1/ In September 1993, then-Microsoft exec Nathan Myhrvold wrote his landmark memo "Road Kill on the Information Highway", laying out a dozen-ish predictions on the rise of the internet

27 years later, I think it's a super interesting case study. Let's evaluate the predictions -

2/ PREDICTION #1: The rise of a surveillance society - police bodycams, CCTV, 24/7 personal recording, and deepfakes

GRADE: A-

Pretty close!

3/ PREDICTION #2: Telecommuting, an end to the "tyranny of geography" and gerrymandering

GRADE: B-

Alas, the electoral college still matters today. The WFH prediction hits closer, but turns out it took two and a half decades + a pandemic to get things going

4/ PREDICTION #3: Telco convergence - phone companies become cable providers and vice versa

GRADE: A-

Honestly this one was a bit of a layup, although it took 15 years longer than anyone expected

5/ PREDICTION #4: The rise of online neo-banks

GRADE: C

Three decades later, and physical banks still exist. Neobanks have a presence in emerging markets, UK, and basically nowhere else. Regulatory inertia: officially a thing

6/ PREDICTION #5: "Newspapers are in probably the worst situation of any form of print media"

GRADE: A+

Frankly I was shocked by the prescience of this section. Newspapers were once local advertising monopolies. The internet broke that monopoly

7/ PREDICTION #6: "Television broadcasters are some of the most likely fodder for roadkill of any of the current media companies"

GRADE: B+

Pretty much right, but 21 years too early. Broadcasters kept growing until 2014

8/ PREDICTION #7: The internet will expand the market for Hollywood content. Also, Blockbuster is toast

GRADE: A

The iron law of media investing is that over any long enough timeframe, value inexorably accrues to the content owner

9/ PREDICTION #8: Traditional PCs will be replaced by lightweight, low-end internet terminals

GRADE: C+

Say what you will about low end disruption, but after all these years I still don't want to use a Chromebook

10/ In retrospect, most of Myrhvold's predictions were pretty good. His call on the print media was spectacularly right. His calls on TV, Hollywood, and telcos took a while, but ultimately happened. Telecommuting and 24/7 surveillance are still shifting in realtime...

11/ The one catch? Timing

Nearly all these predictions took 15-20+ years to play out. WFH is still 25+ years in the making. Nothing in the memo (except shorting newspapers) would've been investable on any reasonable timeframe

Predicting the future is easy. Making money is hard!