Technology is Disrupting Everything

Technology is Disrupting Everything – Even Sneakers

With Chris Hyzy, Chief Investment Officer, Bank of America Global Wealth & Investment Management And Moderator Ron Insana

Please see important information at the end of this program.

Recorded on December 16, 2015

MR. INSANA: Chris, one of the areas you've been watching very closely is disruptive technology and the impact that it's having, and the massive changes that it's creating in our lives. So, from your perspective, what are the most disruptive technologies right now, the most significant disruptions we're seeing today?

MR. HYZY: I would point to a number of things. If you're building a developed good right now, or a durable good, or even a consumer of sneakers, and you're manufacturing them with hands, and you're putting glue on, and you're putting the sneakers together manually, it takes a lot. It also has a higher input cost.

[Lower 3rd]

Disruptive tech in manufacturing: The switch to 3-D printing and mass customization.

If you switch that to 3-D manufacturing, real time, over the internet, customized, at the same price, lower input costs; that's the disruptive technology.

MR. INSANA: Mass customization.

MR. HYZY: Mass customization.

[B-roll: wearable technology and/or 3D printing footage]

[Lower 3rd]

Disruptive tech in healthcare: Wearable technology, genomics and personalized medicine.

Fit wear, fit active wear, smart fit active wear, that transfers into the healthcare system, et cetera; those are disruptive technologies. You or I may have a medical situation. Your DNA, your genome, is different than mine. There's ability to create compounds that will work with me, same compounds, different combinations that will work with me that may not work with you; that's longevity.

[Lower 3rd]

Disruptive tech in computing: The advent of “the Cloud” is enabling huge efficiencies.

The Cloud; when you consider the Cloud, you could build a company today with one employee, have a warehouse somewhere else in the world, and actually utilize the Cloud to store, in a secure environment, all the information you need that took 50 employees before.

[B-roll: smart grid footage, networking, servers]

Battery power, storage power. How do you take that into the home? How do you build a smart grid to run the traffic like another company, a networking company years ago used to run their broadband traffic?

[B-roll: energy production-fracking footage]

We haven't even talked about energy, which is one of the reasons why there's so much surplus is because of the technology that allows you to re-frack a well that was already fracked.

MR. INSANA: And what about entertainment technology? I mean, clearly communications technology has changed dramatically. It's disruptive in both good ways and bad ways. But, it is with us, and from an entertainment perspective as well, our choices are multiplying very quickly.

MR. HYZY: If the technology was able to create a real-time experience and at the same time real-time experience with wide reach, you've won, and that's the disruptive technology that's happening across the mobile phone and everything else. Cars, at the airports, inside the airplane; it's all about creating a real-time experience with wide reach.

MR. INSANA: All right, Chris. Good to see you. Thanks for being with us.

MR. HYZY: Thank you, Ron.

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