The next big thing in 2022 is...
50 of technology's top thinkers weigh in on the year ahead.
Welcome to issue #38 of next big thing.
It’s been a while since my last post. 2021 has been the year of new beginnings for me, from launching Footwork to becoming a father. Those roles and responsibilities have been all-consuming, but I do hope to get back to regular writing in 2022. Though it’s unlikely to be weekly, I’d love for you to follow along, and I so appreciate your continued dialogue and encouragement every time after I hit “publish.”
I wanted to end 2021 the same way I ended 2020: by asking fifty top thinkers in technology to finish the sentence: “The next big thing next year is…”
Last year’s post still has the most views of anything I’ve written, and I found myself looking back at it several times over the past year to see what felt prescient. There was perhaps too much optimism a year ago about a post-COVID society, but many of the predictions around the growth of entrepreneurship, the movement towards decentralization, tailwinds in consolidation and bundling, and more were spot on.
Though web3 and crypto are popular themes in this year’s contributions, there is a long tail of interesting and nuanced ideas for what 2022 has in store.
I’d love to hear your responses, too, in the comments. I wish all of you a healthy and happy holiday season, and the very best for the new year.
… in web3.
The next big thing in 2022 is web3: onboarding the next 250+ founders and 25M+ community members to continue pioneering this technical & cultural vanguard.
-Peter Boyce II, Founder & Managing Partner at Stellation Capital
The next big thing in 2022 is using crypto’s intrinsic financialization capabilities to drive positive consumer behaviors through novel incentive structures, like ability to earn NFTs (that can either be sold for profit or used for unique perks) for learning, exercising, mentoring, donating to charities, etc. Imagine exercising 30 days in a row to unlock an NFT that’s a free ticket to a cool event or a special designer merch drop! The first NFT interest wave was driven by speculation & entertainment but the same dopamine-driving mechanics can be used for social or individual good – I expect a lot of innovation in this space as Gen Z & millennial founders, in particular, experiment with bundling web3 capabilities, social-proof growth strategies, and social impact.
-Magdalena Kala, web3 Angel Investor
The next big thing in 2022 is the explosion of the ENS ecosystem as the foundation for web3 applications focused on financial coordination and social money.
-Jeff Morris Jr., Founder & Managing Partner at Chapter One
The next big thing in 2022 is Terra and its ecosystem. Terra is not exactly small. As the time of writing, its market cap stands at $22 billion and it is the 11th largest crypto project by that metric. And yet, compared to many others, Terra often sneaks under-the-radar. Despite having one of the most passionate communities, millions of users leveraging its products in the real world, and a visionary leader, its story is less well-known, particularly in the US. I think 2022 could prove a breakout year. Some truly revolutionary projects are being built on top of Terra's rails including Mars, Astroport, Levana, Seashell, Alice, and others. These innovations, and others like them, could turn Terra into a mainstream proposition with use-cases across the DeFi landscape. I've been following the space closely, and written about why it might have the "biggest TAM in crypto." Next year might see it begin to fulfill that promise more directly.
-Mario Gabriele, Founder at The Generalist
The next big thing in 2022 is entrepreneurs building custom experiences based on the inventories in peoples' wallets.
-Packy McCormick, Founder at Not Boring
The next big thing in 2022 is seeing blockchain being introduced to more sectors beyond financial services and gaming, deeper in social, betting, iot, security, commerce, etc. Teams obsessed with customer value may do well long-term. Most protocols without a sustainable model will fail over time.
-Amy Wu, Partner at Lightspeed
The next big thing in 2022 is web3 continuing to move towards broader adoption through a combination of improved underlying tooling to make more seamless/user-friendly experiences, and crypto-native consumer applications that replace user participation with user ownership + reputation. Ability to be rewarded for sharing knowledge may be one of the first. Also, underlying tokens will be significantly bumpier/more volatile than in 2021.
-Rebecca Kaden, General Partner at USV
The next big thing in 2022 is user ownership of products and services!
-Li Jin, Co-Founder & General Partner at Variant
… digital identity.
The next big thing in 2022 is people realizing that a digital identity matters just as much as (if not more than) a real-world one. Avatars/PFPs, DAOs, social tokens, digital fashion — where & how we spend our time online matters, and we’re only just getting started.
-Gaby Goldberg, Investor at TCG Crypto
The next big thing in 2022 is compartmentalized identity. You can be yourself, or multiple identities more easily than ever. Your interests, relationships, and means of earning a living do not all need to be tied to one name, including the one on your government I.D.
