We’ve all heard the famous saying that compounding is the 8th wonder of the world, attributed to Albert Einstein … and Benjamin Franklin and Baron Rothschild and Bernard Baruch; there is no evidence that any of them said that. Who said it matters little, as it verbalises a mindset that very few in world history have comprehended. Even more so today.

And it’s understandable why. We live second by second, day by day, week by week. Our next second does not come and go at a different speed than the prior one, although it does feel that way when you’re stuck on TikTok or Instagram or playing an intense video game or engrossed in a fabulous movie. Most of the time, time just moves along, and we with it. Same routine every workday, same story every weekend, and so on and so forth.

Said in another way, we live in a linear state.

And this linear way of thinking directs how we approach most things in life. Examples include, “If only I get this job, then life will be easier”, “If only this political party gets elected, then we’ll be okay again”, “If only my son can get this degree, then he’ll be set in that career”, and so on. Most of us have an “if this, then that” way of looking at life.

Yet life is not only less linear than we hope, it’s much more volatile than we can imagine. The bad times may be way worse than we feared, and some of the good times turn out much better than we thought (normally in hindsight). Disappointments normally come at us at speed, while good times are built over time, but never in a straight line. Life is therefore unpredictably volatile, with outcomes far exceeding initial expectations (hopefully to the upside most of the time).

Investing is an inherently non-linear endeavour. Yet the vast majority of fund managers sell an investment process that promises the opposite: steady returns … steady capital growth … reduced volatility, to protect your investment over time. They fail to mention that significant upside is always sacrificed on the altar of “risk-adjusted returns”.

Volatility

And it’s because most of us cannot stomach volatility; we like the idea of a smooth ride from the bottom left of the chart to the top right. Life, unfortunately, does not unfold that way. It moves exponentially, especially in terms of innovation, and especially so in the time in which we presently live.

I asked Claude Opus 5.5 to calculate at what “time” in human progress a few things occurred, assuming year 1 A.D. is 00:00 and today (2026 A.D.) is 12:00 on a 12-hour clock: when was the steam engine invented? The answer: 10:08. The internet was invented at 11:40, mobile phones at 11:41 and ChatGPT was released at 11:58:39 …just 81 “seconds” ago.

That is crazy. Human movement maxed out at the speed of a horse from 00:00 to 10:07, and less than “2 hours” later we have a tool in the palm of our hands that could crack the code to solving cancer, solve millennia-old math problems, and assist in the manufacturing of sub-1-nanometer semiconductors. Exponential!

In the investment realm, there is a mind-blowing example of recent exponential movement that very few in the world predicted. The Breakwave Tanker Shipping Exchange Traded Fund (ETF), which has the ticker BWET, which is designed to reflect the daily price movements of indices that track the future cost of transporting crude oil, returned 38.3% since its listing in May 2023 up to the end of 2025. Not too bad, but the S&P 500 returned 73.6% over the same period.

Since the end of 2025, up to market close on 22 September 2026, the BWET ETF increased in value by 3 440% (more than 3 000%), with the S&P 500 producing only 14.4% over the same period in comparison. Now we all know why that happened, but no one could ever have predicted the exponential nature of the move.

Maybe that is a less relevant example. Let us consider a more reasonable illustration that a lot of investors did benefit from in recent years: Nvidia Corp. (ticker NVDA). The company listed in 1999, and 15 years later, delivered a stellar return of 16.6% compounded annually. The share price grew from $0.04 at listing to $0.40 in January 2014. Since then, the share price has grown to $228.87, which calculates to a 65% compounded annual return over the last 12.7 years. Astounding. No person on earth could have predicted that growth, yet millions participated in it in some form or another, in most cases by investing in a broad, index-tracking ETF.

The benefit of exponential growth in investments can be achieved in one of two ways: buying an investment just in time before the price spike occurs (like buying the BWET ETF the first trading day after the United States and Israel started bombing Iran), or by buying an investment and then just doing nothing for long periods of time (like buying Nvidia way back in 2014 and benefitting from a 57 000% growth in wealth).

Few

Very few of us have the ability to pick a high-quality company (like Nvidia) and simply hold it for 12 years. Not only do most people not know how to define “quality” in companies, but the companies themselves change over time. (Nokia, BlackBerry, and Blockbuster are good examples of companies not changing fast enough.)

So, how can you benefit from exponential growth in quality companies if you don’t have the knowledge, time, or interest in becoming a professional investor, yet are required to either invest as a must (pension saving) or as a want (wealth creation)?

Good news! Locally, there are a number of ETFs representing high-quality companies that one can consider for investment. And those ETFs are available through most stockbroking accounts. Search for local ETFs that follow the S&P 500, Nasdaq 100, or All Country World indexes. By investing in these instruments you gain exposure to the best and largest companies in the world, listed on the largest and most liquid exchanges in the world, earning revenue all over the planet, and employing the best managers and most innovative people money can buy.

We may live linear lives, but we need to start thinking in exponential ways if we are to thrive in the world of today, and especially in the South Africa to come. To just survive is linear; to build wealth, and carve out a life worth living, we need to expand our thinking: what can go spectacularly right if I put in the hard work, connect with the right people and invest in companies that can grow to the moon (or even Mars if SpaceX is successful)?

Wouter Viljoen is Chief Investment Officer of Oribi Capital Partners, an asset management firm specialising in listed and private market investments. He regularly comments on investment strategy and the markets in general.