I’m about to interview a fund manager who oversees US$30 billion in tech investments from Florida, and it has me thinking about the bets I wish I’d made sooner.
As I prepare to interview a US fund manager who manages US$30 billion worth of tech investments from Florida, Cathie Wood, I reflected upon one of my greatest disappointments was that I ignored some of the earliest stories, when I interviewed people who were true believers in bitcoin. And even though I don’t recommend this very volatile investment to my financial clients, I do hold a belief that it is here to stay, and it will go higher over time.
The chart below shows how bitcoin captured the world’s imagination in August 2017 when it went from USS571 to US$13,880 in the space of 15 months.
It then went to US$115,750 by July 2025, before tumbling to US$58,526 in June this year. It has snuck up to US$63,919 recently.
Bitcoin ($US)
I have watched Cathie Wood’s rise to financial fame for over a decade as she regularly is the go-to-gal, as the Yanks might say, when it comes to tech investments in the likes of Tesla, bitcoin and other companies and investment products of the digital age.
I’m interviewing her because a company, Associate Global Partners (AGP) that I have a shareholding in and whose CEO is my son Marty Switzer, has brought one of Wood’s innovative investment funds to Australia. It is called the ARK Venture Fund, and this is for wholesale or sophisticated investors, and is likely to attract those who want to dabble in exposure to potential winners of the AI and robotic trends that informed people say has only just begun.
Wood’s biggest holdings in her flagship ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK) fund are shown below:
I stopped at Block Inc. which now owns Afterpay, which was started by one of my ex-students, Anthony Eisen. I also like that Wood has some normal online businesses, such as Shopify and Amazon, which means it’s not always about the hi-tech and highly confusing companies of the AI and robotic world.
In researching her views, I found she argues that tech companies will redefine the world as we know it, like the Industrial Revolution of the late 1700s and beyond.
Here are some of the wild visions of our financial future that has me champing at the bit to talk to Cathie Wood:
- Her research team sees a bitcoin, now at around US$69,000 heading off to US$1.5 million!
- Tesla is the ultimate AI company that will realise its true huge value when driverless taxis soon will become commonplace.
- She thinks she will have a driverless car that will take her to work and then will be sent out to work all day like an uber car and then pick her up in the afternoon. Your car will become a side-hustle!
- AI technology will detect stage one cancer earlier than the medical processes of today and will save lives like never before.
- Something called vibe coding will permit you to get AI agents like Anthropic’s Claude to do coding for an entrepreneurial project or problem-solving task that once meant we were dependent on high-priced, very smart nerds!
- She thinks AI will create jobs and kill inflation, which will be great for future interest rates.
You can see why I want to talk to this lady and test out what she sees in her very unique crystal ball.
I guess you would be asking how good is Cathie Wood with her many outside the square investments?
This chart tells an interesting story.
ARK Innovation ETF (ARKK)
Between October 2014 and February 2021, ARKK went from US$20.30 to US$156.58. The unit price tumbled to US$33.26 by November 2022 and since has climbed back to US$75.05.
That’s a 125% gain over four years, which is a nice comeback. Over the past 12 months the fund is only up 2.55% but it has been a tricky year for tech stocks.
I see fund plays with people like Cathie Wood as diversified, speculative investments that could shoot the lights out or end up being less than impressive; however, they can provide hope and alpha upside.
Bitcoin is a case in point. When bitcoin became more acceptable, I recall the legendary US fund manager, Bill Miller, saying that having 1% of your portfolio makes sense, just as they say 1-10% of a portfolio could be for gold.
Standby for both my podcast interview with Cathie and the story I am bound to write as a consequence of my chat with her from the city of York in the UK.
I know at the heart of good investing is a learning process from smart investors, insightful researchers and visionary experts on what the future holds.
Alvin Toffler, who wrote the masterful take on what we are seeing today in his book Future Shock, once told us: “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”
Cathie Wood is teaching and I am up for learning and that’s because I have always lived by the motto: “What’s worth doing is worth doing for money!”
