Your Summer Road Trip Is Showing You the Future

You're cruising down the road with the windows down.

The California coast hums beneath your tires. You can almost taste the salty air on your tongue.

The drive from Seattle to San Diego – a trip that takes you from one domain of Big Tech into another – has always been iconic. But nothing compares to that stretch of the Pacific Coast Highway between Monterey and Big Sur, where the road clings to cliffs that plunge more than 200 feet into the Pacific Ocean.

You might even pull over at Nepenthe, that clifftop café perched above the clouds, where locals sip espresso and tourists stare slack-jawed at the horizon.

Further south, you pass Morro Bay's volcanic dome rising from the ocean... then stop for tacos in Pismo Beach, where the surfers look like they've never checked a stock chart in their lives.

The road trip is central to the very idea of being American: exploration, discovery, and the freedom to encounter new horizons.

And here's the thing...

During all that time on the road, you'll see signs of the future. They're showing up both on the highways and in this summer's earnings calls.

We've entered a fast-changing tech landscape. And if you pay close attention, you'll see the overlooked ways that investors can position themselves to profit – before the rest of the world catches on.

The Obvious... and the Overlooked

If you've taken a drive this summer, you've probably driven past the future without even realizing it...

• A vast solar farm stretching across a desert plain.

• A self-driving car easing down the freeway in the right lane.

• A half-built industrial site with rows of thick cooling units – soon to be another hyperscale data center.

These aren't random roadside features. They're breadcrumbs – scattered clues pointing to the next wave of tech-driven wealth... in real time, right in front of us.

Let me tell you about some of the breadcrumbs I picked up on my California road trip last month...

Mile Marker 1: That self-driving car in the right lane...

Just north of San Luis Obispo, I passed a cherry-red Tesla Model S. The driver had his hands off the wheel. He was laughing hard with his family, glancing to the back seat to check on the kids.

At first, I thought it was reckless driving. Turns out, I was witnessing the early stages of the AI revolution.

That Tesla was doing more than cruising down U.S. Route 101. It was generating up to 19 terabytes of data per hour – from every camera, sensor, and decision. (That's the equivalent of 9,500 hours of high-definition video.)

All of it gets fed into supercomputers that require the energy and processing power of small nations.

And it's not just Tesla. Waymo just hit more than 100 million self-driving robotaxi miles, finally achieving "hockey stick" growth...

What I passed wasn't just a car... It was a moving node in the world's most advanced AI network.

Mile Marker 2: That cooling facility behind the fence...

A few hours later, near Paso Robles, I passed a construction site flanked by giant cooling units and reinforced concrete.

It looked unremarkable. Industrial. Quiet.

But that location is part of hundreds of billions of dollars in planned AI infrastructure spending. We can see it in top earnings reports from this quarter alone...

• Microsoft (MSFT) is on track to spend $80 billion on AI data-center expansion in fiscal 2025.

• Alphabet (GOOGL) raised its capital-expenditures ("capex") forecast to $85 billion this year, citing AI demand and the cloud.

• Meta Platforms (META) plans to spend between $66 billion and $72 billion worth of capex on AI infrastructure in 2025.

• Amazon (AMZN) projects $100 billion in capex this year, most of it going to Amazon Web Services and custom AI chips.

That's just from four companies. After all... somebody has to process all the data generated from those self-driving cars.

Mile Marker 3: That helicopter overhead...

Outside Los Angeles, I heard the distant thump of rotor blades.

A Blade Air Mobility (BLDE) chopper, I guessed. They offer those $300-plus rides executives take to bypass traffic.

Three days later, Joby Aviation (JOBY) announced plans to buy Blade's entire passenger business for $125 million.

Why would an electric-air-taxi company buy a helicopter service?

Because while everyone debates when flying cars will arrive, Joby just agreed to buy 12 urban terminals. That means it has 50,000 of Blade's customers built in, paying premium prices to skip the freeway.

Wall Street understood immediately. Joby's stock hit record highs after the deal. Blade jumped 30% in a day.

The Breadcrumbs Add Up

These stories are all part of the same transformation:

• Self-driving cars create AI-scale data problems...

• AI-scale data requires AI-scale infrastructure...

• Infrastructure needs reliable power (solar, natural gas, and nuclear)...

• And the new world that emerges needs new, fast, and smart transportation models.

Every crane, every cable, every cooling unit you pass is part of the same buildout.

The difference is that some people just see construction... Others see opportunity.

So the next time you pass that cooling unit or self-driving car on the highway, remember: The market is already telling you what matters... You just have to pay attention.

As I always say: You're either early, or you're obsolete.

Good investing,

Josh Baylin

Editor's note: Headlines missed this story while Elon Musk was leading DOGE... But his latest project could transform Tesla into a $25 trillion behemoth. This "imminent revolution" – as two of the most powerful technologies in history join forces – could create more millionaires than any other opportunity on the planet... And this may be your once-in-a-lifetime chance to get in early.