A college dropout changed the world 16 months ago...
He didn't come from a major tech company like Google or Microsoft. Nor did he take a linear path to the history books...
In 2005, Sam Altman left Stanford University at the age of 19 to co-found a social-networking app called Loopt. The app connected users with other people based on their location.
Altman was able to raise $30 million in venture-capital financing. But seven years in, the app wasn't taking off. So he sold it for $43 million to fintech firm Green Dot.
The very next month, Altman and his brother started their own venture-capital firm, calling it Hydrazine Capital.
The duo invested in companies like Patreon (a crowdfunding platform for artists and content creators) and Flexport (a licensed freight forwarder and shipping company in California).
This is where the story takes a turn. As I'll explain today, what happens next has fueled the current stock market boom. And that's not about to change anytime soon...
In 2015, Altman – alongside Elon Musk, Amazon Web Services, and other big names in tech – founded OpenAI. The artificial-intelligence ("AI") research company launched with $1 billion in funding.
Seven years later, OpenAI changed the industry forever...
On November 30, 2022, with Altman at the helm, it debuted ChatGPT. The AI chatbot blew AI's potential wide open. Its AI language model could assist users in ways no other computer model had before...
The chatbot was able to "learn" from data to create entirely new content. Importantly, though, the software didn't just perform all kinds of duties – it also put AI in the hands of a broad audience.
From high schoolers to CEOs, just about anyone could use ChatGPT. It could write essays and press releases in seconds... answer math problems... write and fix advanced code... manage busy schedules... churn through large data sets... and more.
The chatbot was an overnight sensation. Everyone wanted to test it out. It was so popular that its servers often became overwhelmed with requests, freezing the program.
The big names have gone "all in" on the next steps for this new technology...
In January, Meta Platforms (META) CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he plans to build out a huge AI infrastructure by the end of 2024, running on a massive supply of AI chips.
Zuckerberg expects the project to include the equivalent of 600,000 Nvidia (NVDA) AI graphics processing units ("GPUs"). At roughly $25,000 to $30,000 per GPU, that's somewhere between a $15 billion and $18 billion investment.
Microsoft (MSFT) is going after the AI chip market as well... And the same is true of Amazon (AMZN) and Google's parent company Alphabet (GOOGL).
The new goal is to create AI models that can handle all kinds of generative tasks. And ChatGPT helped accelerate this shift in AI. The generative AI industry was worth $6 billion in 2023. According to market research company Omdia, it could hit $59 billion by 2028.
This new era of AI fueled the stock market boom we saw last year. But it's far from over...
Much of this AI spending is going toward building new data centers housing GPUs. That kind of AI-specific spending was around $90 billion last year. It's estimated that could grow to $800 billion by 2027.
That will lead to some incredible winners in the stock market. Companies that supply chips, build the data centers, or just generally use the new infrastructure to create new businesses all stand to benefit.
The AI revolution will lead to hundreds of billions of dollars in corporate spending, too... the kind of spending wave that no one saw coming just 15 months ago. And that's a surefire way to fuel a stock market boom.
The world has changed. And a college dropout helped make that change possible.
For investors, the shift to AI is creating all kinds of opportunities in many parts of the market. And that's a powerful reason to be bullish over the next few years.
Good investing,
Chris Igou
Further Reading
Fraudsters are now enlisting the help of AI to carry out cyberattacks. That means companies will need to beef up their security practices to deal with these threats. And that spells opportunity for one sector... Read more here.
"The world now values semiconductors more than oil," Vic Lederman writes. These tiny chips have become crucial to modern innovations. Without them, many industries would grind to a halt. Here's one investment that stands to benefit as demand continues to soar... Learn more here.
HIGHS AND LOWS
NEW HIGHS OF NOTE LAST WEEK
JPMorgan Chase (JPM)... financial giant
American Express (AXP)... financial giant
Amazon (AMZN)... online-retail king
Meta Platforms (META)... social media giant
Nvidia (NVDA)... chip giant
Advanced Micro Devices (AMD)... semiconductors
Qualcomm (QCOM)... semiconductors
Salesforce (CRM)... customer-management software
Netflix (NFLX)... video streaming
Spotify Technology (SPOT)... audio streaming
Dell Technologies (DELL)... laptops and PCs
Garmin (GRMN)... GPS and wearables
Costco Wholesale (COST)... membership-only stores
Sprouts Farmers Market (SFM)... grocery stores
Home Depot (HD)... home-improvement products
Lennar (LEN)... homebuilder
NVR (NVR)... homebuilder
Sherwin-Williams (SHW)... paint
General Electric (GE)... manufacturing
Caterpillar (CAT)... heavy machinery
NEW LOWS OF NOTE LAST WEEK
Newmont (NEM)... gold miner
Royal Gold (RGLD)... gold royalties
MP Materials (MP)... rare earth mining
Chemours (CC)... chemicals
Sasol (SSL)... chemicals
