🦖 Why are Dinosaurs and Snakes Making Headlines?
The popularity of dinosaur bones and snake venom could teach you a little bit about personal finance. Here's how.
The world is a weird place and this realisation hits us every morning when we read the newspaper.
How weird? Well, yesterday we read about:
The rising prices of dinosaur bones
The growing smuggling of snake venom
This led us to question two things:
Why are people obsessed with dinosaurs
What do people even do with snake venom?
If you are curious like us and want answers, ReadOn!
😍 An Old-Timey Love Story
Our entire generation probably fell in love (and also got a tiny bit scared) with dinosaurs, ever since the first Jurassic Park movie was released.
But this love has turned into an obsession, with the rich and powerful wanting to own dinosaur skeletons now.
Yes, there is an insane increase in demand for dinosaur skeletons, bones, teeth and even fossils.
Just in 2020, a well-preserved T-Rex skeleton sold for $31.8 million! That's an insane amount for money for some bones.
And that's not all. A half-real dinosaur skeleton also sold for $12.4 million!
But these dinosaurs were rare and Covid had minted an insane amount of money for the rich, so they could afford to spend millions on dinosaur bones.
However, these purchases started a whole new trend.
The news about skeletons selling for a record price got the rich interested.
Newspapers wrote that Nicolas Cage, Brad Pitt, Leonardo di Caprio and many other rich and famous had decorated their homes with dinosaur bones.
And soon, inquiries began about more dinosaur skeletons, and their prices jacked up.
Result? A whole new industry boom in the US: dino hunting.
Many people have taken up looking for dinosaur bones and fossils as full-time jobs now.
In fact, Discovery has even launched a whole new show about this called Dino Hunters!
Now, while we were digging deeper into this, we realised that this hype highlighted two human behavioural traits that are applicable to your investment decisions too.
First, people still fall for the "rare is valuable" bias. Just because dinosaur skeletons are rare, that doesn't mean they should be bought for insane amounts of money. The same goes for all of your investments: don't go for something just because it is rare.
Second, hype is everything. The news cycle created a hype about dinosaur skeletons, created unnecessary demand and gave birth to a whole new industry. Similarly, hype about the crypto industry led to billions of dollars of investment in this space. Don't judge investments by the hype created around them. In fact, extra hype should make you wary.
🐍 The Business of Snake Venom
Smuggling of snake venom has become super common across the India-Bangladesh border.
That's because there's a huge demand for snake venom in India.
You see, jaise loha lohe ko katta hai (iron beats iron), snake venom helps create the anti-venom required to treat snake bites.
And there's a huge demand for this anti-venom in India where 1.2 million people die every year due to snake bites.
Not just that. India also loses 3 million years of productivity to snake bites just because the right kind of snake venom isn't always available.
Snake venom also helps create medicines for diseases like thrombosis and arthritis.
But why smuggle and not just buy? Well, yet another mind-boggling fact:
2.14 kgs of snake venom costs Rs. 17 crores!
Again, 'rare is valuable': snakes produce 1-850 gms of venom depending on their size, so collecting 2 kgs is a huge task.
But most of this smuggled snake venom goes to rave parties. Huh?
Yes, in yet another random thing that humans are doing just because it is hyped: having snake venom to get high.
Not only is this dangerous, it also wastes a lot of precious snake venom that could've helped a sick person.
But hey, we're not judging these people. Instead, let's see why India has a shortage of anti-snake venom.
Well, because right now, only one government facility provides anti-snake venom.
This is another major opportunity that India is sleeping on. We have over 300 species of snakes and could provide the world with different kinds of snake venom to treat diseases. But due to lack of research and development, we're facing shortages and seeing millions die.
This is India's moment to rebrand itself from the snake charmer country to one saving the world from snakes.
And there are millions of such niches where India can grow. But we're still dealing with the most basic of problems: illiteracy, electricity, sanitation.
Unless we overcome them, we can't focus on the niches, and unless we do, we can't grow and become a net exporter.
What do you think India can do to focus on these niche businesses and develop them?
⚡In a line: Dinosaurs and snakes are making the news because of hype but this hype could be great for India.
💡Quick question: Do you think niche businesses can help us grow?
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