人生在世,有谁不疑惑,有谁不痛苦,有谁不煎熬?这正是宗教这个牛逼的产品类别号称要帮用户解决的问题。


In 1998, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold 85% of all photo paper worldwide. Within just a few years, their business model disappeared and they went bankrupt. What happened to Kodak will happen in a lot of industries in the next 10 years - and most people don't see it coming. Did you think in 1998 that 3 years later you would never take pictures on paper film again? Yet digital cameras were invented in 1975. The first ones only had 10,000 pixels, but followed Moore's law. So as with all exponential technologies, it was a disappointment for a long time, before it became way superior and got mainstream in only a few short years. It will now happen with Artificial Intelligence, health, autonomous and electric cars, education, 3D printing, agriculture and jobs. Welcome to the 4th Industrial Revolution. Welcome to the Exponential Age.

Software will disrupt most traditional industries in the next 5-10 years.

Uber is just a software tool, they don't own any cars, and are now the biggest taxi company in the world. Airbnb is now the biggest hotel company in the world, although they don't own any properties.

Artificial Intelligence: Computers become exponentially better in understanding the world. This year, a computer beat the best Go player in the world, 10 years earlier than expected. In the US, young lawyers already don't get jobs. Because of IBM Watson, you can get legal advice (so far for more or less basic stuff) within seconds, with 90% accuracy compared with 70% accuracy when done by humans. So if you study law, stop immediately. There will be 90% fewer lawyers in the future, only specialists will remain. Watson already helps nurses diagnosing cancer, 4 time more accurate than human nurses. Facebook now has a pattern recognition software that can recognize faces better than humans. By 2030, computers will become more intelligent than humans.

Autonomous Cars: In 2018 the first self-driving cars will appear for the public. Around 2020, the complete industry will start to be disrupted. You don't want to own a car anymore. You will call a car with your phone, it will show up at your location and drive you to your destination. You will not need to park it, you only pay for the driven distance and can be productive while driving. Our kids will never get a driver's license and will never own a car. It will change the cities, because we will need 90-95% fewer cars for that. We can transform former parking space into parks. 1.2 million people die each year in car accidents worldwide. We now have one accident every 100,000 km, with autonomous driving that will drop to one accident in 10 million km. That will save a million lives each year.

Most car companies may become bankrupt. Traditional car companies try the evolutionary approach and just build a better car, while tech companies (Tesla, Apple, Google) will do the revolutionary approach and build a computer on wheels. I spoke to a lot of engineers from Volkswagen and Audi; they are completely terrified of Tesla.

Insurance Companies will have massive trouble because without accidents, the insurance will become 100x cheaper. Their car insurance business model will disappear.

Real estate will change. Because if you can work while you commute, people will move further away to live in a more beautiful neighborhood.

Electric cars won’t become mainstream until 2020. Cities will be less noisy because all cars will run on electric. Electricity will become incredibly cheap and clean: Solar production has been on an exponential curve for 30 years, but you can only now see the impact. Last year, more solar energy was installed worldwide than fossil. The price for solar will drop so much that all coal companies will be out of business by 2025.

With cheap electricity comes cheap and abundant water. Desalination now only needs 2kWh per cubic meter. We don't have scarce water in most places, we only have scarce drinking water. Imagine what will be possible if anyone can have as much clean water as he wants, for nearly no cost.

Health: There will be companies that will build a medical device (called the "Tricorder" from Star Trek) that works with your phone, which takes your retina scan, your blood sample and you breathe into it. It then analyses 54 biomarkers that will identify nearly any disease. It will be cheap, so in a few years everyone on this planet will have access to world class medicine, nearly for free.

3D printing: The price of the cheapest 3D printer came down from $18,000 to $400 within 10 years. In the same time, it became 100 times faster. All major shoe companies started 3D printing shoes. Spare airplane parts are already 3D printed in remote airports. The space station now has a printer that eliminates the need for the large number of spare parts they used to have in the past.

At the end of this year, new smart phones will have 3D scanning possibilities. You can then 3D scan your feet and print your perfect shoe at home. In China, they already 3D printed a complete 6-storey office building. By 2027, 10% of everything that's being produced will be 3D printed.

Business Opportunities: If you think of a niche you want to go in, ask yourself: "in the future, do you think we will have that?" and if the answer is yes, how can you make that happen sooner? If it doesn't work with your phone, forget the idea. And any idea designed for success in the 20th century is doomed in to failure in the 21st century.

Work: 70-80% of jobs will disappear in the next 20 years. There will be a lot of new jobs, but it is not clear if there will be enough new jobs in such a small time.

