It's the question I get asked more than any other, whether I'm speaking at a conference or just grabbing coffee: "Aris, where is the future really going? If you had to place one bet on the next decade, what would it be?" For years, I’d talk about specific technologies—quantum computing, generative AI, spatial interfaces. But picking individual winners in a revolution is a fool's errand. It’s like trying to guess which single blacksmith will thrive when the automobile is invented.
The smarter bet is to invest in the engine of the revolution itself.
That’s why, when people ask me that question today, my answer is simpler. I point them to the Vanguard Information Technology ETF, or VGT. And before you click away thinking this is just another dry financial article, I need you to understand what this fund truly represents. It’s not just a collection of stocks. It’s a concentrated bet on the digital bedrock of human civilization for the next generation. It’s an ETF—basically, a basket of stocks you can buy and sell with a single click, like one giant super-stock—that has quietly averaged over 20% annual returns for the last 15 years by owning the companies building our tomorrow.
More Than a Fund—It's a Stake in the Future's Foundation
Let’s be brutally honest. Most "tech funds" are designed to make you feel diversified. They sprinkle your money across hundreds of companies, hoping a few winners will offset the many who will inevitably fade into irrelevance. It’s a safe strategy. It's also a diluted one.
VGT is different. It’s unapologetically concentrated. According to Vanguard’s Information Technology Index Fund ETF Shares (VGT) Top 25 Holdings, nearly 45% of its entire value is packed into just three companies: NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Apple. Some analysts see this as a risk. I see it as the entire point. This isn't a bug; it's the fund's most profound feature.
Think of it this way. NVIDIA, with its massive 17% weighting, isn't just a chipmaker. It’s the company building the global engine for artificial intelligence. Its GPUs are the foundational hardware, the digital blast furnaces, forging the intelligence that will power every other industry on Earth. Microsoft, at nearly 14%, is the architect of the new operating system for business and creativity. Through Azure cloud services and its Copilot AI, it’s building the digital nervous system that connects everything. And Apple, at 13%, remains the undisputed master of the human-computer interface, creating the ecosystem through which billions of people will experience this new world.
When I first looked at this breakdown, I honestly just sat back in my chair, speechless. This isn't just a list of top-performing companies. This is a blueprint of the modern world's power structure. Owning VGT isn't just betting on "tech." It's owning the engine (NVIDIA), the operating system (Microsoft), and the primary interface (Apple) of the 21st-century economy. Below them, you have the critical infrastructure players: Broadcom, Oracle, AMD, Salesforce. It's a portfolio built on the core assumption that the digital transformation isn't a passing trend; it's the main event.
What does this mean for you? It means you can stop trying to pick the one winning AI application and instead own the company that powers all of them. You can stop guessing which software startup will succeed and instead own the cloud platform they all have to run on. Are you seeing the shift in perspective here?
The Compounding Engine of Innovation
The numbers behind VGT are, frankly, staggering. Averaging 23% per year over the last decade is a track record that puts most active fund managers to shame. But the numbers don't tell the whole story. They are merely the exhaust fumes of a much more powerful engine: the relentless, compounding cycle of innovation.
The capital generated by these tech titans isn’t just sitting in a vault; it’s being reinvested into research and development on a scale that dwarfs the budgets of most countries. This creates a feedback loop where success funds the next breakthrough, which in turn generates even greater success—it’s a virtuous cycle of progress that pulls the entire fund upward with a gravitational force that is almost impossible to stop.
This is the kind of breakthrough that reminds me why I got into this field in the first place. This isn’t about quarterly earnings reports; it's about watching a new economic reality being assembled piece by piece, right before our eyes.
Now, you might hear some people point to actively managed funds like GTEK, which has had periods of outperformance by focusing on up-and-coming disruptors (a trend covered in articles like How Active Tech ETF GTEK Has Outperformed VGT YTD). And that's a valid strategy for finding the next big thing. But VGT isn't about finding the next thing. It's about owning the everything thing. It’s the difference between betting on a promising young inventor and owning the patent on electricity itself. This is less like stock picking and more like owning a slice of the Industrial Revolution—a stake in the railroads, the steel mills, and the power grid all at once.
Of course, with such concentrated power comes immense responsibility. We must remain vigilant, as a society, about the ethical implications when a handful of companies hold the keys to our digital infrastructure. The decisions made in the boardrooms of NVIDIA, Microsoft, and Apple now have geopolitical consequences, and that’s a conversation we need to keep having, openly and honestly.
But from an investment perspective, the logic is undeniable. You are aligning your capital with the most dominant, forward-looking, and well-funded innovation engines the world has ever seen. You are betting on the simple, powerful idea that technology will continue to be the primary driver of human progress and economic growth for the foreseeable future. How could you bet against that?
This Isn't Just Investing, It's Participating
Look, at the end of the day, VGT isn't a magic bullet. It’s a long-term commitment to a vision of the future. It’s a belief that the convergence of artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and human-centric design is not just another tech cycle, but a fundamental paradigm shift for humanity. Buying a share of this fund is more than a financial transaction. It's an act of participation. It's a vote of confidence in human ingenuity and a way to own a piece of the incredible world we are all building together.