Why Being Late Can Still Mean Capturing 90% of the Upside
The "Three Possible Futures" Series
I originally published this post on my personal blog, but it sparked a deeper exploration into whether I could distill these principles, dubbed as “Three Possible Futures” scenario, into an LLM-powered analysis based solely on a few inputs about a company combined with our growing knowledge base.
This is the first post as part of a series experimenting with applying that framework to both our existing portfolio and new deal flow, helping us envision the broader possibilities within the imagined futures we are navigating.
Update: Including our Audio AI Narrated summary of the post with bonus perspectives.
This past weekend, as I watched SpaceX’s Starship achieve its first successful catch landing—an engineering marvel featuring the now iconic “Mechzilla” — I was struck by what this achievement means for mankind. SpaceX’s vision for Mars is no longer just science fiction; it’s becoming a tangible possibility for the near future. But this moment also reminded me of my original thesis for investing in SpaceX: not just for the dream of Mars, but for the practical, commercial realities of what the company could become.
Watching this Starship landing was a culmination of years of belief in a company that had already proven it could solve the hardest problem in space: cost-effective and reliable launches. What SpaceX is building now is the infrastructure for humanity’s next frontier—space. Starship isn’t just a vessel to take us to Mars, but a leap toward creating a sustainable space economy. That thesis still holds strong for me today, and it reflects my broader approach to investing in the future, even when I’m “late” to the game.
This idea of capturing 90% of the future value still left to unfold has shaped my investments into SpaceX, Nvidia, and Tesla.
NVIDIA: A Bet on Crypto That Revealed AI’s Dominance
In 2017, I was part of a UAE delegation of private entrepreneurs and public leaders heading to Finland to learn from their education and EdTech practices. During that trip, I had conversations that triggered my thinking around Nvidia. I recalled how my friends in the Dubai’s FDI team had been interested in courting Nvidia as part of their knowledge economy initiatives, which made me pay closer attention to the company’s prospects.
A year prior, in 2016, I initiated my first Nvidia position (cost basis ~$1.51, post-split conversion). At the time, my investment thesis was centered around Nvidia’s role in the booming crypto market. The demand for GPUs was surging, fueled by Bitcoin mining and other cryptocurrencies. I saw an immediate future where crypto alone could drive Nvidia’s growth.
What’s interesting is that I wasn’t even factoring in the AI revolution. The groundbreaking “Attention is All You Need” paper, which laid the foundation for transformer models and future LLMs, hadn’t been published yet. But that didn’t matter. I had my one solid reason: the immense demand for GPUs in the crypto and Bitcoin markets. And in that moment, that was enough.
By 2017, my bullishness on Nvidia only deepened. The insights I gained from my trip further solidified my conviction, prompting me to acquire an even larger stake. Ironically, at that moment, I felt "late"—my initial investment had already soared to ~$4 per share. But looking back, it was clear that even with that surge, 90% of Nvidia's future value still lay ahead, driven not just by crypto, but by AI, data centers, and beyond.
This is an important lesson for futurist investing: you don’t need to be right about every possible outcome, just one. The AI market turned out to be the major driver behind Nvidia’s astronomical rise, but my investment worked because I had identified a single viable future where Nvidia would excel.
Tesla (via SolarCity): Betting on Multiple Futures
My entry into Tesla came via the SolarCity acquisition, a deal many viewed as a bailout. While the integration was controversial at the time, I saw it differently. To me, SolarCity represented a way to enter Tesla at a discounted price, as I felt I had missed the boat on Tesla’s earlier growth. Despite closely following Tesla’s progress—seeing a Tesla Roadster in Santa Monica in the late 2000s, reading the Hyperloop whitepaper, and watching the Model S rollout—I still felt I was late to the party. The SolarCity deal offered a chance to establish a position in Tesla at a price that felt more attainable.
