Preferences

Also not OP, and I'm not an analyst, but my impression is that each of these have stopped looking to the future:

  • Meta (all of it)
  • Google (not necessarily the rest of Alphabet)
  • Apple — UI updates are not innovation, and there's a lot of bugs
  • X (the social media website, no comment on the new parent AI company)
  • The car-shaped bits of Tesla — the humanoid robotics bits are at least "future", even if Tesla is not demonstrating anything new in this space

LPisGood
Objectively the Vision Pro was innovative.
ben_w OP
I don't see it.

To me, it seems to have the same problems as the Google Glass, in that it's far too expensive and doesn't have a clear idea what its own USP is.

That said, while I've played with a few different VR headsets, I've not had a chance to play with the VP, so perhaps there's something in the quality that would become visible if not for the prohibitive price.

WillAdams
The 128K Mac was not too far off from being a promising toy (it wasn't until the Apple LaserWriter became available that the true promise/utility was made real) --- you have to build the expensive first version for early adopters so that you can later figure out how to make the affordable version folks will actually buy and use.
ben_w OP
Content is indeed key.

But you don't have to start expensive: cheaper headsets already existed for several years before it came out, and those are perfectly adequate games consoles; and of the reviews I've seen for home cinema and virtual monitor uses, nobody seems to prefer AVP over other headsets half the price.

LPisGood
It has a lot of drawbacks; I agree completely. I don’t own one, I don’t like it as a product, and I wouldn’t buy one, but the tech was undeniably innovative.
ProllyInfamous
I do not own any AAPL (neutral feelings; don't know enough about their direction).

Unfortunately, my mid-sized US city still doesn't have an Apple Store... so I haven't demoed the VisionPro, yet; but I want to be able to see if its endorseable for my Parkinsons friend (whose eyes still work well); I suspect if I demoed it I'd also purchase one too.

Absolutely seems innovative.

specialist
What are some examples of forward-facing companies?
ben_w OP
With the caveat that often the only difference between being mad and visionary is if you ultimately succeed: startups.

At least, so long as they're not of the [buzzword]+[existing product] variety of startup. A decade ago we had "Uber for $[dictionary merge all nouns]", and today you can easily find a lot of people trying to shoehorn "blockchain" into things without any apparent understanding that other ledgers exist. Not those kinds of startup, those are all just copycat pander-to-the-investors schemes at best, and magical thinking at worst.

On a similar note about madness and vision: SpaceX, Rocket Lab, and SpinLaunch. SpaceX clearly has Mars as a big futuristic vision, and unlike say Blue Origin they actually make rapid progress in that direction; Rocket Lab may be small fry compared to SpaceX, but are thinking along similar scale for launch vehicles and have the political advantage of not being Elon Musk, so if Brand Musk implodes as I now expect it to, they may end up doing many similar things in practice; SpinLaunch may not be going anywhere fast, but they're aiming for a very different launch system and are therefore will end up in the history books even if they run out of investors.

A few years ago I would have also said Relativity Space, but these days everyone is 3D printing rockets. I've even seen a small 3D printed rocket engine in person, on display at one of the smaller booths in GITEX Europe last month, so Relativity Space no longer stands out for 3D printing rockets.

I have no idea where any of the AI companies are going. It looks like the sector is in a stage where there's a lot of low-hanging fruit, and therefore rapid improvements are relatively easy to stumble upon. But the same dynamics mean that's a red-ocean environment, whereas (IMO) the best innovation is a blue-ocean environment: https://www.blueoceanstrategy.com/tools/red-ocean-vs-blue-oc...

specialist
Thanks. I'll check those out.

Hadn't heard the red- vs blue-ocean distinction before. Thanks. The bullet points are similar to Thiel's zero to one thesis. (Right?)

FWIW, I'm currently most excited by efforts addressing climate crisis. Like advanced geothermal, better heat pumps, improving the grid, etc.

If I understand, most would be considered blue-ocean.

Most definitely face the chicken & egg challenge. As in the merit and benefits are apparent. But someone has to underwrite lofting a new market(s) from scratch.

Cheers, Jason

ProllyInfamous
Your last example would be IMHO the most egregious example of current over-valuation.

This madman's extraterrestrial dream™[0] will do more harm than not.

[0] Nightmare - ¡yay let's destroy Earth to build a dependant-upon-Earth colony! /s

Also: if you want to drive a vehicle that actually saves the planet, buy a hybrid (plug-in, or not).

ben_w OP
I've said as much in other threads. Given mediocre sales and the high existing competition for the futuristic vision for their unreleased future products, I think the correct price for TSLA is USD 10-20/share, and no that's not missing a digit.

For Mars… well, I like the idea of settling other worlds and expanding and yada yada yada, but Musk has repeatedly demonstrated he's not got the personality to actually do that right and not lock people out of the base for disagreeing with him. Plus, if you Muntz* a life support system or a food supply or the walls on a Mars base, everyone can die before replacements arrive.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muntzing

rayiner
Conquering the frontier has always been the future.

This item has no comments currently.