18 Geeky Predictions — 2017 Edition
Well, even if I didn’t do so well in my 2016 predictions, I enjoyed thinking over and reviewing them.
So here I am again, trying to be an oracle again :)
I think 2017 is going to be a de-hyping year. In 2016 we have seen many cool new techs in the market. AI everywhere, Blockchain’s disruption potential, experiencing first-hand AR&VR, scary drones & robots …
That has created a lot of expectation. But for several of them, we are already seeing a lack of adoption (outside of pilot tests) or the difficulties bringing to reality what’s been hyped.
Following the same format as last year:
#1 Security
- Everybody will get hacked: governments, cities, business, apps, SMBs…
We will learn to live with it :) - More investment will go into private/corporate (cyber)security.
We won’t trust (anymore?) the security provided by the previous entities. - Data governance & privacy & big brother will be a big topic, again.
WhatsApp, Alexa, IoT, Machine learning… all those things are going to clash with regulators
#2 Blockchain
- Bitcoin will grow.
We will still not know why - Many Blockchain projects will be abandoned. 💀
My bet is that the geekier ones will get traction 🚜 — ie. security certs, distributed storage, etc. — we should invest in them!💰 - An “important” ICO will flop 📉.
But there will be a new very successful ICO (a new Ethereum?) 📈
#3 Dev tools
- 📢 Public Announcement:
2017 will be server-less year - Big businesses will be built by encapsulating business processes into APIs.
Developers will keep building the software to eat the world, and they need APIs for that!
btw, checkout our latest investment at Juro.io — API for legal contract management. - Every developer will have a side SaaS business :)
#4 ML, AI
- ML will get commoditised.
No researchers needed. We will see it everywhere - The “war” in ML will be about training data.
“How do we acquire more for initial training?” “How do we create more?” “How do we tag it in a smarter way?”…
btw, now that people will stop thinking about improving ML algorithms, somebody might win by doing better algorithms… - We will invest in at least one Vertically-Focused-ML-Startup®
Or an ML-First-Company™
#5 Hardware, IoT, Drones, AR&VR
- It will be an Alexa & Google home year.
That will have two implications:
(a) It will be a Voice-Powered-Anything™ year and
(b) Amazon will become even more valuable - Fog computing or computing at the edge will be relevant again.
- Consumer drones will flop. Sorry :(
But VR will get traction in eSports
Thanks for reading, I wish you a happy and healthy 2017!
Are you building a company in any of such trends?
Please get in touch @DecodingVC so next year I can sound smarter after investing on you :)
