To The Moon

$NVIDIA(NVDA)$

Fifteen years ago, most investors thought they had Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA) figured out. It was the company that made the best gaming GPUs, riding the rise of PC gaming and high-performance graphics cards. Important, yes. Revolutionary? Not quite. Few predicted that this “niche hardware” firm would become the backbone of the artificial intelligence revolution, powering everything from ChatGPT to self-driving cars.

Fast-forward to 2025, and Nvidia has become one of the most valuable companies on Earth. The transformation from gaming chip designer to AI infrastructure leader stands as one of the greatest investment stories of our time. It is also a reminder of a truth that long-term investors often forget: the next great stock won’t look obvious in its early years.

This pattern repeats across market history. Ten years ago, Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) was dismissed as a boutique EV company selling overpriced cars to Silicon Valley elites. Five years ago, Palantir (NYSE: PLTR) was struggling to prove its business model and justify its government-heavy client base. Yet today, all three companies are household names, cultural symbols, and market leaders. For their early believers, the returns have been nothing short of life-changing.

The natural question for investors is simple: are there still stocks today with the same long-term wealth-creating potential as Nvidia had 15 years ago? And if so, how can one identify them before the rest of the world catches on?

The Importance of Conviction and Timing

Most investors like to believe that long-term holding alone delivers success. The mantra of “just hold for 15 years” sounds comforting. But Nvidia’s story tells us something more nuanced: time alone doesn’t create alpha—timing and conviction do.

• Nvidia’s “iPhone moment” arrived when its GPUs, designed for gamers, suddenly proved essential for training AI models. This was not a gradual shift but an explosive one, as demand for compute power in AI outpaced anything the market had seen before.

• Tesla’s breakout moment wasn’t in its first Roadster launch, but when its Model 3 production ramped successfully and profitability proved scalable.

• Palantir’s turning point came when enterprise adoption caught up with government reliance, showing investors that its software could be sticky across industries.

In each case, the real returns went to investors who recognized these inflection points and had the conviction to stay through volatility. Those who bought late—or sold early—captured only a fraction of the upside.

What Defines a Future Giant?

When we study companies like Nvidia, Tesla, and Palantir, certain common characteristics stand out. These traits often separate long-term winners from the companies that never escape their niche.

1. Moat-Level Innovation Their products weren’t just slightly better—they were step-changes. Nvidia’s GPUs outperformed CPUs for parallel processing. Tesla’s EV batteries and drivetrain efficiency outpaced incumbents. Palantir’s ability to integrate disparate data sources set it apart.

2. Ecosystem Lock-In Great products are hard to copy, but ecosystems are even harder. Nvidia’s CUDA software ecosystem, Tesla’s Supercharger network, and Palantir’s embedded government contracts created switching costs that competitors struggled to overcome.

3. Secular Tailwinds Each company rode a wave larger than itself. Nvidia had the rise of AI, Tesla rode the EV and climate revolution, Palantir benefited from an era of heightened data-driven decision-making.

4. Narrative Power Leaders like Jensen Huang, Elon Musk, and Alex Karp told stories bigger than their companies. They sold visions of the future that attracted top talent, captivated investors, and opened doors to customers.

For today’s investor, identifying companies with these characteristics—before they become obvious—is the key to capturing life-changing returns.

Potential Frontiers for the Next Nvidia

So where should investors look in 2025 and beyond? Which industries may house the next generation of dominant companies? Let’s break it down.

1. AI Infrastructure Beyond GPUs

Nvidia’s rise shows that the backbone of new technology waves often creates the biggest winners. While GPUs are central today, bottlenecks are emerging. Companies working on:

• AI inference chips (e.g., startups like Cerebras or public players like AMD),

• specialized accelerators for LLMs,

• low-power AI chips for edge devices,

• AI networking and interconnects (think Broadcom, Marvell)

…could become tomorrow’s critical suppliers. As demand for AI grows exponentially, the ecosystem will need more than Nvidia to support it.

