Personal requirements
- Domains and problems where I can build or solve things on my own, starting small, and create value for society or a niche of people, based on their likely problems and needs over the next 5–10 years.
- They should leverage my skills as a software engineer, data engineer, and problem solver, while assuming I can learn and acquire new skills and knowledge quickly.
- Problems I can tackle alone: no need for a large team, heavy infrastructure, or significant capital. I can develop the skills I need along the way, even if that takes time and effort. They should be feasible as a solo venture, starting as a side project.
- Prioritize problems that will matter in the next 5–10 years.
- Solving problems for people who can pay is preferable.
- Apply second- and third-order thinking.
Assumptions about the future (2027–2037)
These notes are a first-order scan of trends and signals I use to stress-test ideas about domains and problems. They are a research aid, not a forecast. Second- and third-order effects are usually where durable opportunities show up.
AI & Software Economics
1. SaaS pricing flips from per-seat to outcome-based by ~2028, as AI agents navigate software autonomously and enterprises slash per-seat licenses; Gartner projects agentic AI could drive $450 billion+ in enterprise app revenue by 2035.
2. AI coding tools collapse startup creation costs by 90%+, shifting defensibility from "can you build it?" to "can you distribute it?"; customer acquisition cost, not engineering, becomes the primary moat for software companies.
3. A new multi-billion-dollar "agent governance" category emerges by 2028 (monitoring, auditing, and securing AI agent behavior), paralleling how cloud computing spawned cloud security a decade earlier.
4. AI's real GDP contribution lags investment by 5–7 years, creating a "productivity paradox"; Goldman Sachs estimates measurable US GDP impact begins ~2027, eventually adding 1.5 percentage points per year to productivity growth.
🔗 AI GDP Growth 2030 (Cognitive Today) 🔗 AI in the workplace (McKinsey)
5. The consumer goods and retail sector has the second-highest potential for AI value creation but the lowest AI investment rate; early movers gain outsized advantage before AI-driven consolidation hits in 2027–2030.
Labor & the Future of Work
6. AI hollows out the junior professional class before senior roles, creating a "missing generation" in law, finance, and consulting; firms cutting entry-level hiring 20–25% now will face a severe shortage of experienced professionals by 2032–2035.
7. Jevons' Paradox holds for software: AI doubles developer productivity, but the cost drop makes previously uneconomical projects viable, so total demand for developers increases; much as spreadsheets expanded the accountant profession.
8. Working-age population decline outside Sub-Saharan Africa makes AI/robotics adoption an economic necessity, not a choice, for developed nations by 2030; countries that resist automation face fiscal crises as dependency ratios spike.
9. "AI fluency" becomes a universal meta-skill that slows the rate of skill obsolescence; the WEF's measured skill instability dropped from 57% to 39% as workers who learn to use AI find their abilities more transferable across domains.
10. The legal industry's billable-hour model cracks by 2028, as AI completes document review in minutes; flat fees, subscriptions, and outcome-based pricing emerge, and larger AI-equipped firms undercut smaller ones on fixed-price work.
Healthcare & Longevity
11. GLP-1 drug adoption reaches 20–30% of US adults by 2030, driven by oral formulations and generic competition after semaglutide's patent expiry; per-user caloric intake drops 21%, structurally shrinking snack and fast-food volumes.
🔗 Global GLP-1 Market Forecast 2035 (Roots Analysis) 🔗 GLP-1 Medications Force Food Industry Rethink (IFT)
12. "GLP-1 friendly" becomes the next "gluten-free"; food companies reformulate toward high-protein, smaller-portion products as GLP-1 households cut grocery spending 5%, fast food 8%, and savory snacks ~10%.
🔗 Ozempic is changing the foods Americans buy (Cornell Chronicle)
13. Life insurance and health insurance actuarial tables undergo significant repricing by 2028–2030, as population-level GLP-1 adoption reduces cardiovascular events, diabetes progression, and obesity-related comorbidities.
14. AI-biotech convergence (AlphaFold 3, CRISPR-GPT) compresses drug development timelines by 30–50%, enabling smaller biotech firms to compete with Big Pharma and making precision medicine economically viable for broader populations.
🔗 CRISPR in 2025: Revolutionizing Genetic Medicine (WebProNews)
15. Non-communicable diseases account for 75%+ of global deaths by 2030, with cancer DALYs rising to 388 million by 2050: forcing a massive shift from treatment toward prevention, wearable diagnostics, and AI screening.
Mental Health & Loneliness
16. Mental health conditions cost the global economy $6 trillion annually by 2030, making mental health the single largest disease burden category and driving digital mental health tools to scale as routine as physical health management.
🔗 Mental disorders in individuals under 24 (Frontiers in Public Health)
17. The loneliness epidemic drives an estimated $14 trillion in cumulative healthcare costs by 2040 and spawns a new category of "social infrastructure" businesses; co-living, community platforms, social prescribing, intergenerational housing.
