Big trends and takeaways from the 2010s: the “capital as a moat” model has failed, machine learning has become table stakes for tech companies, and more
My friend Steve Kane suggested I take a longer view in my pair of year end posts this year: … And so I will.
AVCFred Wilson
Context & Ripple Effects
This closes a run of AVC year-end retrospectives: the 2014 trends lookback and the 2018 macro-themes post (crypto's breakout, the tech backlash) were single-year takes, while this one stretches across the whole decade at Steve Kane's suggestion. The two claims that carry it — capital stopped being a moat, machine learning became table stakes — are judgments about what differentiated tech companies in the 2010s.
The decade-view matters because it sets up the next one: the related coverage already shows Silicon Valley moving into a hard-tech, AI-dominated era, and Benedict Evans arguing software itself has faded into background infrastructure. Wilson's 'capital as a moat has failed' thesis reads differently against that arc.
First-order effects
Founders and the VCs backing them lose the 2010s playbook of out-raising rivals as the strategy itself — Wilson's argument says funded burn no longer confers durable advantage, so differentiation has to come from somewhere else.
Product teams can no longer pitch machine learning as a differentiator; by Wilson's framing it is now an expected input, like the software layer Evans describes fading into the background.
Second-order effects
Investor attention shifts from who raised the most to who holds scarce inputs — data, distribution, talent — which is the logic that later concentrates capital around compute-heavy AI players rather than app-layer startups.
Competitive moats migrate down the stack: if software and ML are commoditized, the defensible layers become the physical and infrastructure ones the hard-tech era coverage describes.
Third-order effects
The pattern points toward a bifurcated industry: commodity software and ML everywhere at the bottom, with capital concentrating at the few infrastructure positions where scale still buys advantage — a partial reversal of the 'capital as a moat has failed' thesis rather than its confirmation.
If Moore's-law-style advantages keep migrating to compute and hardware, expect decade-scale trend posts to track capital intensity, not user growth, as the sector's defining metric.
The trend: Tech's source of durable advantage is migrating from capital and software layers toward scarce compute and infrastructure, with each decade-end retrospective marking another step in that migration.
“A decentralized internet will emerge, led initially by decentralized infrastructure services like storage, bandwidth, compute, etc.” - What will happen in 2020 by Fred Wilson https://avc.com/...
“these four companies own more data about what we do online and...control many of the important channels to reach us in the digital world. What society does about this... stands as the most important issue...at the start of the 2020s"- @fredwilson https://avc.com/...
“The looming climate crisis will be to this century what the two world wars were to the previous one. It will require countries and institutions to re-allocate capital from other endeavors to fight against a warming planet.” ~ @fredwilson https://avc.com/...
A good list of tech trends that defined the decade from the rise of FAAMNG & ML to failure of mega funding rounds as a competitive moat (WeWork). Personally most excited about rise of tech hubs outside the Valley & subscriptions biz models coming of age. https://avc.com/...
What stood out most to me: “The losers...were lower middle class and middle class people...whose incomes stagnated or fell” coupled with “bad actors” using new technology to destabilize developed nations. This could (is) lead to global conflict and severe internal unrest. https:/…
@kimmaicutler “It is incredibly expensive to live and work in the bay area... The physical infrastructure (transit, housing, etc) has not kept up with the needs of the region and there is no sign that it will change anytime soon.” @fredwilson @avc @usv https://avc.com/... https:/…
Taking a cue from @stevenkane I decided to look back at the decade not the year this new year's eve. Will do the same and look forward at the 2020s tomorrow. https://twitter.com/...
Great post by @fredwilson covering the big trends of the past decade: 📈emergence of the 4 tech monopolies 💰(failed) experiment of “capital as a moat” 💻ML coming of age 💵subscriptions as the 2nd viable business model ₿ crypto as a new technology https://avc.com/...
.@fredwilson Looks back on the last decade of tech trends: Tech monopolies; ML & crypto; and more. What sticks out most is his contention that “capital as a moat” has failed. Always a must read & re-read. https://avc.com/...