For your average John Doe investor with a brokerage account, investing in disruptive technologies like 3D printing can seem futile. Even if you can avoid the over the counter (OTC) companies pretending to be pure-play stocks, investing in actual pure-play stocks may empty your wallet simply because the entire business model changed. Even if you […]
Fake news is a term that has been bandied about quite liberally the last few years. Politics aside, most news narratives tend to be pretty black and white, while the reality is that there are usually shades of grey to any story. Take the ongoing saga of 3D printing. We’ve certainly written loads about how […]
One reason why you should be overly cautious when it comes to technology investing is that great stories don’t often make for great investments. You also need a stomach for volatility since technology stocks are extremely volatile. That’s because technology itself changes so fast. Before you know it, your golden goose egg has pulled a Bind Therapeutics. […]
One problem we come across when trying to write about disruptive technologies is that they change so fast we can barely keep up. Not only that, but then we’ll realize that we’ve been writing about a particular topic for half a decade without even truly understanding the fundamentals behind how it works. Take 3D printing for […]
Futurists make a living – or at least headlines – by offering predictions about how trends and technologies today might play out in the future. We’ve quoted one or two of them in the past here, such as Ray Kurzweil or SoftBank’s Masayoshi Son, who both believe we are nearing the Singularity, when machines will […]
Things achieve value based on a variety of factors, rarity being one. The rarer something is, ergo, the more valuable or unique it becomes, whether we’re talking about a 50-year-old Scotch or a Def Leppard fan under the age of 45. In other words, rarity isn’t always about price but prestige and exclusivity. We talked […]
From customized sneakers to orbital rockets, its seems that 3D printing is making a comeback thanks to a new wave of innovation. A $200 million mega-round in late December helped 2017 finish as the best year ever for venture-capital-backed startups in terms of funding. One of the industry’s biggest boosters, GE, believes 3D printing will […]
When we first heard about 3D printing, it was a rumor floating around in the recesses of Hewlett-Packard’s (NYSE:HPQ) printer development teams. Someone had heard that HPE was actually printing chess pieces, something that sounded right out of Star Trek. Then when desktop 3D printing started gaining in popularity, people found that printing chess pieces just […]
The real value behind 3D printing is what some refer to as “distributed manufacturing“, the idea that we no longer have to build everything at a single centralized factory but instead we can build at multiple decentralized locations. In addition to saving on transport and shipping costs, another value-add is that of flexibility. Imagine a world someday where […]
The 3D printing industry has seen its booms and busts during its short lifespan. The industry first shot into prominence in 2009, after a key patent that covered the technology expired. Then in 2014, the patent for laser sintering technology, the most prominent tech for 3D printing metals, expired as well. Since then, we have […]