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Rich People Sh*t
Making stuff once reserved for rich people accessible to a wider audience has long been a recipe for investing success.
Travis Hoium
March 06, 2025
In partnership with
One of the themes of disruptive stocks within the Asymmetric Portfolio — or stocks soon to be in the Asymmetric Portfolio (ahem, this week’s spotlight) — is the strategy of taking products and services once only available to the rich and democratizing them to a much wider audience.
Many of the most successful companies in the last 20 years have leveraged this concept to one degree or another, enabled by the internet. Amazon AMZN ( ▲ 0.96% ) and Shopify SHOP ( ▲ 4.23% ) allow you to access a nearly infinite array of goods anywhere, anytime. Uber UBER ( ▼ 0.51% ) made a personal driver accessible with a few taps on your phone. Netflix NFLX ( ▲ 2.31% ) brought access to a nearly infinite library of content that would cost a fortune to collect yourself.
Democratizing “Rich People Sh*t” As a Business Model
Making stuff for rich people accessible to the masses hasn’t often been an explicit part of the business model for companies. But I’m hearing it more and more.
It was this interview with Vlad Tenev from Robinhood that piqued my interest in the company and ultimately drove me to add HOOD ( ▲ 4.48% ) Robinhood to the Asymmetric Portfolio last year. He said in part:
The idea behind Robinhood Gold is, if you’re a high net worth individual and you’re accustomed to a level of service from your bank or financial institution, we want to open up that private client, high net worth experience for just $5 per month to the mass market.
Taken with that lens, Robinhood’s strategy of adding more services to Gold and leveraging its lower cost structure as a digital-first company as a differentiator is a key to the company’s recent success.
Hims & Hers HIMS ( ▼ 1.76% ) is another company that’s using this strategy in healthcare. On the Q4 2024 conference call, CEO Andrew Dudum said:
One of the things that I think about a lot as an entrepreneur is what are things that the ultra-rich have access to and then how can we broaden that and give that to everybody? So things that people have are on-demand therapists, right? They've got nutritionalists. They have fitness coaches. They have meditation coaches. These are people that are in your life, helping you to live a healthier lifestyle. I think we are capable of building incredible AI versions of all of those coaches, which really change the paradigm for how easy it is to change the lifestyle dynamics in your house and ultimately expand that to tens of millions of more people down the line.
Again, being digital-first allows Hims & Hers to look at the market differently than a doctor’s office or brick and mortar pharmacy. There’s more leverage on software development and their delivery infrastructure, so bringing personalization and more product breadth to the business is a differentiator.
These are two recent examples of “Rich People Sh*t” being democratized, but this isn’t a new strategy.
The History of Technology and Innovation
There are centuries of products and services starting as available for the rich only to be democratized.
Before refrigeration, only the rich could afford ice houses to keep food cold in summer months.
Tropical fruits and vegetables in northern climates were unheard of until commercial air travel and refrigeration proliferated.
Cars (even horses and buggies) were for the rich until Henry Ford’s Model T.
Access to a computer used to be only for academics or the ultra-wealthy.
Mobile phones were once carried in bags in cars by very important and powerful people.
Custom meals were once the realm of the wealthy, but now they’re available for a monthly fee and will be delivered to your door.
Private drivers were for the rich, until Uber came along.
Think about the massive businesses built on these goods and services being democratized. Whirlpool, Ford, Tesla, Apple, Verizon, Uber, and more.
Spotting these points of disruption is a good way to spot a potentially big market opportunity.
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Rich People Sh*t As An Investment Thesis
Not every technology advancement that led to broader usage and not every product that proliferates is a great business.
But when you combine the democratization of goods and services with a strong strategic position and economic — the smiling curve and internet economics are good places to start thinking about how companies differentiate in these markets — I think it’s a good framework for finding great stocks.
I teased earlier that later this week I will be covering a company that may democratize the way rich people travel. It’s not without risk, but this is the kind of asymmetric opportunity I like that could open up a 10x market from what we have today.
Premium members can expect that spotlight article in their inbox soon and I’ll likely add shares of this stock in April.
Disclaimer: Asymmetric Investing provides analysis and research but DOES NOT provide individual financial advice. Travis Hoium may have a position in some of the stocks mentioned. All content is for informational purposes only. Asymmetric Investing is not a registered investment, legal, or tax advisor or a broker/dealer. Trading any asset involves risk and could result in significant capital losses. Please, do your own research before acquiring stocks.
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