"Mobile phones will disappear in five years" is a wild statement of trend speculators

Lebo Capital founder Yang Ning's recent remarks are nothing short of shocking. In an interview, he said that " mobile phones will disappear within five years ." The core argument for this conclusion is based on Yang Ning's experience in venture capital: "When a big wave comes, people tend to underestimate the revolutionary and disruptive power behind technological evolution." So based on this argument, smartphones and mobile Internet can be disrupted. Yang Ning's second important argument is, "If all terminal devices are intelligent. When communication, sending and receiving information, various applications and functions become standard for all smart devices, why do you still need a mobile phone in your trouser pocket?"

Let’s not discuss whether Mr. Yang Ning’s views are right or wrong. To be honest, I really appreciate Mr. Yang Ning’s perspective in thinking about and raising questions.

Indeed, people tend to underestimate the revolutionary and disruptive power behind technological evolution in the historical process of business and social change, because the public usually instinctively fears the unknown and uncertainty of new things, especially disruptive things that change the way of life and work. But compared with the public, investors are not much better, they tend to overestimate the revolutionary and disruptive power behind technological evolution.

Toutiaoge believes that there are many reasons why most investors overestimate the revolutionary and disruptive nature of technology, but the most important one is the difference between investors and entrepreneurs. That is, although investors and entrepreneurs both like gambling and are good at calculating, investors gamble for a short time, purely for speculation to make huge profits, while entrepreneurs gamble for a lifetime, and can only make huge profits and achieve a career by making business operations that meet market needs and rules. This difference determines that investors care more about business concepts and valuation appreciation, rather than thinking about the development trajectory and change trend of business from a market perspective.

Therefore, investors represented by Mr. Yang Ning saw the huge business opportunities of "smart everything", but aimed the future of the market at "intelligent" your watch, your necklace, your ring, your glasses, your car, your table, your house... and the smartphone, the terminal device that gave birth to and popularized the mobile Internet, the application platform that allows the public to complete most daily life scenarios with the most suitable visual and tactile experience, has become a backward product that can be abandoned and subverted at any time in the eyes of some investors.

Toutiaoge thinks that this is a typical manifestation of disrespecting market rules, and it is also a superficial disease that investors often make. Investors are often the most sensitive group of creatures, which is comparable to entrepreneurs, but their biggest problem is that they often see business opportunities but cannot understand the most essential things behind the business opportunities. Take Mr. Yang Ning as an example. Yang Ning claimed that 5-10 years ago, he predicted that "the Internet will completely conquer people's lives and work methods", and cited the example that IDG rose through crazy investments in Internet companies in 1999, and he will bet on the future in the fields of intelligence and intelligent robots, and become "the IDG in the future intelligent robot field, investing in everything, not one less."

At first glance, I believe everyone thinks that what Mr. Yang Ning said makes sense, but Toutiao brother thinks that Mr. Yang Ning may not understand the essence of business transformation since the emergence of the Internet. Sorry, it is not a simple technological innovation, but the combination and progress of the Internet and technology, which has brought about disruptive changes in the way humans communicate, collaborate and share what they have in space and time. As a result, the way humans meet their needs, the mechanism of social organization collaboration, and the efficiency of market resource allocation are constantly evolving rapidly, giving birth to various huge business opportunities.

Therefore, there was not much market space for PCs that could be used for programming and office work. However, PCs connected to the Internet were the best carrier at the time and became the basis for a series of business changes and developments. As the changes and evolutions deepened and the gaps in market demand were constantly filled, world or Chinese Internet giants in various fields such as Yahoo, Sohu, Google, Baidu, Tencent, Facebook, eBay, Alibaba, Amazon, and JD.com were born one after another. As smartphones became the best carriers for mobile Internet and began to become popular, many business changes and developments will revolve around smartphones as mobile terminals.

That is to say, for a long time in the future, smartphones will become the mother of new market breeding and innovation due to their many product advantages. What about the so-called "smart everything" intelligent wave and the field of intelligent robots that Mr. Yang Ning values ​​more? Toutiaoge believes that innovation in this field is a supplement and enrichment of scene applications in the mobile era, and is not a rigid demand for human daily life and work. If there is a major technological innovation, it is at most to innovate a new application scene or application method. At the technological level, it may be a revolutionary innovation, but from the perspective of market demand, it can only be regarded as a micro-innovation, which is not enough to subvert the entire mobile Internet business, let alone replace the position of smartphones as the best carrier of mobile Internet business.

Therefore, I think Mr. Yang Ning is more like a typical trend speculator who "invests in everything, not one less" in search of various business opportunities, rather than an entrepreneur who can truly grasp the essence of business and find innovative blue oceans. As Mr. Yang Ning himself said, the biggest reason he invests in smart projects is because "many smart projects are valued very cheaply. After a while, the valuations will skyrocket, and it will be impossible to invest even if you want to."

This is why Toutiao Ge advises entrepreneurs not to listen completely to the advice of investors, but to think about the essential reasons for business changes, respect market demand and rules, find their own suitable areas for career development and explore feasible business models.

Finally, I want to "complain" about Mr. Yang Ning's view that mobile Internet will be overturned and smartphones will disappear in 5 years. Don't you know that business transformation is not about raising fast-growing chickens? Don't you see that 4G network is still being improved, and smartphones need to be popularized to more people around the world? In the field of intelligent robots, even artificial intelligence technology has not made a real breakthrough? You are too naive!

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.