Thoughts from the Consumer Electronics Show

Vitaliy Katsenelson

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I wrote this from Las Vegas, where my son Jonah and I were at CES (the Consumer Electronics Show).

In investing and life, it’s very easy to get tunnel vision – doing what works and staying in your comfort zone. I wanted to attend CES to shake myself out of this pattern.

It’s hard to describe how massive this event is. It sprawls through five enormous pavilions at the Las Vegas Convention Center and takes up two floors of the Venetian Hotel. It is attended by over one hundred thousand people.

Here are my initial, off-the-cuff, somewhat random thoughts from CES.

Robotaxis

There were several robotaxi companies here, in addition to Alphabet’s Waymo. Multiple robotaxis are going to hit the market over the next few years; it won’t be just Waymo. Most will start geofenced (they’ll work in specific areas), just like Waymo did.

This is good news for Uber: The more fragmented the robotaxi market, the more players are in this market, the more valuable is Uber’s switchboard system (which will bring higher utilization to robotaxi operators).

This will also hugely transform public transportation. Think about school buses – that market is primed for disruption since most buses follow the same route every day in a relatively small area.