For investors Having physical stuff just isn’t as great as it used to be.
At home, we’re Marie Kondo–ing our way to minimalism, buying experiences rather than things, and using services — Netflix, Spotify, Uber — rather than owning assets such as movies, music, and cars. The companies that provide those services and enable us to share what we have (insights, relationships, assets) with others not only are valued more highly by investors but also are relatively asset-light themselves. Amazon has only a handful of brick-and-mortar stores, Uber doesn’t manage a fleet of cars, and Ebay doesn’t manage a supply chain.
This is quite a shift. Since the industrial revolution, companies have raced to accumulate the most raw materials, properties, plants, and equipment, believing that ….
