Random 2025 Thoughts: Money, Technology, Me

What a horrible title for a blog post! Hey, they can’t all be winners.

2025 was a great year for us! And if you were invested in index funds, it was a great year for you too.

Money

This blog is supposed to be about money. Let’s start there.

Markets are up. Again.

The S&P 500 was up 18%! Craziness. Mr. Market has been on a spectacular run. I still remember when I started this blog back in 2013 hearing people saying that ‘everything were overvalued,’ so they were ‘sitting it out.’ Here is what they missed out on:

Note that in these 14 years:

• There have only been 2 down years. 2!!!
• There have been 11 years of 10%+ returns.
• There have been 6 years of 20%+ returns.
• There have been 2 years of 30%+ returns.
• $1,000 invested at the start of 2012 would be worth $6,750 now (14.6% growth per year!). Thank you Mr. Market. You’ve been a great friend to us.

The party will take a break at some point. I worry about geopolitical events like an invasion of Taiwan. But it’s pointless to try to predict this stuff. It’s also very difficult to tell how these events would affect Mr. Market if they did happen. And it’s much more fun (and lucrative) to be an optimist.

Google’s Resurgence

Everyone was down and out on Google. ChatGPT stole Google’s thunder, but now the tables are turning:

I never lost faith in Google because it employees some of the smartest people in the world. I wouldn’t bet against Demis Hassabis and Jeff Dean. And we can’t talk about Google without talking about its autonomous car subsidiary, Waymo. More on that below.

AI Is Here To Stay

The number one investment question I hear people asking lately is this:

Is there an AI bubble?

This is the wrong question. AI is here to stay and even if companies are currently overvalued, it won’t matter long term. Unlike many of the dot-com bubble companies, AI has tremendous substance. I use it every day:

• My car’s little AI inference brain drives me around while I ponder the landscape.
• I use Gemini to help interpret building codes and design systems in our new place.
• I’ve used different AI for informal therapy sessions: “Why do I ruminate on ____?” The advice has been genuinely helpful. (I never thought I’d shed tears while having an impromptu therapy session in my car which has Grok.)

Instead of pondering the short-term valuation of AI companies, folks should be thinking about the long-term ramifications of AI. It will be a bumpy road as society deals with job loss. But I believe the world will be better for it.

Crypto Was A No-Show

I’m not a fan of crypto, but I thought it would have a great year. It had so many tailwinds. Despite that, crypto didn’t do so well.

But it also had a huge run-up in 2024, so perhaps it was just taking a break.

I admit that crypto drives me a little crazy because of its fanatical followers. I’ve received numerous emails and DMs from them, telling me why I’m crazy for not investing in it. If it’s so great, why do folks have to so fervently evangelize it? I thought the dividend crowd was overly enthusiastic, but the crypto crowd is on another level.

Technology

As a kid, I played with Lego, toy rockets, and computers. I was thrilled to be home sick on the rare day when there was a shuttle launch because that meant I could watch it.

As an adult, I play with Lego, toy rockets, and computers. When there is a rocket launch, I stop whatever I’m doing to watch it. This includes pulling over to the side of the road and watching it on my phone.

I love technology. Things that fly are awesome. So is space. So are computers. More random thoughts ahead.

Data Centers In Space

Inference processing in space will be a thing. Elon started yapping about it in 2025. We know he’s a little crazy, but when Google starts talking about it, I take it seriously: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2511.19468

Waymo Turned A Corner

Waymo (a Google company) gave over 14 million (!!!) fully autonomous trips in 2025. And it is expanding aggressively in 2026. The service has an incredibly good safety record. Less people dying in auto accidents is a great thing. So is less car ownership. (I could think of a million better things to do with my garage than parking cars in it.) I look forward to a future where transportation becomes a service for many.

Tesla (sigh…)

In December, I road-tripped out to California and used my Y’s autonomous driving software (FSD) for the entire trip.

• On the first day, I went 960 miles. That’s a LOOOONG day, but when the car is doing the driving, it’s much easier. You recline the seat a little, put on an audiobook (The Devil in the White City this time), and observe the world a little more than you could if you were driving.

• On the second day, the car drove perfectly from Hollywood to Long Beach at rush hour. The trip was only 30 miles, but took 2.5 hours because of traffic. If I had been driving, my nerves would have been frayed and I would have probably lost my mind at least once along the way. The car dealt with:
  • Pedestrians in the middle of lanes tweaked out on unknown illicit substances
  • Scooters and ebikes
  • One golf cart (Who drives a golf cart down the middle of a busy road? Some guy in L.A. does.)
  • Driving into the blinding sun
  • VERY aggressive L. A. drivers (Holy cow, some of y’all are nuts! Slow down! Don’t driveo n sidewalks either! Those are for people.)

