Not long ago, I sat in the Capital One Café on the corner of Broadway and 60th Street in New York, headphones on, trying to look modern.
The place itself felt like a symbol of the new era: open-plan seating, baristas serving espresso shots under fintech branding, students in baggy trackpants streaming playlists I couldn’t name, banging away on laptops plastered with stickers. It was banking disguised as lifestyle — a café that doubles as a branch, a branch that doubles as a working space.
I loaded Spotify’s Today’s Top Hits to blend in — Olivia Rodrigo, Sombr, Charli XCX. But within minutes, I’d betrayed myself. My fingers wandered back to Lennon and McCartney. My playlists don’t lie. I may want to look current, but my turntable’s stuck in the 1960s.
That’s the point. In markets, as in music, we can’t keep yearning for the past. We may not like the sound of what young people are listening to, but we have to be aware of it. The same goes for consumption and investment. “Forever companies” like Coca-Cola, P&G, and McDonald’s are waning. The new winners are apps, games and AI companions. If we cling to our old vinyls, we miss the beat of the future.
The rituals that once defined adulthood have dissolved into digital shorthand. Banking, once a marble-floored ceremony with biscuits on a tray, is now a swipe on a smartphone while waiting for an Uber. Offices, once temples of typewriters and coffee chatter, have shrunk into laptop screens and pyjama meetings. Even advertising, once a chorus of jingles we’d hum in the lift, has given way to TikTok dances that determine which restaurants trend.
The pattern is unmistakable. What once felt like milestones — opening an account, clocking into work, humming a jingle — now happens casually, almost invisibly, on OLED screens.
The market doesn’t care about what sold in the past. It cares about the habits of the next generation
Consumption, too, has shed its old certainties. Brand loyalty once shaped character — Levi’s or Nike stitched into your identity. Today, teens delight in house-brand sweaters and jeans. Beer, once a rite of passage, is being rebranded into kombuchas and mocktails. Fashion has blurred into athleisure, while sneakers are now acceptable wedding wear.
The market doesn’t care about what sold in the past. It cares about the habits of the next generation. If they’re banking on apps, buying athleisure and trusting influencers over TV ads, then those are the businesses that will grow.
Even Warren Buffett admitted in a recent CNBC interview: “I understand fewer of the businesses as a percentage of the whole than I did 10 years ago. I have not learnt new industries for some years. And so, I don’t kid myself on that. I’m not going to learn them.”
That may have worked when Coke and Wrigley’s were safe bets. But the pace of change is too fast, and the certainties too different. As experienced market people, we can’t afford to stop learning. We must keep studying new businesses, new consumption patterns and new technologies — because they are reshaping the world we live in.
The same applies to AI. Just as sodas were a daily habit for past generations, AI tools are becoming the daily habit of this one — used for homework, work, companionship and play. The “forever companies” are shifting from consumables to digital utilities. Data centres don’t run on sugar water; they run on power.
When I was young, Saturday night meant stress. You had to rehearse your lines and then pluck up the courage to dial a girl’s number, ask her out and pray she says yes. Staying home alone was social suicide — you didn’t want to be caught dead watching a movie solo or with another “loser male”. And if the line was busy, you sat there sweating, redialling, rehearsing and hoping.
Today’s youngsters? They drink less, date less and stay home without shame. They stream videos, play games, chat with AI companions and call it a night.
Part of me envies them. But part of me knows that the trauma of Saturday night — the courage to dial that number — was its own kind of education. And maybe, just maybe, the best training for dealing with the vicissitudes of today’s markets.
Shapiro is global equity strategist at Otto1890
