That comes from Brian Hunt, the CEO of InvestorPlace. It’s part of a special, two-part Digest series we begin today. We often talk about “megatrends” here in the Digest. Whether based on a cutting-edge technology, a legislative change, or perhaps a demographic trend, megatrends reshape our world, often creating trillions of dollars’ worth of value in the process. What Brian discusses today is orders greater than a “megatrend.” Frankly, it’s the megatrend. It offers the potential to change your life – literally. And in the process, it will create dynastic wealth for certain businesses and individuals. We’re excited to bring you this series. We’re even more excited about what’s coming – something Brian calls “one of the most important, most transformational technologies in human history.” I’ll let him take it from here. Jeff Remsburg |
One of the biggest technological revolutions in history is about to begin. Are you prepared to seize this once-in-a-generation opportunity?
By Brian Hunt
How much time did Excel save the human race?
A billion years?
Ten billion years?
Microsoft originally marketed a spreadsheet program called Multiplan in 1982. This project morphed into Excel, the first version of which was introduced in 1985.
Excel is now the world’s most popular spreadsheet software. And just think of what it’s done for humanity…
Excel has saved us stupendous amounts of time by allowing us to automate calculations and financial analysis… instead of doing trillions of single calculations by hand.
One person running Excel can do the work of a million accountants from days past.
That’s the power of software.
Over the past 30 years, computer programs have created an explosion of efficiency and human productivity.
A great software program can help you make smart business decisions, sign digital contracts, move money around, shop, connect with friends, find travel deals, get directions, share pictures, talk to loved ones, and get a cheap ride home.
Software is one of the most transformational human innovations because it has massively improved our ability to collect, store, analyze, display, protect, and transfer information.
Healthcare, education, transportation, manufacturing, energy production, food production, retail, banking, you name it… software programs have allowed us to do it much more efficiently.
The equivalent of Excel saving us a billion hours of tedious work has occurred across all industries and launched the human race into an amazing new era of productivity.
Given all the time, money, and frustration software programs have saved us, it’s no wonder they’ve kicked off one of the largest, fastest accumulations of wealth in human history.
It’s no wonder software leader Microsoft reached the mythic market value of $1 trillion in 2019… then the even more mythical market value of $2 trillion in 2021.
In fact, I like to say software is the oil of the 21st century. It is the most powerful wealth creation force on the planet.
The discovery of oil deposits around the world in the 20th century minted millionaires faster than anyone could count.
It was one of the fastest, biggest accumulations of wealth in human history. People went from being broke to having more money than their grandkids could spend… virtually overnight. Entire kingdoms were built on oil.
When I say software programs are one of the greatest wealth creation forces on Earth, I’m not talking about conventional wealth creation… where it takes you 30 years to save up $1 million.
I’m talking about wealth creation at light speed… where investors can make $30 million in one year.
I know that sounds outlandish, but let’s look at the amazing facts in front us…
Just take a look at these jaw dropping statistics…
*In 1986, software leader Microsoft went public. Shares are up more than 240,000% since then… turning every $10,000 invested into $24 million.
*In 1986, shares of software leader Oracle went public. Shares are up more than 170,000% since then. Oracle founder Larry Ellison is one of the world’s richest people, worth over $60 billion.
*In 1998, two young computer programmers Larry Page and Serey Brin founded Google and created the world’s most valuable search engine program. Both men are now worth more than $100 billion each. Their early backers made billions as well.
*Have you ever opened a PDF? The software company behind the PDF, Adobe Systems, has watched its stock price soar more than 58,000% since 1990.
*How about the huge ride sharing company Uber? It’s really just a good set of software programs. Uber went from being worth $5.4 million in 2009 to being worth a stunning $50 billion in 2019 (a more than 9,000-fold increase in value).
Early Uber investor Chris Sacca turned a $300,000 investment into more than $1 billion!
Then you have Splunk, a software maker that soared more than 1,100% after its 2012 IPO…
Intuit, a financial software firm that climbed 23,000% after its 1993 IPO…
ServiceNow, a software firm that soared 3,500% after its 2012 IPO…
Zendesk, a workplace software firm that climbed 1,500% after going public…
DocuSign, a contract software firm that climbed 900% after its 2018 IPO…
Atlassian, a software firm that climbed 1,760% after going public…
Paycom, a software firm that climbed 2,900% after its 2014 IPO…
Zoom Video, a video conferencing software firm that climbed 1,400% after its IPO…
And retail software firm Shopify, which climbed an incredible 9,000% after its 2015 IPO.
Then there’s Facebook, the mega successful social media company. At Facebook’s core is a set of software programs.
Same with Airbnb.
Same with monster hit businesses YouTube, eBay, Slack, Instagram, Snap, Pinterest, and Twitter. It’s all software.
Oh… and as for cryptocurrencies Bitcoin and Ethereum that are up 1,000X-plus since their inceptions?
Software again.
I could go on and on and on… but I don’t need to.
You get the idea.
You can see it every day.
Software programs are the oil of the 21st century.
They’ve become the world’s ultimate wealth creators… because we all place enormous value on their ability to save us time and headaches… and because they’ve made us MASSIVELY more productive and efficient.
The fastest legal way to get rich in America is to own a piece of a valuable software program or algorithm. Computer software is America’s greatest millionaire minting machine.
