Reading up on the dot-com bubble while soaking in the bath, I came across Buffett's 1999 speech: The U.S. once had about 2,000 car brands, but only a few survived in the end. Between 1919-1939, around 300 airplane manufacturers emerged. The aviation industry fared even worse—129 airlines went bankrupt in just 20 years, and the cumulative profit of the industry since its inception is almost zero. Technological revolutions are innovations on the scale of human civilization, but having a favorable competitive landscape and making money for shareholders is a whole different story. Buffett joked: If you knew cars were going to win, the best trade might not have been buying cars, but rolling over short positions on horses (their numbers). If I had been at Kitty Hawk in 1903 and seen the Wright brothers take flight for the first time, if I were visionary enough and cared enough about future capitalists, I should’ve shot them down. Of course, shorting horses is just a joke. In hindsight, the answer for cars was oil companies, and for aviation, it was engine manufacturers and logistics companies like FedEx. A\ is about to go public, and it’s pretty clear where we are in the cycle and at what percentile position we’re likely sitting.