Agriculture: There will be a $100 agricultural robot in the future. Farmers in 3rd world countries can then become managers of their field instead of working all days on their fields. Agroponics will need much less water. The first Petri dish produced veal is now available and will be cheaper than cow-produced veal in 2018. Right now, 30% of all agricultural surfaces is used for cows. Imagine if we don't need that space anymore. There are several startups that will bring insect protein to the market shortly. It contains more protein than meat. It will be labeled as "alternative protein source" (because most people still reject the idea of eating insects).

There is an app called "moodies" which can already tell in which mood you are.

There is already a app which can tell you the whole terminology of whole industry and in engineering

And there is already a search engine for all abbreviations , and full forms

Until 2020 there will be apps that can tell by your facial expressions if you are lying. Imagine a political debate where it's being displayed when they are telling the truth and when not.

Bitcoin will become mainstream this year and might even become the default reserve currency.

Longevity: Right now, the average life span increases by 3 months per year. Four years ago, the life span used to be 79 years, now it's 80 years. The increase itself is increasing and by 2036, there will be more than one year increase per year. So we all might live for a long long time, probably way more than 100.

Education: The cheapest smart phones are already at $10 in Africa and Asia. Until 2020, 70% of all humans will own a smart phone. That means, everyone has the same access to world class education.

Sageworks, a private financial information company, releases an annual list of the most profitable industries from the past year. They rank the industries according to their bottom lines with the pre-tax net profit margins as basis. If you’ll compare the recent rankings, you’ll notice that the list is often dominated by specialty service providers in accounting, law, health care, and real estate industries.

It helps to look at the top 10 most profitable industries in 2017 (last year):

As what I mentioned earlier, accounting, law, health care, and real estate industries are regulars in Sageworks’ Most Profitable lists. This year, we can expect them to continue doing well. These industries are hard to enter because of certifications and education requirements needed for the business. Because of these requirements, they also have higher rates for their specialized services.

Now, here are two industries that will possibly boom this 2018:

  • Data science

Data science is increasingly becoming important for businesses and companies because it lets them track where information comes from, what it means and how it can be used as a valuable resource. Big players and big companies need data science to come up with smart strategies to keep earning profits.

  • e-Commerce

e-Commerce continues to evolve along with the growth of mobile phone usage. The convenience of online shopping is encouraging more and more consumers to shift from physical stores to online shops. With technology greatly affecting the way business is done today, we can expect that e-Commerce is an industry that will grow to be profitable in no time.

With that said, developers these days are very much in demand at most industries, if not all. Businesses now realize the need to be creative and innovative in reaching their audience so they look for developers and tech talent to help them. Despite the tech talent shortage in western countries like the UK, the US, and Australia, there is a wide pool of available tech talent elsewhere. If you’re interested, you can also check out these industries which benefit from hiring remote developers


Understanding industry trends is in everyone’s best interests. Whether you are looking to start a business, grow a business, maintain your career or pivot your career - you will want to know where the action is.

Here are some interesting, promising industries to consider:

1. On Demand Economy:

Business Insider defines it as:

… the economic activity created by technology companies that fulfill consumer demand via the immediate provisioning of goods and services.

Harvard Business Review has an excellent article about how this industry is not only growing, but the audience is far reaching: young, old, wealthy, and not-so-wealthy. The on-demand economy is attracting more than 22.4 million consumers annually and $57.6 billion in spending. Think anything from UberEtsy, to Elance.

2. Virtual Reality (VR):

Our friends at Wiki define it as:

… computer technology that uses software-generated realistic images, sounds and other sensations to replicate a real environment or an imaginary setting, and simulates a user's physical presence in this environment to enable the user to interact with this space.

VR had clunky beginnings, but has definitely found its stride. The industry is going to hit a billion dollars in 2016, mostly in video game hardware. However, this is only the beginning as there are technologies emerging that take the experience of watching a movie or reading a book to a whole new level. Magic Leap is one such company encompassing “mixed reality”. (Checkout the website - the effects are incredible!) As Kevin Kelly at Wired reports, they completed what may be the largest C-round of financing in history: $793.5 million. To date, investors have funneled $1.4 billion into it.

3. Artificial Intelligence (AI):

Techopedia defines it as:

Artificial intelligence (AI) is an area of computer science that emphasizes the creation of intelligent machines that work and react like humans. Some of the activities computers with artificial intelligence are designed for include:

  • Speech recognition

  • Learning

  • Planning

  • Problem solving

Based on a report in TechEmergence, this industry will grow to over $150 billion dollars over the next five years — $83B for robots, and $70B for artificial intelligence-based systems. This is driven by the aging population and the rise in wages in developing countries. AI isn’t all about robots - it’s in your phone, it’s fraud protection, it’s online consumer support. The possibilities are endless.

These are just 3 industries to watch with multiple applications and entry points. They are all quite fascinating with base tech being developed and augmented continuously.