The next big thing in 2022 will be platform leverage developed via identity innovation in: crypto (wallets), e-commerce (headless checkout), marketplaces (trust across transactions), hiring (unlocking trapped social capital), and personal security (security simple enough for my wife and parents). What a time to be alive and innovating with identity!
-Jaren M. Glover, Angel Investor & ex-early engineer at Robinhood
… B2B crypto.
The next big thing in 2022 is crypto B2B payments. Buoyed by growing consumer and institutional demand and increased crypto assets, we’ll see the growth of payment infrastructure companies facilitating B2B crypto payments and platforms like Stripe & Block enabling merchants to seamlessly accept crypto payments (without necessarily having to hold crypto assets) and add crypto workflows in-app.
-Grace Isford, Principal at Canvas Ventures
The next big thing in 2022 is blockchain is the new "dev tool" as many long time enterprise founders rush to explore and build newcos in crypto infra and enterprise investors fund any company with "enterprise + crypto." Despite the number of companies that don't make it, there will be a handful of foundational companies started in 2022 that will create returns that far exceed the money lost.
-Ed Sim, Founder & Managing Partner at boldstart ventures
… backlash.
The next big thing in 2022 is the web3 culture war. As blockchains enter the mainstream and it becomes clear they are not going away, we should hope for the best but prepare for the worst in terms of the quality of the discourse. Hyperbole, confusion, fear, and rage are unfortunately inevitable.
-Nathan Baschez, Co-Founder & President at Every
The next big thing in 2022 is "metaverse" becoming a bad word.
-Rex Woodbury, Principal at Index Ventures
The next big thing in 2022 is explicitly non-commercial web3 projects and other products which reject the financialization of everything. Just as temporal social media was a reaction to original assumptions of permanence, we’re going to see a renaissance in spaces that aren’t profit-seeking.
-Hunter Walk, Co-Founder & Partner at Homebrew
… a return to the real world.
The next big thing in 2022 is a return to the real world. Over the past 24 months we have seen an unprecedented acceleration of our digital identities, the metaverse, and our online enabled personal brands. But as many other “pulled forward” categories such as eCommerce begin to revert to their historical, linear, growth curves, I believe we’ll see a re-prioritization away from the metaverse and towards strengthening many fundamental aspects of our analog lives: our physical health, our mental health, our credit scores, our family relationships and more.
-Ezra Galston, Founding Partner at Starting Line
… change in “work.”
The next big thing in 2022 is a job, as defined by the 20th Century, being antiquated. What it means to ‘work’ will finally have new definition: more flexible, informal, and multivariate.
-Kanyi Maqubela, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Kindred Ventures
The next big thing in 2022 is the underlying tooling that allows people to build their own businesses and work for themselves, across categories, massively accelerating — in commerce, healthcare, education, financial services, etc. Talent will start rearchitecting from vertical (I work for a company) to horizontal (I have a talent set I am going to apply across projects/companies/people) and reward/incentive/payment systems will need to evolve with that.
-Rebecca Kaden, General Partner at USV
The next big thing in 2022 will be built at your kitchen table...As our daily center of gravity has shifted from an office to our home, we’ll see more neighbors teaming up to start a small business, peer to peer platforms that make services more affordable for the average American, and the next generation of tech will work from unassuming locations.
-Brianne Kimmel, Founder at Worklife Ventures
The next big thing in 2022 is permanent remote work. It's coming down to CEO preference - some CEOs will go fully remote, while others require in-office work, and everything in between, regardless of the data, research, and experience in the pandemic so far.
-Iman Abuzeid, Co-Founder & CEO at Incredible Health
… change in “investing.”
The next big thing in 2022 is social investing in communities. In 2021 we saw the rise of social investing, people investing together going after the gains of Wall Street. In 2022 this going to grow and we are going to start seeing more social, grassroots investing in communities and causes, with crypto pushing what’s possible.
-Aditi Maliwal, Partner at Upfront Ventures
The next big thing in 2022 is an acceleration of regular people getting into angel investing.
-Lenny Rachitsky, Founder at Lenny’s Newsletter
The next big thing in 2022 is investing in private companies becoming much more democratized, with everyone investing. Institutional investors need to operate substantially differentiatedly to win, and the venture fund ranking reshuffles every couple of years.
-Lan Xuezhao, Founder & Managing Partner at Basis Set Ventures
The next big thing in 2022 is venture investors realizing that malleability in their investment models and structures will become a necessity for the next decade due to appetite of capital, competitive dynamics, as well as structural changes in how financings are done within new ecosystems.
