I realize that you may be wondering why, in each episode of Telltales, we keep coming back to Energy and Tech... so here's how I think about it...
Energy
Energy is the world's most important resource. Since the discovery of oil, it has been central to every major world event, and attributed as the reason the Allies won WWII. For a great primer on the importance of energy, check out Daniel Yergen's, The Prize. As society's tolerance for hydrocarbon based fuel wanes, the future of energy is all the more important to our investment decisions.
Technology
All of the great industrial revolutions were driven by technological advances... 1-3 below are generally accepted, though in the future, 3-5 may be combined... nonetheless here's a summary, from my perspective.
1. The first Industrial Revolution (1765) brought steam power which changed the social economics of production, enabling machines to produce textiles, chemical and iron products. It also gave rise to capitalism.
2. The second Industrial Revolution (1870) was driven by electricity and chemistry. Electricity not only brought light, but also the telegraph and the telephone which fundamentally changed the way the world communicates. Meanwhile chemistry brought us dense, easily portable fuels which enabled the internal combustion engine, and ultimately cars and planes.
3. The third Industrial Revolution (1969) was triggered by the invention of the microprocessor (Intel). The microprocessor enabled complex and repetitive tasks to be performed by programs, enabling process orientation and automation. Digital transformation is still a popular term, but it began in the early 1960s.
4. The fourth Industrial Revolution (~2000) was caused by the proliferation of very cheap digital storage and major improvements in communication and connectivity. The reduction in storage cost made it very easy to collect and create digital data. Communication and connectivity made it possible to create data very cheaply. This brought us the cloud, IOT, eCommerce, SaaS, next day delivery, smart phones, cellular networks, and more.
5. The fifth Industrial Revolution is still shaking out, but ultimately it is being driven by advancements in statistics that are driving artificial intelligence and machine learning. While the fundamentals of machine learning have their roots in the 60s and 70s, it was merely theoretical as processing power was insufficient at that time do that sort of computation. These statistical methods (and more) are now feasible due to the confluence of ubiquitious data and semiconductors capable of processing that data. Ultimately making use of those data generation capabilities created in the 4th. We will probably look back on the early inventions of this period and laugh at how 'simplistic' they were (ex... Siri, Tesla Autopilot, Google Home, Amazon Alexa, etc).
Hopefully this helps explain why Energy and Tech are so important when it comes to analyzing and selecting investments.