2. Biotech & Precision Medicine

The fusion of AI and biology could yield the next trillion-dollar company. Consider CRISPR-based gene editing firms, mRNA vaccine developers, or AI-driven drug discovery platforms (like Recursion Pharmaceuticals). If one of these companies delivers a cure for cancer subtypes or solves rare genetic disorders, the upside could rival Nvidia’s AI moment.

3. Climate Tech & Energy Storage

Just as Tesla proved that clean energy could be profitable, other companies may do the same for new frontiers. Nuclear fusion startups, grid-scale storage firms, or advanced battery manufacturers could change the economics of energy. Public companies like QuantumScape (solid-state batteries) or Brookfield Renewable may be early leaders.

4. Space & Satellite Systems

SpaceX (still private) has shown that space can be both commercially viable and strategically critical. Public peers like Rocket Lab (NASDAQ: RKLB) or satellite internet providers could benefit as global communications, defense, and logistics move into orbit. The next “Nvidia” may be the company enabling the infrastructure of the new space economy.

5. Cybersecurity & Data Sovereignty

As AI, IoT, and quantum computing expand, data security becomes an existential risk. Palantir’s success shows the value of mission-critical software. Companies like CrowdStrike, Zscaler, and emerging AI-native security firms may become indispensable in the same way GPUs became indispensable for AI.

Case Studies of Emerging Contenders

Let’s consider some individual companies that investors often whisper about as “the next Nvidia.”

• ASML Holding (NASDAQ: ASML) – While already large, ASML’s monopoly over EUV lithography machines gives it a moat that looks uncannily like Nvidia’s CUDA. Without its machines, advanced chips can’t exist. Its dominance may still be underappreciated.

• Arista Networks (NYSE: ANET) – As data center demand surges, Arista’s high-speed networking solutions could be as essential to AI infrastructure as GPUs.

• UiPath (NYSE: PATH) – Though volatile, UiPath’s AI-driven automation platform could unlock productivity gains across industries, potentially giving it Palantir-like entrenchment.

• Moderna (NASDAQ: MRNA) – Beyond vaccines, Moderna’s mRNA platform is a potential goldmine for personalized medicine, cancer therapeutics, and rare disease treatment.

Each of these names comes with risks, but they illustrate how Nvidia-style asymmetry—where upside dwarfs downside—still exists today.

The Investor’s Dilemma: Conviction vs. Noise

The hardest part is not finding names. It’s believing in them when everyone else doubts.

When Nvidia stock doubled in 2016, many investors sold, thinking they had made enough. When Tesla hit $100 billion in market cap, skeptics called it overvalued. When Palantir went public, its reliance on government contracts made many walk away.

In hindsight, selling early looks like a mistake. But at the time, holding required uncomfortable conviction. Great companies never look like “sure things” in real time. They look speculative, overpriced, or misunderstood.

That’s why the combination of vision, patience, and selective conviction is what separates extraordinary outcomes from average ones.

Key Lessons for Investors

1. Look for moats, not just momentum. A stock rising doesn’t make it the next Nvidia. A durable moat does.

2. Focus on secular trends. AI, biotech, clean energy, and cybersecurity are not fads—they are structural shifts.

3. Timing matters more than duration. Holding for 15 years is useless if you entered too late. The magic is buying before the inflection point.

4. Conviction is uncomfortable. If it feels easy, the upside is probably gone. The best returns come from holding companies that most of the market doubts.

5. Diversify your “moonshots.” Not every potential Nvidia will succeed. But a basket approach—owning several—tilts the odds in your favor.

Final Take

So, are there still stocks like Nvidia 15 years ago? The answer is a resounding yes. But spotting them requires a different mindset. They won’t look like trillion-dollar giants yet. They will look risky, misunderstood, or even laughable—until a catalyst reveals their true potential.

The future giants of AI infrastructure, biotech, climate tech, space, and cybersecurity are already out there. They may be trading quietly, attracting little attention, or stuck in volatile cycles. But just as Nvidia was once “just a GPU company,” their moment of transformation may be closer than most investors realize.

The real edge isn’t holding blindly for decades. It’s recognizing the moment a company transitions from niche to necessary. That’s when conviction pays off. That’s when fortunes are made.