-Michael Dempsey, General Partner at Compound
The next big thing in 2022 is investing in people directly, instead of asking them to create a startup and invest in them. Early examples (Slow Ventures -> Marina Mogliko) exist, but we will see the first signs of this emerging as a true investment class - both led by celebrities issuing tokens (web3), and more structured investment notes (web2).
-Sajith Pai, VC at Blume Ventures
… a dislocation between public and private markets.
The next big thing in 2022 is a never before seen dislocation between public and private markets. More and more capital will flood into private markets increasing valuations and minting new unicorns and decacorns at a record pace. This generation of entrepreneurs will no longer seek to take their companies public, unless absolutely necessary, and rather demand that increasing pools of private capital come their way. 2022 will have both the lowest number of IPOs in a decade whilst simultaneously minting the greatest private value and wealth we’ve seen in history.
-Zavain Dar, Partner at Lux Capital
… the previously overlooked.
The next big thing in 2022 is building for overlooked consumers. These eCommerce, fintech, education, and family products will improve the affordability and customer experience for consumers initially left behind by the first wave of internet-enabled business models.
-Turner Novak, Founder & Managing Partner at Banana Capital
The next big thing in 2022 is more deeply technical problems being tackled by startups.
-Celine Halioua, Funder & CEO at Loyal
The next big thing in 2022 is the funding of overlooked and underrepresented founders. Grit and perseverance are in no short supply among this group, and the collective hardship we've all faced over the past couple years will lead to a prioritization of these incredibly resilient people who still have several systemic hurdles along the entrepreneurial journey.
-Brittany Ennix, Founder & CEO at Portex
… decarbonization.
The next big thing in 2022 is capital accelerating into teams and projects around decarbonizing our planet. A desire to move into roles in this category — because of a combination of mission orientation and opportunity to make a lot of money — will become the biggest talent trend of 2022.
-Rebecca Kaden, General Partner at USV
The next big thing in 2022 is 24x7 carbon free energy. Companies will follow Google and Microsoft in transitioning to 100% renewable energy at all times and locations.
-Tommy Leep, Founder at Jetstream
The next big thing in 2022 is the financial system’s formal recognition of climate risk as financial risk and decarbonization as investment opportunity. Between the proliferation of corporate carbon accounting, forthcoming regulation on climate risk disclosure, commercialization of novel technologies in decarbonization and carbon removal, and emerging standards in carbon risk analysis, 2022 is shaping up to be a big year for the carbon markets.
-Sierra Peterson, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Voyager
The next big thing in 2022 is new ways to feed the planet while solving the climate crisis, and new ways to derive meaning and purpose from work.
-Bharat Vasan, President & COO at The Production Board
The next big thing in 2022 is climate tech as the most important and biggest opportunity for investors. We'll see climate unicorns begin to emerge and the most promising innovations will come from outside the US particularly in emerging markets.
-Katie Jacobs Stanton, Founder & General Partner at Moxxie Ventures
… digitizing the supply chain.
The next big thing in 2022 is digitizing the supply chain as commerce expands online and existing logistics infrastructure is strained.
-Laura Chau, Partner at Canaan Partners
The next big thing in 2022 is supply chain transparency. The logistics industry is full of inefficient, manual workflows which limit data capture and leave many businesses without clear strategies for making the best decisions when it comes to managing their supply chains and outsourced freight transportation. The pandemic-induced shocks to the system will drive increased digitization of supply chains and allow companies of all sizes to gain greater pricing visibility and build more resilient supply chains.
-Brittany Ennix, Founder & CEO at Portex
… inflation.
The next big thing in 2022 is… inflation.
-Alice Lloyd George, Founder & Managing Partner at Rogue
The next big thing in 2022 is whether inflation sustains and the resulting impact on interest rates / discount rates.
-Sujay Jaswa, Founder & Managing Partner at WndrCo
… the war for talent.
The next big thing in 2022 is the biggest talent crunch the tech industry has ever seen. So that means even more focus on employee retention, automation for key company processes, and doing more with less.
-Iman Abuzeid, Co-Founder & CEO at Incredible Health
The next big thing is in 2022 is the rise of the corporate welfare state. The war for talent is here to stay and more and more companies are offering extensive benefits in a hope to retain employees.
-Lisa Wehden, Investor at Bloomberg Beta
… outside the U.S.
The next big thing is internet from space expanding the TAM for tech by at least a factor of 5 over the next decade, with places like Africa and LatAm benefiting the most.
-Shaun Maguire, Partner at Sequoia Capital
The next big thing in 2022 is the China-US relationship worsening, driving significant cash to flow into regions such as Southeast Asia, LatAm and Africa, where the next generation of young entrepreneurs will build a wave of successful companies.