🔗 Loneliness: Tackling A Trillion Dollar Epidemic (FTI Communications) 🔗 The Loneliness Economy in 2026 (Ayerhs Magazine) 🔗 Loneliness Statistics (Mastermind Behavior)
18. Gen Z's unprecedented mental health burden (41% affected vs. 21% of older adults) reshapes employer benefits, real estate design, and consumer preferences; companies without robust mental health benefits fail to attract young talent.
Demographics & Society
19. Global fertility drops below replacement (2.1) by 2030, a full four years earlier than previously projected; triggering permanent structural labor shortages that no policy intervention is likely to reverse.
🔗 Population tipping point could arrive by 2030 (Science/AAAS)
20. By the mid-2030s, people aged 80+ outnumber infants globally (265 million) for the first time in human history, creating a multi-trillion-dollar "longevity economy" in age-tech, senior housing, and late-life healthcare.
21. The US faces a caregiving labor shortfall of 151,000+ workers by 2030 (355,000 by 2040), making care-tech; remote monitoring, companion robots, AI caregivers; one of the fastest-growing venture categories.
22. One-third of Americans turning 45 in 2050 will never have married, restructuring housing demand (smaller units, co-living), healthcare delivery (no informal caregivers), and consumer spending (pet/companion economy surges).
🔗 A Record Share of Young Adults Will Never Marry (Institute for Family Studies)
Energy & Climate
23. Solar PV capacity quadruples by 2035, but grid investment lags at half the pace; grid infrastructure companies, transformer manufacturers, and power electronics firms capture more value than solar panel makers.
🔗 IEA Forecasts ~540 GW Annual Solar PV Growth By 2035 (TaiyangNews) 🔗 World Energy Outlook 2025 Executive Summary (IEA)
24. Battery storage becomes the fastest-growing power technology through 2035 (~135 GW annually), and solar-plus-storage becomes the cheapest 24/7 power source; energy-intensive industries begin relocating to high-irradiance regions.
25. Global oil demand peaks around 2030 at ~105.5 million barrels/day, while production capacity reaches 114.7 mb/d; the resulting supply glut tests OPEC+ cohesion, triggers OECD refinery closures, and forces oil companies to rebrand as chemical companies.
26. EV adoption past ~40% market penetration triggers a "death spiral" for ICE: gas stations close, repair costs rise, resale values collapse; this feedback loop means EV adoption follows an S-curve that accelerates far beyond linear projections.
🔗 Top Factors Affecting EV Adoption (EV Connect) 🔗 Goodbye Oil Changes: What 40–80% EV Adoption Looks Like (CleanTechnica) 🔗 Global EV Outlook 2025 (IEA)
27. Government fossil fuel tax revenue shortfalls exceed $65 billion globally by 2030 as EVs displace gasoline, forcing rollout of road-use charges, per-mile fees, and GPS-based tolling; creating new businesses around pricing infrastructure.
Climate Adaptation & Resources
28. Climate adaptation grows from $1T to $4T annual revenue by 2050, with $1T addressable by private capital by 2030; every dollar spent yields up to $10 in benefits, making it one of the highest-ROI investment themes.
🔗 Climate adaptation investment opportunities (WEF) 🔗 How to Get Finance Flowing to Climate Adaptation (WRI)
29. Insurers retreat from climate-exposed regions, making properties uninsurable and collapsing mortgage lending, property values, and local tax bases; "climate gentrification" drives premium pricing in low-risk zones while creating potential systemic risk.
30. A 40% global freshwater deficit by 2030 drives $6.7 trillion in water infrastructure investment needs; desalination, wastewater reuse, and smart irrigation become essential, and water-efficient companies gain structural competitive advantage.
🔗 Water Scarcity: A Growing Investment Concern (Morgan Stanley) 🔗 Scaling up finance for a water-secure future (World Bank) 🔗 Water Scarcity: Sustainable Investors Address a Growing Scourge (AllianceBernstein)
31. Climate-driven crop yield declines of 5–25% in key breadbaskets by 2030 make food security a national security priority; agricultural land values shift northward, precision agriculture accelerates, and food commodity price spikes become regular.
Economy, Finance & Geopolitics
32. The $84 trillion Great Wealth Transfer from Boomers to younger generations shifts capital into crypto, alternatives, sustainable investments, and real estate; 72% of millennial/Gen Z investors believe above-average returns require going beyond traditional stocks and bonds.
🔗 Great Wealth Transfer (Wikipedia) 🔗 How Will the Great Wealth Transfer Impact Markets? (Merrill)
33. ~50% of all global VC funding now flows to AI companies ($211B in 2025, up 85% YoY), creating a structural capital drought for non-AI startups; the mid-stage "valley of death" widens, and M&A surges as incumbents acquire struggling unicorns at discounted valuations.
34. Global public debt exceeding $100 trillion (92% of GDP, heading toward 100%) crowds out private investment and forces a reckoning; nations that manage AI-driven productivity gains grow out; those that don't face fiscal crises.
