#12 – The coming decade in tech, the 2020s, and its impact on the world we live in – Part 2

In this episode, the second part of our discussion on the 2020s, we will use our scenario planning methodology to project forward into the latter part of the 2020 decade, so that we can deep-dive into the future of Energy & Climate Change, Healthcare, Education, Financial Services, Retail & Commerce, Leisure & Entertainment and Social & Communication.  Please also listen to our previous episode 11, where we started our time traveling and discussed the Macro landscape - both Governmental/Geopolitical and Non-Governmental, and also User Paradigms around Work, Home and Mobility. Join us for our next episode, episode 13, which will conclude our “Time Travel Trilogy” of the 2020 decade, by delving into Next Platforms & Tech, Venture capital & Start-ups and an overall framing of the 2020s.  Navigation: Introduction (01:24) Section 1 - Energy & Climate Change (02:03) Section 2 - Healthcare (06:30) Section 3 - Education (10:06) Section 4 - Financial Services (14:49) Section 5 - Retail & Commerce (18:13) Section 6 - Leisure & Entertainment (25:26) Section 7 - Social & Communication (41:18) Conclusion (47:13) Our co-hosts: Bertrand Schmitt, Tech Entrepreneur, co-founder and Chairman at App Annie, @bschmitt Nuno Goncalves Pedro, Investor, co-Founder and Managing Partner of Strive Capital, @ngpedro Our show: Tech DECIPHERED brings you the Entrepreneur and Investor views on Big Tech, VC and Start-up news, opinion pieces and research. We decipher their meaning, and add inside knowledge and context. Being nerds, we also discuss the latest gadgets and pop culture news. Subscribe To Our Podcast Full transcription: may contain unintentionally confusing, inaccurate and/or amusing transcription errors Intro (01:24) Bertrand: Welcome back to Tech Deciphered episode 12 on the 2020s.  If you remember our previous episode, episode 11, we started talking about the 2020s, our view about the next decade. Trying to do some scenario planning, trying to project what are the  possible scenarios in 10 years from now of where the world will be. Where some technologies will be. Where some consumer habits will be, and try to walk back from that perspective  and think carefully about what it means and how it could happen or not happen. And obviously, share our opinions of the most likely  scenarios. Section 1 - Energy & Climate Change (02:03) Nuno: And we will start today with energy and climate change. I'm generally optimistic about the discussion around climate change coming out of this shelter in place and lockdowns that we've had around the world. Where people are seeing the effects that we actually have on the environment, and those effects are very obvious. You know, we've taken a little bit of pause. There's a reduction in pollution, and we see the world changes around us. So the momentum, I believe for climate change after this will be a positive one. Just by the nature of what we're observing. There will be two negative levers to this. the first lever that will be negative is the fact that we need to have an economic recovery. And at this moment in time, that economic recovery needs to be fast. So we need to start moving and we need to start moving even faster. In some ways, that will generate probably the impetus for certain governments and certain corporations to more aggressive about manufacturing, logistics and things that we know are implicitly creating pollution. And then the second piece that is negative to this climate change agenda, and us obviously adopting more renewable energies, better technologies, and everything that would make this world that we're currently in, in lockdown, more sustainable into the future is the fact that obviously the price of oil has come down plummeting to levels never seen before. And so it's actually very, very cheap.  So those are the two forces that I believe we're having infighting on. There's many other forces we could have around this, we discussed in the previous episode: the notion around the hermit scenario, or it's certainly the notion that we will spend a lot more time in our homes and in suburban lives, but still then we'll need mobility. So where will we end up on energy? Where will climate change be? Will we finally reverse climate change? Will we have a shot at it in this decade? Will this be the grand decade that we all get better energy, more technology aware energy. Bertrand: Yes, me, I might have an unpopular opinion on this topic. I felt governments of the world were very, very, very, very focused on climate change, trillions of dollars invested. Honestly, not so much to show for it, and very obviously, a complete total miss on some things that was relatively highly probable, which is the emergence of a pandemic. Very, very little spent, nearly nothing. If we talk about bio-defense investment, it was close to zero by most countries in the world. So, for me it raises a few questions: ultimately, it's a choice between what you decide is the most important. And the other piece that has always worried me is the solution. When your solution to climate change is to close nuclear energy stations, and replace that by what?  