I was recently reading Michiu Kaku’s wonderful book, The Future of Humanity, about colonizing space and was amazed how detailed some of the plans are. Plans for a Mars colony, for example, are already fairly advanced. In other cases, scientists are actively thinking about technologies that won’t be viable for a century or more.
Yet while we seem to be so good at planning for life in outer space, we are much less capable of thinking responsibly about the future here on earth, especially in the United States. Our federal government deficit recently rose to 4.6% of GDP, which is obviously unsustainable in an economy that’s growing at a meager 2.3%.
That’s just one data point, but everywhere you look we seem to be unable to plan for the future. Consumer debt in the US recently hit levels exceeding those before the crash in 2008. Our infrastructure is falling apart. Air quality is getting worse. The list goes on. We need to start thinking more seriously about the future, but don’t seem to be able. Why is that?
The rise of China over the last 40 years has been one of history’s great economic miracles. According to the World Bank, since it began opening up its economy in 1979, China’s GDP has grown from a paltry $178 billion to a massive $13.6 trillion. At the same time, research by McKinsey shows that its middle class is expanding rapidly.
Many predict that China will dominate the 21st century in much the same way that America dominated the 20th. Yet I’m not so sure. First, American dominance was due to an unusual confluence of forces unlikely to be repeated. Second, China has weaknesses—and we have strengths—that aren’t immediately obvious. We need to be clear headed about China’s rise.
This past December, Amazon announced that it was launching a new quantum computing service, called Braket, joining the ranks of tech giants like Google, Microsoft and IBM. However, it quickly became clear that Amazon was not creating its own technology, but offering that of other companies to its customers through the cloud.
The story gets even stranger when you consider that the purpose of the service is not to do anything of any immediate practical value, but to allow “scientists, researchers, and developers to begin experimenting” with quantum technology. The companies providing the hardware, D-Wave, IonQ, and Rigetti, are themselves fledgling companies.
So why would Amazon promote, with great fanfare, a technology it doesn’t own and that doesn’t really work to customers who can’t use it to solve any practical problems? The reason is that we are entering a new era of innovation in which it is no longer enough to simply move fast and break things. We need to do more than just adapt. We need to learn to prepare.
Take a moment to think about what the world looked like exactly a century ago. By 1920, the disruptive technologies of the day, electricity and internal combustion, were already almost 40 years old, but had little measurable economic impact. For most people, life largely went on as it always had, with little to indicate that much was amiss.
Over the next decade, however, that would change. As ecosystems formed around the new technologies, productivity soared and living standards dramatically improved. However, the news wasn’t all good. While technology did much to improve people’s lives, it also facilitated war and genocide on an unprecedented scale.
Today, we are likely at a similar point. Nascent technologies have the potential to create a new era of productivity, but also horrific destruction. Too often, we forget that technology should serve humans and not the other way around. Make no mistake, This is not a problem we can innovate our way out of. Technology will not save us. We need to make better choices.
2019 was a big year for me personally. I finally published my book, Cascades, a project I had been working on for 15 years, about how to create transformational change. The book has its roots in my experiences in Ukraine’s Orange Revolution, where I first noticed the forces behind ideas that spread.
The response has been overwhelming! Reader response has been off the charts and, even better, as we’ve begun training teams in the Cascades process for driving transformational change we’ve seen first-hand how much of an impact it can have in the real world. It’s just so gratifying when you can see your work having a real impact!
Most of all, I think that 2019 will be seen as a pivotal year. As the digital revolution winds down and new technologies such as synthetic biology, materials science and AI rise to the fore, we’re going to see unprecedented challenges and opportunities over the next decade. These were the things I wrote about over the past year. Here are my top articles for 2019.
Different years seem to have different truths. For example, while 1968 was a struggle for freedom, with mass protests erupting throughout the world, 1989, with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the invention of the World Wide Web, seemed to fulfill that promise. Other years have had other truths.
I have a strong sense that 2019 will be remembered as a pivotal year. It has been, to a large degree, a year of alternative truths that will need to be resolved in the years ahead. The books that we publish and read will play an important role in establishing which truths we are willing to accept.
That’s why books are so important. They help us establish today’s truths and record them for posterity. Often, we find that truths established today are thoroughly debunked for at some future time, while some neglected truths are later uncovered and brought to the fore. Here’s my list of the books I’ve read and written about over the past year. Let them be judged kindly.
Today, it’s hard to think of Netflix as anything but an incredible success. Its business has grown at breakneck speed and now streams to 190 countries, yet it has also been consistently profitable, earning over $1 billion last year. With hit series like Orange is the New Black and Stranger Things, it broke the record for Emmy Nominations last year.
Most of all, the company has consistently disrupted the media business through its ability to relentlessly innovate. Its online subscription model upended the movie rental business and drove industry giant Blockbuster into bankruptcy. Later, it pioneered streaming video and introduced binge watching to the world.
Ordinarily, a big success like Netflix would offer valuable lessons for the rest of us. Unfortunately its story has long been shrouded in myth and misinformation. That’s why Netflix Co-Founder Marc Randolph’s new book, That Will Never Work, is so valuable. It not only sets the story straight, it offers valuable insight into how to create a successful business.
In November 1989, there were two watershed events that would change the course of world history. The fall of the Berlin Wall would end the Cold War and open up markets across the world. That very same month, Tim Berners-Lee would create the World Wide Web and usher in a new technological era of networked computing.
It was a time of great optimism. Books like Francis Fukayama’s The End of History predicted a capitalist, democratic utopia, while pundits gushed over the seemingly neverending parade of “killer apps,” from email and e-commerce to social media and the mobile web. The onward march of history seemed unstoppable.
Today, 30 years on, it’s time to take stock and the picture is somewhat bleak. Instead of a global technological utopia, there are a number of worrying signs ranging from income inequality to the rise of popular authoritarianism. The fact is that technology and globalization have failed us. It’s time to address some very real problems.
When the physicist Richard Feynman took the podium to give the commencement speech at CalTech in 1974, he told the strange story of cargo cults. In certain islands in the South Pacific, he explained, tribal societies had seen troops build airfields during World War and were impressed with the valuable cargo that arrived at the bases.
After the troops left, the island societies built their own airfields, complete with mock radios, aircraft and mimicked military drills in the hopes of attracting cargo themselves. It seems more than a little silly, and of course, no cargo every came. Yet these tribal societies persisted in their strange behaviors.
Feynman’s point was that we can’t merely mimic behaviors and expect to get results. Yet even today, nearly a half century later, many executives and business strategists have failed to learn that simple lesson by attempting to inject “science” into strategy. The truth is that while strategy can be informed by science, it can never be, and shouldn’t be, truly scientific.
Take a moment to think about what the world must have looked like to J.P. Morgan a century ago, in 1919. He was not only an immensely powerful financier with access to the great industrialists of the day, but also an early adopter of new technologies. One of the first electric generators was installed at his home.
The disruptive technologies of the day, electricity and internal combustion, were already almost 40 years old, but had little measurable economic impact. Life largely went on as it always had. That would quickly change over the next decade when those technologies would drive a 50-year boom in productivity unlike anything the world had ever seen before.
It is very likely that we are at a similar point now. Despite significant advances in technology, productivity growth has been depressed for most of the last 50 years. Over the next ten years, however, we’re likely to see that change as nascent technologies hit their stride and create completely new industries. Here’s what you’ll need to know to compete in the new era.
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