A Response to “What Is Going To Happen In 2016”
January 5, 2016I like what Fred Wilson has to say most of the time. Whenever I see a link to AVC, I know it’ll be interesting and thought-out.
He wrote an article entitled “What Is Going To Happen In 2016” a few days ago and I had a few responses to what his predictions are.
1. “VR”
“Games will be the strongest early use case…” I couldn’t disagree more. While games may become something big, I actually disagree that the technology is “underwhelming” and in fact, think it’s overwhelming. After initially taking it easy during a demo a few months back, I tried to make myself motion sick while just turning my head and having the view send me skyward. Without doing anything approaching what a first-person shooter would offer, I was queasy in less than three seconds. Here’s Missy trying it out:
2. “wearables”
I 100% agree with this. We’re starting to see the decreasing costs usually associated with software now being applied to hardware. That can only mean more opportunities for new creations in this field.
3. “big four”
Given how shaky things have been for many companies, I think predicting that just one will falter might even be undercutting it.
4. “drone sector”
I highly disagree that “the FAA regulations on the commercial drone industry will turn out to be a boon for the drone sector.” For business use, “you may not fly your UAS for commercial purpose without the express permission from the FAA,” including when “selling photos or videos taken from a [drone].” That means everyone from a real estate agents, wedding photographers, etc, need to apply for a Section 333 which has an 88% approval rate so far.
That also means that the pilot has to always be able to see the drone and autonomous flight is impossible. I know the feasibility of that is still a way off, but that’s when we’re going to see a “boon for the drone sector.”
5. “publishing inside of social networks… will go badly for a number of high profile publishers”
This type of issue has been a simmering problem for Facebook. I think we’ll see more of the same: people identifying the problem, but it not being enough of an issue to change much.
6. “HBO”
“Time Warner will spin off its HBO business to create a direct competitor to Netflix” must mean in purely the corporate sense because HBO NOW is 100% that from a user perspective already.
7. “Bitcoin”
Maybe I’m too nerdy, but Bitcoin getting a “killer app” would be great. I think we saw the general public’s reaction to it already though. It was a gold stand-in and I don’t see that changing anytime soon.
8. “Slack spam”
I have no idea what he means by this. When an organization controls who can post on an internal messaging system that doesn’t have any external connections besides those allowed, how could spam happen? This isn’t AIM or email. Is there Yammer spam?
9. “president”
He’s mostly right. I agree on his prediction about Hillary, but Trump? I’m going to stick with 538 on this.
10. “Markdown mania”
This one is very interesting. It’s no secret that many have predicted we’re overvaluing many start-ups. People have said that about Snapchat from day one. That doesn’t mean they’re wrong. Given the cheap access to capital and the rising interest rates, I wouldn’t be surprised if these middle-tier companies suffered. And there’s certainly an opportunity there for Crunchbase to track it.
As for when “employees will realize their options are underwater and will start leaving tech startups in droves,” I’m not sure. I think they’ll leave the current ones and start creating actually lean start-ups with remote teams that are hyper-focused on smaller markets. The large one-size-fits-all consumer companies have started to fall off. I was part of the beginning of it with the changes at Viddy. So yes, they’ll leave the current crop of tech startups with super-hip working environments, fancy meals, and cool offices, but they’ll move into higher-margin, smaller-cap tech companies.
So I’m not just proving Cunningham’s Law, I’ll try to write up my own predictions for 2016.
