The Goldman Sachs Future Tech Leaders Equity ETF (GTEK) looks to put investors on the right side of disruptive and innovative technology trends. ETF Trends’ managing editor Lara Crigger interviewed Cole Feinberg, head of Americas distribution for Goldman Sachs, on what qualifies a technology stock as being “innovative” or “disruptive”.
His answer: “Some of the trends we see as disruptive are e-commerce, electric vehicles, fintech, AI, genomics, clean energy, and so on. I like to think of them as ‘sectors 2.0.’ Historically, tech has been its own sector. But our view is that tech is now permeating every single sector, and you don’t necessarily have to be a company creating the technology, but you definitely need to be one embracing it.”
More specifically, he explains: “Take genomics as an example. With genomics, if you could actually cure the disease — and that’s what genomics seeks to do, by tapping into the human genome — well, then you don’t really need pharmaceuticals, do you? Because pharmaceuticals treat the disease. If a genomics company cures the disease, there’s no reason for the pharmaceutical company to exist anymore. That’s the disruption.”
It he point isn’t clear enough, he goes on to say: “So if you can get to the heart of the matter — and this is what I think the future tech fund is really doing — you’d see that genomics, AI, robotic surgery — all these things are light years ahead of what we’d say are the traditional subsectors of healthcare. You’re taking the Pfizers and whoever out of the picture altogether, if you can cure the disease that they are treating.”
