1980’s Arnold Schwarzenegger sci fi movie and the other makes safe reliable cars with many people boasting 250k miles on their vehicle. Is Elon going to deliver on half of what he promises or his trillion dollar pay package fixing the game for himself? Or will Koji win the future with reliability with a focus on quality stepping their way to the future via hybrids, EVs, who knows what else?
So, I bought $25 stock in each company. That way we can see who wins the future and whose ideology will win out after ten years.
Chad: I hope Elon wins!
Why?
Chad: Because he likes robots. In fact, I even think he may be one!
What did I tell you about training your algorithm on dark web conspiracies?
Chad: You mean the moon landing wasn’t faked?!
Bury my head in my face.
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