Last year the Internet entered a phase 2. There are enough young Americans who grew up using the Internet, completing computer science degrees, and being hired right off the bat for 6 figures by vc funded internet companies and startups that the shock to the system has led to intense homelessness in the cities with a concentration of a tech sector community. Example of what I mean:

It is 2018. Bobby grew up with the internet, studied computer science in San Francisco, and at 22 Bobby is already hired making $100,000 a year to relocate to Denver to work at Salesforce creating business-to-consumer tech.

Bobby, with his 6 figure job, just outbid Samuel, a local Denver native, for property in the Denver area. Samuel, who cannot find work because he does not know how to code, has been forced to live in a sketchier, more affordable neighborhood. Others even less likely have been forced into homeless and live in tents downtown in Denver.

Bobby, at 22, has literally no life experience and is already making 6 figures a year and for 1 reason and 1 reason only: Bobby knows how to code, and any company that is creating Internet tools has VC capital thrown at them in the amount of billions, and the coders for that company have money thrown at them so that they can make real money.

But Bobby is so young. Bobby, with all this money, now acts like he is royalty: Bobby is willing to spend money on food delivery so he has more time to code and stay at the office, spends money on Uber drivers, and continues to spend money on AirPods, overpriced designer clothing, buys stuff off of Amazon, and gets himself a Tesla. 

Samuel is now stuck. Because Samuel doesn't know how to code no one will hire him. But guess who is hiring: Amazon Warehouse hires everyone, Uber hires everyone, and DoorDash hires everyone. Samuel tried processing packages at Amazon Warehouse, but got physically exhausted and depressed. Samuel now drives for Uber and delivers food for DoorDash, making less than minimum wage driving around and delivering food for people like Bobby, who at 22 is making 6 figures a year simply because Bobby knows how to code.

Every city I went that had a large tech sector with VC funding also an enormous homeless population downtown: Boston, Denver, Austin, San Francisco, Nashville. At first when I returned back to Boston and saw the huge spike in homelessness I assumed it was from the opiod crisis. But Chicago doesn't have many homeless, if at all. Chicago also has next to no tech sector aside from Groupon, and next to no VC funding. Chicago is the 3rd largest metro economy, and like 6th in the amount of VC funding in any city.

Northern Virginia is about to experience a spike in homelessness if Amazon's HQ2 does break ground there. The problem isn't necessarily the tech sector, the problem is the rapid speed of transplants coming to these cities and pricing the locals out with their 6 figure jobs. And I say *does* break ground because HQ2 will only happen if Amazon actually does win the $10 billion JEDI cloud computing contract with the Pentagon and not Microsoft. Amazon rigged the contract with an inside man and will most likely win it, but in the chance they actually don't, I'm calling it now: Bezos won't follow through with the HQ2 deal in Northern Virginia, or he will but scale it down significantly.

Conclusion: Learning how to code isn't like learning philosophy or engineering or biology where it requires deliberation, lots of raw knowledge, and the ability for higher thinking. Rather, coding is like learning to play the clarinet or saxophone: lots of memorization in the beginning, then hours and hours and hours of practice. This means that someone doesn't even have to go to college to get a 6 figure job as long as they teach themselves how to code. No need to take on student debt. In the meantime we're about to see a rise in tension and inequality. Those who can code will be making all the money, those with graduate degrees in law, medicine, and business will find a job, but their chances of making more money and rising up will be a lot longer in years and a lot harder. And the rest of the population will be stuck doing odd jobs for apps like DoorDash or Uber or charging Byrd scooters for a couple of bucks, stuck in a permant poverty trap.

The state is deliberately created to be slow moving with bureaucracy and checks and balances, and in a high moving tech economy, the state has been failing. The only way to lift people out of a permanent poor class is education. And in a tech infused economy, not just education: knowing how to code and create Internet apps and tools. Therefore the solution is to teach coding to everyone.

My stock picks: Disney, Salesforce, Walmart. My stocks to short: Amazon, Facebook, Netflix. Disney is has the right strategy for over-the-top content distribution, and when they gain all that user data it will create even better content for Disney brand products. Salesforce was everywhere I went across the country, in literally every city, and so everyone is hiring them and people working there love it, their cloud computing tools for businesses to learn about consumers is winning. Walmart has won in grocery ecommerce as everyone loves being able to drive up to a walmart and have someone bring all their groceries to their car so they don't have to go inside, fill up a cart, and go through checkout. Amazon figured people wanted a Peapod experience of having groceries delivered directly to their homes, but people don't want this and that's why apps like Peapod haven't gone anywhere for years.

Why I would short Amazon, Facebook, and Netflix: they are cult-of-the-personality companies where the megalomaniac CEO has complete control of the direction of the company and no checks to his power as he has majority voting shares and a board of directors that are all yes men. What made these people successful billionaires in the beginning will not continue to make them successful in the future. Their human flaws will become the entire company's flaws, and people will sour to their presence and stop using and buying from them. Examples: Amazon HQ2 debacle in NYC, Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal in the 2016 election, Netflix not necessarily having a public scandal but rather not being able to continue to create their own original series in their own marvel universe of Luke Cage, Daredevil, the Punisher, and others for more than a few seasons.