Investors searching for the next transformative technology destined to turn a bunch of Ivy League dropouts into billionaires, and half the market into a loose slot machine, need only look in the mirror.

"The greatest industry of the 21st century will probably be to upgrade human beings," historian Yuval Harari, author of the fascinating new book "Homo Deus," told MarketWatch.

For all of humanity's scientific, economic and artistic achievements, we have neglected this ultimate self-improvement project, Harari said. Our bodies and brains, after all, still run on the same hardware and software that evolved some 200,000 years ago.

Alphabet's GOOG, -0.02% GOOGL, +0.00% Google already has a unit devoted to overcoming death, Harari noted. And who can doubt that Apple AAPL, +0.12% will want to pick from this new tree of knowledge, as well, or that after conquering self-driving cars Uber, in spite of the antics of its CEO, will want to build an Übermensch?