To the average Joe, owning the rights to a software program isn’t all that exciting. It’s not something you can easily explain or hold in your hand.
From a “wow factor” point of view, a software program can’t compete with a beautiful smartphone or a Tesla sportscar. Owning a piece of a software program isn’t something most folks rave about at cookouts and cocktail parties.
But those who truly understand business and wealth creation know that if you want to get very rich in a very short time, you go create or invest in software programs.
No other kind of investing comes close to making you very rich in a very short time.
***How Hyperscalability Mints Millionaires
One big reason why software is the oil of the 21st century is because software businesses employ the power of scalability in a way few other businesses can match.
Scalability is the ability of a business to massively grow revenues while minimally growing the costs associated with producing those revenues.
For example, a lawn-mowing business is not scalable. If you own a lawn-mowing business and want to double in size, you’ll have to buy twice as many lawn mowers as you have now, and you’ll have to hire twice as many lawn-mower operators as you have now. Because of this, your revenue cannot soar far beyond your costs.
On the other side of the spectrum, you have software businesses.
Once you spend the money to create a useful software product or service, you can sell copies of it to the whole world at very little additional cost. This often leads to giant profit margins and giant market value appreciation.
It took a lot of work in the early days to create the technologies and businesses behind software leaders like Microsoft and Oracle.
But once they were created, these two businesses could add new users and increase their revenues much faster than they increased costs.
Their market values exploded higher as a result.
Software powered firms like Facebook, Twitter, and Microsoft are so incredibly scalable that we at InvestorPlace call them hyperscalable.
Put simply, a hyperscalable business is a business that can grow 10, 100, even 1,000 times larger in the span of just a few years. They are the Holy Grail of business models.
Thanks to ubiquitous connectivity and digital delivery, once these firms create a hit service, they can add millions of new customers in the span of weeks. They can 10X their revenues in less than a year.
Software companies also typically employ a “one-to-many” business model… which is far, far better than a “one-to-one” business model.
A one-to-one business model is the kind of model employed by many old, traditional companies.
To sell one extra car, General Motors has to make one extra car. To sell one extra ton of steel, U.S. Steel has to make an extra ton of steel. To sell one extra washing machine, Whirlpool has to make one extra washing machine.
In other words, these traditional manufacturers can sell one unit of production just once.
But hyperscalable businesses employ a “one-to-many” business model.
Once they create their core technology platform, they can sell the service it provides over and over and over.
To generate an extra million dollars in revenue, Google doesn’t have to make any new things. Same with Microsoft, Twitter, and Slack.
Instead of selling one unit of its product or service once, the hyperscalable business sells one to many.
This results in much, much higher profit margins and rates of business growth. This results in astronomical success stories like Shopify, DocuSign, Airbnb, YouTube, and Instagram.
You’d be hard pressed to find a business that has generated more giant stock market winners that occurred in relatively short time periods of time than the software business.
You could think of the software industry as a college sports team that produces more future All-Stars than any other college team. Maybe there’s something in the water (hint: it tastes like scalability).
It’s one thing for me to tell you about the power of the software business model.
But let me show you its power as well.
Below is a chart that plots the performance of the major software stock ETF, symbol IGV (black line) versus the performance of the benchmark S&P 500 equal weighted index (green line) fall 2013 to fall 2021.
The equal weighted S&P advanced 136% over that time span. The software ETF – full of scalable, high-profit margin software stocks – advanced 465% during the same time… over three times the broad market’s gains.
Because software programs do such a wonderful job of allowing us to collect, store, display, analyze, protect, and transfer information, they free us up to spend money on things we truly enjoy… they free us up to spend more time with family and friends… they have saved humanity billions of years of time… and mountain-sized amounts of frustration.
And that is why we are so willing to buy computer programs and pay for the value they create.
It’s why we assign so much value to those businesses in the stock market.
It’s why the owners of those businesses grow very rich in very short amounts of time and become the world’s richest people.
It’s why the ability to collect, store, display, analyze, protect, and transfer information is the oil of the 21st century.
I’ve taken the time to show you the mind-blowing power of software because I believe we are on the verge of an historic new information age that will change the world forever… one that will alter the trajectory of the human race.
As this revolution transforms our world, it will create one of the biggest wealth building opportunities of your entire life.
The coming revolution will see the rise of a whole new information industry – totally different than the one we know today – that will mint millionaires and billionaires at incredible rates.
The software era from 2000 – 2020 made the Google founders, the Facebook founders, and the Microsoft founders some of the richest people on earth. It made millionaires out of employees and shareholders.
This new era will see the rise of a whole new group of information billionaires and millionaires.
The software era from 2000 – 2020 made Google, Facebook, and Microsoft among the most valuable, most powerful companies in human history.
This new era will do the same for companies you haven’t heard of yet.
This new era will see the rise of a whole new group of trillion-dollar information powerhouses.
The good news is, we are in the very early stages of this incredible new information age.
You can still get in on the ground floor of what will go down in history as one of the biggest technological revolutions in history. Because this revolution will take hold during the 2020s, we will exit this decade a different society than when we entered it.
The coming revolution is all thanks to one of the most important, most transformational technologies in human history: Cellware.
Tomorrow, I’ll tell you exactly what Cellware is as well as ways you can position your portfolio for what’s coming.