But my focus wasn’t just on SolarCity. I saw multiple futures where Tesla could thrive, whether through solar energy, battery storage, or their electric vehicles. Tesla’s potential was vast, and while SolarCity’s success as a solar energy play was uncertain, I wasn’t betting on that alone. I was betting on Tesla’s broader vision. By the time of the acquisition, Tesla had several major initiatives underway, and I didn’t need all of them to succeed—just one.
As we now know, Tesla’s dominance in electric vehicles and energy storage has more than validated that investment. Once again, being “late” didn’t matter; most of Tesla’s future value was still ahead of it. With the growth of robotics and autonomous vehicles, some might argue that more than 90% of Tesla’s future potential is yet to be realized.
SpaceX: Investing in a Galactic Telecom Company
Years ago, when I began seriously considering SpaceX as an investment, it wasn’t just about Mars. Sure, the idea of colonizing Mars was exhilarating, but it wasn’t the core of my thesis. Instead, what truly captivated me was the potential of Starlink, the satellite-based internet network SpaceX was quietly building.
By the time I dug into it—and secured private placement access through my network—SpaceX had already overcome the most challenging technical hurdles: launching and landing rockets reliably. To me, the next logical step was monetizing their position in space by building the infrastructure for global and, eventually, galactic connectivity.
Starlink was—and remains—the backbone of that vision. With thousands of satellites already in orbit, SpaceX is no longer just about space exploration; it’s positioned to become the galactic telecom company, connecting not just Earth but, potentially, far beyond.
Someone has to build the communications infrastructure for the emerging space economy, and SpaceX has already achieved a near-monopoly on the first critical piece: our link between the stars and planets.
While the sheer capacity for space launches is a huge win, the idea that Starlink could capture 5-10% of the global telecom and internet market was equally compelling. But what truly caught my imagination was the notion that space telecom infrastructure would be a necessity—and Starlink, with its massive foothold, is better positioned than anyone to lead the charge. It’s not a stretch to imagine Starlink becoming Mars’ first telecom provider, extending its dominance into an entirely new frontier.
In SpaceX, I saw multiple viable futures—whether through commercial satellite services, deeper space exploration, or even transporting cargo to Mars. Regardless of which scenario unfolds, SpaceX is uniquely positioned to dominate the space economy. And that’s the heart of why I invested.
The Futurist’s Bet: Finding Multiple Paths to Success
When I think about investing, I don’t look for one perfect scenario. I look for a few possible futures (ideally 3 probable scenarios) where I’d be happy with the outcome, no matter which one plays out. In the case of Nvidia, I didn’t need to predict the AI revolution to succeed; I just needed crypto. With Tesla, I didn’t need all of its divisions to work—just one. And with SpaceX, I wasn’t betting on Mars as much as I was betting on Starlink and the space economy.
This approach frees me from the need to be early. While others scramble to get in at the ground floor, I focus on the remaining 90% of future value that’s often still untapped. Most people assume that once a company is “established,” the opportunity has passed, but I’ve found that the real value creation often happens after the first big hurdles are overcome.
Closing Thought
If you’re investing in the future, focus on identifying multiple paths to success, rather than trying to predict a single, perfect outcome. In each of these cases—Nvidia, Tesla, and SpaceX—I wasn’t the earliest, but I didn’t need to be. The future still had plenty of upside to offer, and all I needed was one of my scenarios to work.
When you can see multiple futures where you’d be happy, the pressure of timing fades away. You realize there’s almost always 90% of the journey still ahead.
This initial post laid the groundwork for my investment approach, which ultimately evolved into what I now call the "Three Futures" Test.
The core idea is simple: identify 3 viable futures for a company, where even if just one of those futures materializes, the investment has strong potential for success.
In the upcoming posts, I’ll dive deeper into how this test will be incorporated into the early due diligence process at Cool Climate Collective. This will help us assess whether there’s alignment with our broader investment thesis and mission of scalable climate solutions. By applying this framework early on, we ensure that each deal we consider has the flexibility to thrive in multiple future scenarios.
Stay tuned as I walk through how this process works, along with case studies from companies we’ve already invested in and new deal flow, showing how we envision and navigate the probable futures we’re investing in.
Can’t wait for the case studies!