Futureworld brings you Mindbullets: News from the Future, to spark strategic thinking about leadership, innovation and digital disruption. These fictitious scenarios aim to challenge conventional mindsets and promote understanding of the future context for business.
October 29 2031
Forty years ago, science fiction author Ben Bova surmised that the world’s first trillionaire would be born on the back of commercial space operations, and he wasn’t wrong. According to Forbes, Elon Musk’s personal fortune has quadrupled in a decade and stands at just over a trillion dollars, making him not only the world’s richest person, but also the first — and only — trillionaire.
And it is only partly due to the success of Tesla, which catapulted Musk to the top of the billionaires’ club with an estimated net worth of $250bn in October 2021. At the time, Morgan Stanley rated SpaceX the most valuable private company; that was when Starlink was barely operating a full network, and Starship prototypes hadn’t reached orbit yet.
But the vision for SpaceX was clear. The business of space was wide open for innovation and market dominance, and SpaceX had first-mover advantage. Fully reusable Starships would not only service space stations and the Moon, but would be capable of transporting 100 tonnes of cargo around the world in less than an hour. And eventually travel to Mars.
Since then, Starlink has expanded its constellation to thousands of satellites, providing high bandwidth internet to almost every corner of the globe. Starship and its gigantic boosters have rewritten the economics of space launches, and SpaceX has gone public. As the single founder, visionary, and “technoking” of SpaceX, Musk has held on to majority of the stock, and every tick upwards ratchets his fortune higher.
Musk is a maverick and a bit of a daredevil, who is willing to risk his own money on a dream, to change the world. In the start-up days of Tesla and SpaceX he was almost broke. Now that he can afford to buy a whole country, or perhaps several small ones, what will he invest in next? —Date published: October 28 2021
Please get richer Jeff Bezos
The world needs more value and growth
April 9 2025
Once again, Jeff Bezos is top of the Forbes world billionaires’ list, just as he was four years ago in 2021. Bezos founded Amazon. He got rich (it wasn’t quick). Now we need him to become even richer, and quickly. The world needs it; we need the value he creates, and the growth he enables.
That is the thing about money. It only accrues to those who create value. Unless you are crooked or a thief, you won’t become rich by destroying value, or making everyone else poorer. Building a business that produces value for customers and stakeholders, jobs for employees, and opportunities for other businesses, is the surest way to become sustainably wealthy. And if you do it as well as Bezos, you become super-rich.
Amazon is successful because it is obsessed with creating more value and better experiences for its customers. That includes most of us. Amazon also leverages digital tech to scale that success, and to provide platforms for other businesses to also be successful. It creates value, and also enables the creation of value. That is why Amazon is super successful.
Which is why we want Bezos to become even more wealthy; if he does, it means he is creating more value, producing more opportunities, generating better investment returns. For all of us. For the world.
Yes, money is a harsh mistress. It comes to those who produce more than they consume; those that produce net added value. If you consume more than you produce, you are bound to stay poor, and dependent on welfare or handouts. That is why we say hooray for Bezos, and the rest of the super-rich. We need you to get richer. —Date published: April 8 2021
• Despite appearances to the contrary, Futureworld cannot and does not predict the future. The Mindbullets scenarios are fictitious and designed purely to explore possible futures, challenge and stimulate strategic thinking.
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