By renewable energies? Solutions that are either too expensive or cannot power enough, or are not always available when you need them. That's really a big issue I have. And when you see countries that are polluting more as a result of their energy policy, for instance by using way more coal than before I am very worried. If we cannot pick the rational technological solutions, it's pretty worrisome to me. So one hope I have is that we finally invest more, in the right solution, which is more nuclear. Maybe different type of nuclear, but more of it, not less of it. Then I will start to be excited again about trying to solve this. But as long as we have some very, very weird strange policies, I just start to wonder, what is it that we are trying to really solve.   Nuno: We have full agreement on the fact that we will need to re-explore nuclear as a core source of energy. And that's probably one of the very few paths, going forward that allows to us to be more clean in some ways in consumption.  Bertrand and I have disagreements around the importance of tackling climate change, et cetera. For me, this is two sides of the same coin. What we're seeing with the virus is also what we've been seeing with climate change is our mistreatment of the place we live in, is the mistreatment of the place of earth effectively. So we were getting kicked because we just misappropriate assets that were here, and we just think it's all ours because obviously we are the overlords and we control all of this. I do think, you know, climate change needs to still be tackled, agree that nuclear and other options are important for us to move forward. But we will always have this disagreement.  Section 2 - Healthcare (06:30) So maybe let's move to a topic where we have more agreement, which is healthcare. And it can never be the same. Let's start with that.  Healthcare can never be the same, we both live in the US where the system is totally broken, where regulations are now being suspended, we discussed that in a previous episode. So healthcare needs to fundamentally shift. Remote health and telemedicine are a given. There's no scenario I see going forward, telemedicine or remote health are not part of that scenario. Remote diagnostics and ways of doing diagnostics at a distance are more important than ever. You've already talked about bio defense, and maybe you want to go into that too  in a little bit.  All the effects that we've had around the supply chain and pharmaceuticals, PPEs. Everything that is happening in the genetic space needs  to actually accelerate. I predict  a golden age of health care going forward  and pharma because we need to, we need to be prepared for whatever's next. We need to be prepared for the next pandemic. Bertrand: Healthcare it's fantastic when you think about it. The first thing we have to do in this crisis is to throw up decades of stupid regulations that were slowing down the pace of innovation. And not just slowing down by six months, slowing down by a decade some development of new medicines, some development of remote health. This is pretty insane. And I mean, when you think about how easy it was to remove that , but it's also shocking. Let's not forget the other side of that coin, is that these regulations were not there for the right reason in many situations. Of course, you want some level of regulation, but my point is that, we went so overboard, we didn't care in a way if medicine had any impact on people anymore. What matter is that everyone would be as safe as possible in the sense that there is never an issue, there is never a risk for anyone, the patient, the, the doctors, the pharmaceutical companies, and as a result we  killed innovation. We destroyed innovation for the past 10, 20, 30 years, no one wanted to build vaccines anymore because there is just a little gain and too much risk in term of getting sued if there is an issue with your vaccine. So my point is that, this world was completely, completely broken in so many ways. And what has been happening the past few weeks and months has shown that. To be clear, I believe strongly and very thankful about all the doctors, who have been saving life, and nurses and technicians. I just feel they have been constrained in an horrible system designed by politicians and administrators, who don't invest in change, are actually trying to slow things down for all the wrong reasons. So when you think that, you talk about the U.S.,  medications are 3X the price than Canada or Europe for the same medications. So we'll see what change.  Maybe one more point  because we talk about a lot of very important topics, but there are a lot of other stuff super exciting happening  in healthcare, from understanding more the impact of genetics,...