Do you recall a very competent entertainment producer, Dick Rowe? Naw, me neither. Dick used all the tools and judgments of his considerable past experience to assess a band’s likelihood of success. He rejected a group. Now, think of the names: John, Paul, George and Ringo. Yep. Dick passed up managing The Beatles.
Yesterday, I observed a similar “expert” put down, in a rather insulting and blunt manner, an enthusiastic investor in TexX Slack Chat #trading. The “expert” used all the predictable arguments we learned in business school and our experience with the traditional markets-as-usual world to essentially call the other person a financial ignoramus.
It occurred to me that here was another Dick Rowe(ish) expert in action. It would appear that his smug appreciation of the past gives him the right to dominate the visions of futurists. He appears to have no idea of the gianormous paradigm shift that blockchain is creating even as I write. Instead of appearing as the expert of his imagination, he appears as just another negative, smug fogy.
Our “expert” has hordes of company in every field of human endeavour. Many conservative thinkers cling to the security of past successes and lessons learned because, in part, their egos will not allow them to consider that a tidal wave of the Great Unwashed could possibly displace the hallowed positions of “expertdom”. They tout their educational and business credentials of yesteryear to tut-tut away the possibilities of new horizons.
It is surely galling for our “expert” fogies to observe geeky/nerdy youngsters effectively holding court on YouTube and other media and earning small fortunes by embracing and creating new technologies – technologies to shift various forms of “wealth” from the privileged few to the masses. Yikes! It must also be frightening to consider that very soon few will require their "expert" services; either they will have to, dog forbid, change or be without future income... Severe Yikes!
It’s also instructive to observe how the very same “experts” were a mere six months ago chortling to kindred spirit fogies that bitcoin wasn’t something one would consider as an investment. I know that because I used to subscribe to a financial think tank publication. Today, I see that same “expert” has written a book and introduces himself as a “technology and crypto currency expert”. Again, he’s not alone. See the banks, governmental agencies, trading houses and the like suddenly experience their ah-haaaa moments.
It’s exciting that the tools of today and tomorrow equip all of us to be our own central bankers, trading houses, publishing houses, investment houses, and our own effective research entities. Those tools are as accessible as our smartphones. Imagine. Blockchain technology is as democratizing today as was the invention of the printing press. That surely must be a frightening prospect for the “Expert Class".