NFA Finance

If I could go back and witness any historical event, I think I’d go to Detroit in 1913.

Not to watch a war.

Not to meet a president.

Not even to watch man land on the moon.

I’d want to stand inside Henry Ford’s factory and watch the moving assembly line come to life.

Because I don’t think I’d really be going back there to see a car get built.

I’d be going back to watch the world change.

Before that moment, automobiles were expensive, complicated, and largely built one at a time. Then somebody looked at the entire process and asked a simple question:

There has to be a better way to do this.

Break the job down.

Standardize it.

Move the product instead of the workers.

Make it faster.

Make it cheaper.

Make it scalable.

Suddenly, the automobile wasn’t just a toy for wealthy people anymore.

It could become part of everyday American life.

And everything around it started changing too.

Factories grew. Roads expanded. Gas stations appeared. Dealerships followed. Suburbs grew. People could live farther from where they worked. Entire industries were created around this machine.

Think about that.

You’re standing in a factory watching a Model T move down an assembly line, and you have no idea you’re watching the beginning of something that will reshape cities, create fortunes, destroy old business models, employ millions of people and permanently change the way human beings live.

That’s the part I’d want to experience.

I grew up around Detroit. I’ve spent most of my adult life in the automobile business. Cars have made me money, cost me money, driven me crazy, introduced me to people, taken me across the country and become a huge part of my life.

So yeah, Detroit would mean something to me personally.

But there’s another reason I’d pick 1913.

I think we’re standing in another 1913 right now.

AI.

Most people are looking at artificial intelligence the same way people probably looked at early automobiles.

Interesting.

Useful.

Maybe a little scary.

Maybe overhyped.

Something they’ll eventually have to figure out.

But I don’t think that’s what we’re looking at.

I think we’re watching another fundamental change in how work gets done.

And that’s why I wouldn’t actually want to stay in 1913 very long.

I’d watch.

I’d absorb it.

I’d look around at all the people who had no idea what was happening right in front of them.

Then I’d come straight back here.

Because there’s an important lesson in that factory:

The biggest opportunities don’t look like history when you’re living through them.

They look like change.

They look confusing.

They look unfinished.

They look risky.

And usually, most people wait until the change becomes obvious before they participate.

By then, the people who recognized it early have already been building for years.

Everybody wants to go back and witness history.

I’m more interested in something else.

Can you recognize history while you’re standing in the middle of it?

I think we are.

And I’m not sitting this one out.

NFA