# Last night at dinner with a friend, something she casually mentioned has been on my mind ever since.

She said that back when Tencent went public in 2004, her dad was glued to QQ every day, continuously renewing his membership for years, yet it never occurred to him to buy a single share of Tencent stock.

The IPO price was 3.7 HKD. Today, it has surged over 700 times. Those who bought 1,000 shares back then for 3,700 HKD now hold portfolios worth hundreds of thousands.

This story hits on a brutal truth:
The difference between being a consumer and being an investor is just one step, yet worlds apart.

The people who sensed the wave earliest and those who actually made money from it are rarely the same group.

Twenty years ago, we were among the earliest internet users. We spent all our money on consumption, yet invested nothing.

Today we pay subscriptions for Claude and Gemini, buy Mac minis to run models—essentially, we're repeating that same pattern.

I deliberately looked up some data to see things more clearly.

All this money spent on AI ultimately flows toward computing power, chips, and storage.

Global semiconductor sales reached $791.7 billion in 2025, expected to break the trillion-dollar mark this year.

AI companies worldwide are frantically competing for chips, with supply falling short and prices climbing steadily.

How outrageous are the profits on the other end of the chain?

SK Hynix's 2025 revenue grew 47% year-over-year, with operating profit doubling;
Samsung's memory business posted record quarterly revenue;
Nvidia's latest AI accelerator uses Samsung's HBM3E chips;
OpenAI plans to order 900,000 semiconductors by 2029.

The smarter money has already moved ahead.

From early 2025 to now, Samsung has surged nearly 4x, SK Hynix roughly 6x.

South Korea's KOSPI index hit 6,000 points for the first time this year, up nearly 45% year-to-date, leading major global indices.

Over the past year, the S&P 500 rose 14%, while the Korean composite surged over 120%.

History keeps repeating itself.

In 2004, we used QQ, renewed memberships, bought point cards—we were among the first to sense the internet wave, yet we dismissed Tencent at 3.7 HKD as worthless.

In 2026, we're subscribing to AI services, buying equipment, outsourcing AI work—still at the cutting edge as consumers, yet we may once again have done nothing but consume.

History's rhythm cycles on.

My only hope is that this time, we don't have to wait another twenty years to regret it.