What to Invest In: A Future That Keeps Getting Better

1. The most productive companies

So what should we dollar-cost average into? I laid out the general principle earlier: dollar-cost average into the companies that are widely accepted as the best, the most productive.

But which companies, exactly, are the most productive?

In the last post, going from the S&P, to the tech giants, to Bitcoin, the returns kept getting higher; that already planted a seed. But in this post, we're going to work it through from the beginning.

2. Productivity keeps rising

This is the Dow Jones Industrial Average from 1896 to today: 130 years, from 31 points to more than 50,000, up more than 1,600 times. Along the way there was the Great Depression, the oil crises, the dot-com bubble, the financial crisis, the pandemic; but take the long view, and it has kept rising.

This long-term trend of growing productivity is the reason that we, as modern people living in this era, have to be optimistic.

There's another core reason you have to stay optimistic. What is it? Look at how science develops.

Science is the crystallized wisdom of humanity as a whole. What is science for? It's for raising efficiency. Mainly the efficiency of what? Production, of course. The core reason the Dow Jones Industrial Average keeps rising is that productive efficiency keeps rising.

Now turn around and look at science itself: by its nature, it is meant to be improved again and again. In other words, it can only get better, and it can only develop faster.

This is a very, very plain truth: you need a clear understanding of the fact that this world is getting better and better, and a clear understanding of the principle behind it.

3. Two conclusions

All of the above comes down to two conclusions:

1. The future can only get better and better. How good? Certainly better than the best you can imagine.
2. That better future, the one so good we can't imagine it, is rushing toward us faster and faster. In other words, the future is coming faster and faster: history is running at you from the future, faster than you think, and it will only get faster.

You can find these two points in any serious book. They are also the theoretical foundation for why we start investing at all: if the future weren't getting better and better, why would we invest in it?

So you have to be a rational optimist. Read enough books and you'll come to feel this conclusion yourself; watch enough short videos, WeChat articles and news, and you may come to the pessimistic conclusion that the world is going downhill and things aren't what they used to be. So, same as always: read more books.

4. The tipping point of a productivity explosion

As it happens, AI has taken off these past few years, and I'm someone who uses AI quite a lot; I have a very deep, first-hand sense of how AI raises productive efficiency.

All in all, our productivity is about to rise explosively. And we are standing just about right in front of the tipping point of this productivity explosion; very soon we'll cross it, into an era of explosive productivity growth.

5. Returns are bound to keep rising

So here comes the conclusion: the returns that the best companies, the best investments, can deliver to investors are bound to keep getting higher. Bound to keep getting higher.

You saw it in the last post too: the S&P's returns < tech stocks < modern cryptocurrencies.

6. My choice: AI and blockchain

So my choice is simple too. I picked two fields: one is AI, the other is blockchain. These are the two most productive fields on the planet right now.

Of course, there are plenty of options within these two fields. What I chose is a handful of ETFs under Pando:

• Pando Innovation (3056.HK)
• Pando Blockchain (3112.HK)
• Pando Bitcoin (2818.HK)
• Pando Ether (3085.HK)
• Pando SOL (2831.HK)

This part is a personal choice. Mainly it's because I've come to know something of the investors behind this company over the past few years, and I trust them more. You can, of course, make your own choice. But until you have enough experience, I'd suggest following my choice first, and making your own personal choice later.

7. Do you believe in the future?

Once you've finished this post, ask yourself: do you believe in the future? Do you want to "hold on to the most beautiful dream, and give it to your future self"? (Liang Jingru, "To My Future Self" (给未来的自己))

If so, get ready to come aboard. If not, going on living the life you had is nothing wrong either.

8. Without noticing, you become an optimist

At this point, beyond making money, another benefit of starting to invest, starting to dollar-cost average, shows up: without even noticing, you become an optimist too.

So choosing to dollar-cost average isn't just about making more money; even more, it's about living a better life.

Maybe after ten years of dollar-cost averaging, you'll find that making money is the most trivial of all the things you got out of it. What you can gain is a calmer life, a happier mood, a more optimistic outlook.

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