-Lan Xuezhao, Founder & Managing Partner at Basis Set Ventures
The next big thing in 2022 is a significant portion of the world’s 1.7B unbanked adults leapfrogging traditional financial services and moving straight to adoption of digital-first fintech and crypto products, in light of increasingly global financial infrastructure innovation and a proliferation of VC $ moving outside of the U.S.
-Lauren Kolodny, Founding Partner at Acrew Capital
… in fintech.
The next big thing in 2022 is the continued acceleration of fintech “picks and shovels” to empower the next generation of banking, payments, investing, lending, and more — particularly as we think about a rearchitected financial system around decentralization.
-Nimi Katragadda, Partner at BoxGroup
The next big thing in 2022 is the verticalization of fintech. Vertical software companies became way bigger than anyone thought, and the same thing will start to take shape in fintech. Expect to see more vertical BNPL players emerge.
-Rick Yang, General Partner & Head of Consumer at NEA
… in healthcare.
The next big thing in 2022 is people waking up to realize that mental health is more than just therapy. We’ll see a proliferation of companies offering integrated approaches to tackling mental health, crucially recognizing the importance of physical and spiritual health.
-Lisa Wehden, Investor at Bloomberg Beta
The next big thing in 2022 is the healthcare industry’s rapid adoption of technology in every key operational process, from hiring to payments. The pandemic continues to accelerate the adoption of tech, and the adoption is permanently here to stay as healthcare leaders strive to reduce cost and improve quality of care.
-Iman Abuzeid, Co-Founder & CEO at Incredible Health
… transhumanism.
The gradual big thing over the course of the 2020s is transhumanism. Quantified self, fitness trackers and CGMs, mRNA vaccines, gene therapy for monogenic disorders, polygenic risk scores, brain-machine interface, and especially reversing aging and life extension...the technology keeps steadily improving.
-Balaji Srinivasan, Angel Investor, former CTO at Coinbase
… in privacy and convenience.
The next big thing in 2022 is privacy without sacrificing convenience / convenience without sacrificing privacy.
-Sahil Lavingia, Founder & CEO at Gumroad
… outcomes as a service.
The next big thing in 2022 is outcomes as a service! People don’t want to buy software. They want someone to make it better cheaper faster with no risk to them. If you couple infinite cheap money to scalable software then outcomes as a service is the biggest opportunity in the world.
-Garry Tan, Founder & Managing Partner at Initialized Capital
… curation.
The next big thing in 2022 is curation. The internet has never been noisier, there is a massive opportunity for curators.
-Blake Robbins, Partner at Ludlow Ventures
… in user experience and interfaces.
The next big thing in 2022 is every functional tool - from product and HR to financial planning and procurement - becoming a multi-player (and ultimately fully immersive) experience that blurs organizational lines and flattens the enterprise. I am particularly excited by companies that are reimagining functions with collaboration, transparency, and more accessible interfaces at the core. From a Dev Ops environment that resembles a game to virtual water-coolers that drive "spontaneity as a service," these collaborative and immersive experiences will redefine how every function of the enterprise operates with others across the company.
-Scott Belsky, Investor, Founder of Behance, CPO at Adobe
The next big thing in 2022 is that we’ll see SaaS categories simultaneously unbundle and rebundle around specific customer segments, driven by APIs that allow the delivery of fully embedded product experiences.
-Natalie Sandman, Partner at Spark Capital
The next big thing in 2022 is the return to rethinking core consumer apps around messaging and sharing.
-Charles Hudson, Founder & Managing Partner at Precursor Ventures
The next big thing in 2022 is a revolution of design-focused business intelligence tools serving non-technical users.
-Lisa Wehden, Investor at Bloomberg Beta
… improving upon the past two years of change.
The next big thing in 2022 is iterating and improving upon all the new big things started in 2020 or 2021.
-Gokul Rajaram, Product & Business Helper at DoorDash
The next big thing in 2022 is higher expectations. The pandemic really changed us as a society, because everything is a little more meaningful and fragile at the same time. I think there are higher expectations across everything — across product experiences, companies, institutions, transparency…and how we spend our time.
-Caroline Clark, Co-Founder & CEO at Arcade Software
I started next big thing to share unfiltered thoughts. I’d love your feedback, questions, and comments!
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Thank you for the post. Would be interesting if you make a post with comparison of the previous year’s forecasts with reality in 2021)
Interesting to read it in the end of the year. Nobody said about move2earn and play2earn concepts. And no one word about AI (hello OpenAI, Midjourney, DALLE-2 and others).