FSD is a minor miracle. Most of the time. A couple of weeks ago here in my home of Boulder County, it tried to turn into oncoming traffic in a construction zone. Whoops.

As great as FSD is, autonomous driving is an incredibly difficult problem that Tesla has yet to fully solve. To put it another way: In my last 10,000 miles of driving, I’ve had to intervene twice for safety issues. This is completely incredible. It’s also not nearly good enough. Show me 50,000 miles of driving without a safety issue I’ll be happy.

At the same time, Waymo is accelerating its deployment of robotaxis. Tesla has bet the company on autonomy and it is behind. Could this be the beginning of the end for Tesla? Maybe.

Me

OK, I don’t like this part so much, but this blog has always been a bit of a personal journal. Random thoughts about my 2025 and what’s coming in 2026.

2025 Was Our Biggest Year Yet For Gains (and spending)

2025 was a year of big spending. We sold $215,000 in investments to help pay for the F.O.O.L.I.S.H. Project. We also invested in a new business venture (more on that at a later date). Despite our outsized spending, our worker dollar army more than kept pace. Our net worth went from $6,460,794 to $8,535,505, an increase of $2,074,711.

At my first job, I made $37,000/year. Before taxes. Accounting for inflation, this would be $73,573. So:

$2,074,711 / $73,573 = 28

In one year, our portfolio generated the equivalent of 28 years of income from that job. This is the power of compounding. It’s amazing to have a force like this working for you. I don’t do much of anything except look at our numbers every once in a while.

2026 Could Be Another Great Money Year

Most of our gains came from private equity; SpaceX and Impulse Space. Google also had a phenomenal year, appreciating about 65%. Life is good.

I wrote about investing in private companies last year. My hypothesis is that index investing will be diminished as companies stay private longer. By staying private, indexers give up gains to the private money.

I have played in this space a little with my biggest holding being SpaceX. SpaceX is supposed to IPO this year. If it IPOs at the rumored valuation of 1.5t, we’ll add another $2,000,000 to the pile. Craziness.

However, SpaceX still has much to prove. The biggest thing being a successful landing and reuse of the Starship orbital vehicle. This is an incredibly difficult challenge and it will be fascinating to see if SpaceX can pull it off. The other challenge is in-space refueling. This one isn’t as difficult (rockets dock with the space station all the time), but critical to SpaceX’s moon and Mars ambitions.

We’ll be spending a lot more money to complete the F.O.O.L.I.S.H Project. So far, we’ve spent (mostly borrowed actually) $427,083. I’m guessing we’ll spend another $400,000 to see the project to completion.

Fitness

I owe y’all a fitness update. I have achey shoulders from running ERV and PEX lines, but otherwise doing great. My one silly 2025 goal was to walk 8,000,000 steps. I went a little overboard:

One thing to note about all of these steps is that most of them weren’t forced; they were a result of my lifestyle. When you spend 30 hours in a week running thousands of feet of plastic lines, you end up moving around a lot.

My 2025 focus was on strength training. In 2026, I’m adding cardio back into the mix. I’ve seen my resting heart rate creep up every year since 2020 and I don’t like it. Right now, I’m doing 4×4 workouts at least twice a week. When the weather warms up, I’ll get back on my bike for long rides.

Happy As Ever

In August of 2025, after thinking on it for a long time, we started building a house. This project has given me unexpected amusement and joy. Solving puzzles (MMM would call it voluntary hardship) like installing an ERV and hydronic heating system have been a lot of fun. Next, I’ll be installing a mini-split system (mostly for cooling).

This project will be completed in the first half of 2026 and then I’ll figure out my next challenge. I also plan on sitting a little bit more. But not too much. Where is the fun in that?!??

Roaming About The World

I’m looking forward to visiting the Netherlands for the first time in a couple of months and returning to Germany in the fall. With a kid at school in California, I’ll be there frequently as well.

Life is great.

More 1500 Days!!!

You can also find me (and the dinosaurs) at:

• YouTube: My channel is mostly devoted to home improvement, but I have some other material coming up soon too.
• Instagram: Pretty pictures of dinosaurs, sunsets, and nail guns!
• Twitter: Spontaneous, often insane, ramblings
• The FI Collective: Join our fun little community of FIRE Folks! Note that we now have options for remote memberships!
• Buying a Tesla? Use my referral code to get some perks!