More valuable than gold

During our fathers’ days, land is considered very valuable. If you have land, you can convert it into something else which can make you tonnes or money. Alternatively, you can wait for it to appreciate over time and then sell it off at a huge profit. Of course, land is till very much valuable now but is it the most valuable investment there is at the moment?

Fellow blogger Jamy has been going on and on about how she has bought gold and the price of gold has appreciated 300 times? Or was it more? According to her, investing in gold is a sure-win situation. So Jamy, if you ever return to Malaysia, I guess you can buy us a very nice dinner?

Anyway, I told Jamy that gold is not the most valuable thing there is in this day and age. To me, there is something else which commands much more value. To a certain extent, it even commands power. Sometimes, this valuable ‘thing’ that I am talking about does not even exist in physical form. No, I am not talking about air or water, although these elements are certainly going to be absolutely priceless in time to come.

Do you know who this guy is? His name is Mark Zuckerberg and he is said to be the world’s youngest billionaire, with a net worth of about $1.5b. Although it is just a ‘paper’ net worth, it is still a lot of money. For those who don’t know who this guy is… he is the founder of the current internet addiction… Facebook.

Facebook is said to be valued at a staggering $15b, based on Microsoft’s valuation. Why is facebook so valuable? Is it because its office happens to be occupying an oil-rich piece of land? Is it because it has tonnes and tonnes of gold? You and I know those are not the answer.

If think facebook’s assets lie in its capability to share applications or allow its users to play games or do the you-poke-me-I-poke-you thing, I have to disagree. To me, facebook's wealth lies not in the incredible capability of the site, its wealth lies in its membership… their names… their age… their ‘availability’ status… their gaming habit… their e-mails… their interests… their likes and dislikes… their photos… their spending habit…their networks of friends… their connections… the statistic of their time spent online…

What facebook has is a huge database of what I think is the most valuable thing in the current world……… information.

Coming back to home, why do you think the ruling coalition suffered such a heavy battering in the recently held 12th General Election? Was it because the opposition has got huge land bank and thus able to organise massive ‘ceramah’? Was it because the opposition has got huge gold reserves and thus able to launch a massive election campaign?

The answer is of course a big NO. The sole reason why the opposition was able to perform so well is simply because the opposition has got priceless information and such information was disseminated to the public at large. It is not properties or gold… it is such simply… information.

And why do you think law such as the Official Secrets Act (OSA) exist? It exist simple to protect… information.

CIA, MI-II, Special Branch, Beijing… all the intelligence agencies of the various countries, the eyes and ears of the governments, what are they set up to do? Were they set up to invest in highly lucrative business deals? No… and to invest, they set investment arm openly. They even allow others to do it.

But… secret govt agencies and set up and individuals… highly trained individuals are recruited to gather what they know is the most valuable thing of all… information. They… we… all of us… want to know who they other person is doing, what the other person is doing next and how they are going to do it. All these are information of incredible value.

In this day and age, information is king… information is power… and with information, you can make tonnes and tonnes of money, provided you know how to manipulate and put information to good use. Do you know how to gather valuable information and make information work for you?

Of course, I will settle for an acre of land and a few gold bars… for now…