Tracking Wealth Through the AI Lens
Tracking Wealth Through the AI Lens
So they finally did it. The flying cars, the sci-fi dream we’ve been promised since The Jetsons, made their big public debut in California. Two companies, Joby and Archer, flew their electric whirlybirds—sorry, their "eVTOLs"—in front of a crowd. And the big selling point? The thing that was supposed to blow everyone away?
Silence.
"This is the future," some announcer declared. "Try to listen to it. It will be a challenge."
Give me a break. The future is here, and it sounds like a Dyson fan having an identity crisis. A slight "whoosh," they called it. I’ve heard louder sighs in a DMV line. This isn't the roar of progress; it's the whisper of a solution to a problem that only a handful of venture capitalists and tech bros actually have.
Let’s be real about what this is. The pitch is a utopian fantasy: a clean, quiet, electric ride-share service that lets you soar over the gridlocked arteries of our dying cities. They sell you on the idea of skipping traffic on your way to LAX for the Olympics in 2028 or zipping across Dubai. It's a beautiful picture, I'll give them that.
But who is this actually for? Do you seriously think you, me, or anyone we know will be hailing an "air taxi" to get to work? The numbers being thrown around—a $5 million price tag per aircraft and a multi-billion-dollar order book—tell you everything you need to know. This isn't the democratization of travel. It's the creation of a new, exclusive upper deck for the ultra-wealthy to literally fly over the rest of us peasants stuck in traffic.
They love to call it the "Uber of the Skies." It’s an analogy that’s as lazy as it is wrong. Uber, for all its sins, at least started with the premise of being a cheaper, more accessible alternative to a taxi. This is the exact opposite. It's a premium service for the premium class, wrapped in the green, eco-friendly packaging that makes billionaires feel good about themselves.
I can just picture it now. The sky over Los Angeles, buzzing not with the sound of engines, but with the silent, smug passage of executives and influencers skipping the 405. Is that really the future we want? A sky full of these things, constantly zipping around like metallic gnats? The noise might be low, but the visual pollution—and the class resentment—will be deafening.
If you think this is about transportation, you haven’t been paying attention. This is about the market. The moment these flying pods took to the air, Archer Aviation’s stock went absolutely bananas. Why? Because of a successful 10-minute demo? Nope. It was because of pure market delusion, summed up by headlines like Archer Aviation (ACHR) Stock Soars On Tesla Partnership Speculation. The company posted a video with a Tesla and an Optimus robot in it, and the meme-stock mob decided this meant a partnership with Elon Musk was imminent.
This is just dumb. No, "dumb" doesn't cover it—it's a symptom of a financial market completely detached from reality. We're not investing in companies anymore; we're betting on rumors, on social media posts, on vibes. It reminds me of my uncle who dumped his savings into some crypto coin because a 19-year-old on TikTok said it had "dog-like fundamentals." Spoiler: it didn't end well.
Archer is a pre-revenue company with a nearly $9 billion market cap. Let that sink in. They haven’t flown a single paying customer, are years away from FAA certification, and are burning through cash like it’s going out of style. This ain't about building a sustainable transportation network; it's about financial engineering. It’s a casino where the chips are shares in a company selling a dream that may never land.
The source materials are full of "risks," of course. Regulatory delays, public acceptance, infrastructure bottlenecks, battery constraints. They list them like items on a grocery list, as if they’re minor hurdles. These aren't hurdles; they're brick walls. The FAA is not known for its "move fast and break things" attitude, and for good reason. One of these things has a bad day over a crowded city, and the whole industry is grounded for a decade. They're selling a vision of a clean, quiet future, but all I see is a hype bubble waiting for a pin, and honestly... it can't pop soon enough.
So here we are. The flying taxi has arrived. It’s quiet, it’s electric, and it’s completely irrelevant to 99.9% of the population. This isn't a revolution. It's a new luxury good, a status symbol that will allow the elite to bypass the urban decay they helped create. It solves no fundamental problems for society. It doesn't fix crumbling infrastructure, it doesn't address housing crises, and it sure as hell doesn't make life easier for the average person. It just provides a more convenient way for the people in the penthouse to get to their private jet. Offcourse, what else did I expect? The future is here, and it's just as unequal as the present.