202. The Only Reason I’ll Wire Money Into A Tech Company

So why did I invest in tech? Tech is the future. It's going to eventually hit more than 1.8 trillion.

I don't often invest in startups because the risk is high. Whether we like it or not, AI, artificial intelligence, is going to affect every business sector. At my age, I've seen different technologies come along. So actually, when I look at artificial intelligence right now, I start thinking about...

You have invested in all of these ventures. You've invested into real estate, you've invested into traditional assets. Why did you, I mean, you've invested into tech very recently. Why the transition or why the addition, I should say, not the transition.

Why the addition? why the addition so i i invented i invested into tech um because tech is the future ai tech software is the future computing high-level computing is the future and as an investor I like to diversify my portfolio. I like to diversify in a sense that if the economy works, the global economy works in cycles. Sometimes you see the stock market is up.

Sometimes it's down. Sometimes the crypto market is up. Sometimes automotive or retail is up or sometimes it's down. Real estate is up, real estate is down.

So with a diversified portfolio, I have cash flow coming in from different places. And my investment strategy is twofold. One, long-term capital appreciation, whether that's in real estate or any other business that I have, capital appreciation in terms of value of that business or that asset. And the other one is eventual cash flow.

So this thing has to cash flow at some stage. It sometimes takes a little while, but I'm always interested in cash flow so why did i invest in tech tech is the future now the ai market is now valued where it's reached 391 billion dollars this year alone this year alone and it's continuing to grow so if you imagine something growing at 35 percent annually every year 35 so it's not going anywhere and it's going to eventually hit more than $1.8 trillion to $2 trillion globally. So it's not going anywhere, it's only going to grow.

And the high level companies are investing billions of dollars each year And if you think about US Europe the Gulf states China investing billions every year So this is not going anywhere So when I came across Grade Run, which is an AI-driven education platform, I thought, yeah, why not? Actually, when I look at artificial intelligence right now, I start thinking about, you know, at my age, I've seen different technologies come along. I've seen the advent of radio. I wasn't there when it was invented.

But as a time when I was growing up, when we didn't have a television, it was radio and radio. We could I could tune into radio and it's not even in my local area. Sometimes what we call long wave, I could dial into France and listen to what's happening away from my own city of my own country. And so what radio did for us is it allowed us to get information from around the world.

I remember television, in the early days of television, when you still had to get up and go and press to change the channel, not a remote control. Get up yourself and go and change the channel. Now, that turned us from not only how we consumed stories, but television allowed people to start creating stories. so turned us from passive viewing to active creators so eventually if you had my dad used to have these big camcorders um what they call it recording devices and which was played on vhs and my father then was would get excited that once he's recorded us as children uh in the 1980s he'll put it into the vhs cassette recorder a lot of gen z's won't understand this But that gave us the ability to create.

Now, the 1990s for me was the internet era. Now, internet gave us information, connected us to information globally, and allowed us to connect to other people globally. What AI gives us now is intelligence. It gives us the ability to be more intelligent, more clever, more creative.

So it's not a new technology that we're witnessing. We are living through an industrial revolution of intelligence. So again, just like television, the question is, am I going to be a consumer of it or am I going to be a creator of it? And the reason why I invested in Grade Run is because Grade Run has created a platform where people can, as an educational platform students people who are in a learning environment learn quicker improve on their grades for examination and just become an overall better student based on their personality the way they work the way they learn so that's the reason why so in what way do you think ai because now you've given us i love how you've given us a story as to how tech has evolved from the radio to the tv The radio made us consumers.

The TV made us creators because now you could actually record something and put it there. Then we went into the internet era, which connected all of us. Now the AI era has given us intelligence to leverage every skill, everything that we have. Grade Run is certainly building an et-tech platform that helps students study smarter and better or anyone in a learning environment.

But in what way do you think that AI is going to impact every business model? Let's even assume the business that you are into, your speaking business, your real estate business, in what way do you think that AI is going to impact and affect all of that? Whether we like it or not, AI, artificial intelligence, is going to affect every business sector. Every business model will be affected by this.

And if you stand still, you lose. And if you really, if you think about it like this, in the 1800s, let's talk about North America, for example. In the 1800s, lots of people discovered in west of the USA, in the western area of the USA, that people were discovering gold, right? So it became the gold rush.

And people were swarming in from Europe and other parts of the world to go and get part of this gold. Now, the thought was, I am there for gold, to find this gold for money. Now, who made the most money? Who made the most money?

People who were sitting every day, sieving through soil to find a gold, or the people who were very entrepreneurial to say, all these people, thousands of people are coming into this region. In order for them to get this gold, they're going to need the tool to get a gold. So I've got to sell, maybe I'll sell them shovels. People come in, they've got nowhere to live.

They've got no accommodation. I'll have an inn, a small hotel. They can stay there. You know the denim trend, denim that we know now?

The hard-wearing material with trousers was invented during the gold rush. Someone invented it because they needed something hard-wearing where these workers would be able to do what they need to do. Oh, really? Yeah, so when it comes to AI, it might not be just the technology of AI, we know it's really there and it's broken, but I think the people who are going to make the most money are the people who create the utility that people need in order to exploit this So Great Run using that the company I invested in using artificial intelligence and tech but creating an educational platform or creating something that will help people to learn better using that technology is the picks and the shovels and the sieve of the gold rush.

So I think it's important that understand that there are governments, There are large organizations pumping a lot of money into AI. And I think if you understand and start thinking, how do I utilize this? So we know that a lot of the computing power is going to be dependent on various microchips and other elements to run it. That's why NVIDIA is doing so well.

Yeah. So what are the elements you're thinking of using AI and hitting the gold? So the AI right now for me is the gold rush of now. Okay.

If that makes sense. And nobody would want to miss out on that because that only comes once in a while. It comes only once in a while. You're absolutely right.

And it will go and then something else will come in its place. That's always happened. I'm of a certain age where I remember when I started my business many years ago, a small IT company, in order for us to get customers, there was very much traditional ways we had to do that. And I remember one of those ways, one of the marketing ways, because we didn't have in 1999, 2000, you know, it's the early age of the Internet.

And not many people had websites. So my first business was helping companies to develop websites. So that's what we did. So the gold rush of the Internet, I'm not a computing power.

I'm not creating the service. I'm not creating the computer system, but I'm creating the shovels and the picks for these companies to make money through the Internet. Right. And so in thinking like that gives you a wider perspective in terms of how money can be generated, what kind of business you can create.

That makes sense. The third thing is it was a global opportunity. And so often when I say to people, why does anyone give you money? Your pizza delivered in 30 minutes or less, or your pizza for free.

Typically when I'm invested in companies, I'm looking at, think about this, think about this.