35. India grows at 6.5–7.5% annually through the late 2020s with its working-age population peaking in the 2030s (unlike China's, which already peaked), making it the primary "friendshoring" destination and the world's most consequential emerging consumer market.
36. On-chain tokenization of real-world assets surges from ~$19B toward $2–4 trillion by 2030 (McKinsey), starting with sovereign debt and moving to equities and real estate; fractional ownership democratizes access to previously illiquid asset classes.
🔗 RWAs Became Wall Street's Gateway to Crypto (The Defiant) 🔗 Tokenized assets could surpass $11T by 2030 (The Block / Ark Invest) 🔗 Tokenization Trends for Real-World Assets in 2026 (BDO)
Real Estate & Housing
37. A structural 6.5-million-unit housing deficit across developed economies keeps prices elevated even with rate cuts; affordable housing becomes a dominant political and investment theme, and modular/prefab construction scales as a necessity.
38. ~60% of US office inventory (Class B/C, 1970s–1990s stock) becomes structurally obsolete; office-to-residential adaptive reuse becomes a $50B+ annual market, with cities competing via tax abatements to incentivize conversions.
🔗 Will 2025 be pivotal for commercial real estate? (WEF) 🔗 Conversions+ Turns Stranded Offices Into Valuable Real Estate (Gensler) 🔗 Cities cut red tape to turn offices into housing (Stateline) 🔗 Converting Vacant Offices to Housing (Bipartisan Policy Center)
39. Remote work permanence (~20% of workdays from home) drives sustained suburban/exurban housing demand, last-mile delivery expansion in secondary cities, and a boom in suburban mixed-use "live-work-play" developments.
🔗 How Remote Work is Affecting Real Estate Markets (Penn IUR) 🔗 How Remote Work is Shaping Commercial Real Estate (Private Capital Investors)
Education & Credentials
40. The US higher education enrollment cliff triggers 200+ college closures by 2030, devastating college-town economies; survivors pivot to corporate training and lifelong learning, and distressed campus real estate becomes an adaptive-reuse opportunity.
41. Skills-based hiring reaches rhetorical critical mass (85% of employers claim it), but actual implementation lags; the real shift is slower than headlines suggest, but the bachelor's degree premium erodes 20–30% for non-professional roles long-term.
🔗 Why Skills-Based Hiring is the Future of Work (Kelly Services)
Consumer Behavior & Culture
42. AI-generated content constitutes ~90% of all online content by 2026 (Dentsu), triggering a "trust collapse" that creates a multi-billion-dollar content verification and provenance industry; "verified human" becomes a premium label.
43. Subscription fatigue forces a shift to flexible, hybrid models (easy pause/cancel), while "intentional spending" replaces impulse buying; products with real customer video testimonials convert 3.2x faster, and 58% of consumers prefer brands supporting local economies.
44. An "analog resurgence" becomes a $200B+ counter-trend by 2030: vinyl outsells CDs, dumbphone sales hit 1.1 billion units, and experience venues outperform as digital exhaustion peaks among under-40 demographics.
45. The global pet economy surpasses $500 billion by 2030, driven by the "child substitute" effect as birth/marriage rates decline; pet healthcare spending explodes and per-household spending rivals early-childhood spending.
🔗 Global Pet Industry To Grow To $500B By 2030 (Bloomberg Intelligence)
Legal, Regulatory & Trust
46. AI liability frameworks are established across all major economies by 2028, spawning a $50B+ AI compliance industry: "AI governance-as-a-service" becomes a major SaaS category, and human-in-the-loop requirements create entirely new labor categories.
🔗 What's on the Horizon for Data, Technology, Privacy (Baker McKenzie)
47. Regulatory fragmentation between the EU (prescriptive AI Act), US (deregulatory federal, patchwork state), and China (content-labeling mandates) forces parallel compliance architectures; structural moat for large firms, barrier for startups.
🔗 What's on the Horizon for Data, Technology, Privacy (Baker McKenzie)
Niche & Unexpected Areas
48. The global sports betting market nearly doubles to ~$200–250B by 2030, restructuring sports media rights deals (+25–40% premiums for betting integration) and creating parallel growth in problem-gambling treatment and gambling-aware financial products.
49. First commercial small modular nuclear reactors come online 2029–2031, with AI data centers as the killer app; tech companies become anchor customers whose committed orderbooks drive costs down, eventually extending SMRs to desalination and industrial heat.
🔗 NEA Small Modular Reactor Dashboard (OECD) 🔗 SMRs Power AI: Nuclear Data Center Revolution (Introl)
50. Satellite internet constellations (100,000+ satellites by 2030) connect 500M–1B new internet users in previously disconnected regions, creating massive greenfield markets for mobile-first e-commerce, fintech, telemedicine, and precision agriculture; the "last billion" becomes the next frontier for consumer internet.
The highest-leverage opportunities sit not at the point of initial disruption, but one or two steps downstream, in the infrastructure that supports it, the behavioral shifts it triggers, and the second-order markets it creates.
Excluded assumptions
Assumptions I'm discarding or choosing not to act on: