The Future Is Faster Than You Think: How Converging Technologies Are Transforming Business, Industries, and Our Lives (Exponential Technology Series) Hardcover – January 28, 2020

As a huge fan of Ray Kurzweil’s work, I absolutely loved The Future Is Faster Than You Think. Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler team up brilliantly, making complex tech trends easy to grasp and exciting. They dive into how technologies like AI, robotics, and 3D printing are merging to transform industries and our lives at breakneck speed. For example, they highlight how AI-powered autonomous vehicles, paired with 5G, are set to revolutionize transportation—think fewer accidents and smarter cities.I learned so much from their clear examples and optimistic vibe, which echoes Kurzweil’s predictions but feels fresh and practical. Every page had me buzzing with ideas about the future. It’s a must-read for anyone curious about tech’s potential. I highly recommend it!

The Future is Faster Than You Think is a must read for anyone wanting to know and understand the ever-evolving and accelerated world we now live in. There is something in this book for everyone. If you want to know the future of entertainment, it is in here. If you want to know the future of education, it is in here. Healthcare, finance, food, shopping… it’s all explained in terms we can understand, yet encased in the actualization and implementation of exponential technology moving at a speed we struggle to comprehend.Diamandis and Kotler have invited us into the world of unimaginable technological advances that few have ever imagined. As you read (or listen) to this book you will be drawn into industry transformations soon-to-be that seem too futuristic to be real, but at the same time your mind will explode with wonder, questions, and maybe even a few ideas of your own. And if you live long enough (read how to do this in the chapter on Longevity) you will come to realize that we really can achieve what the mind can conceive.The Future is Faster Than You Think is the unveiling of the inevitable future of our lives, our planet, and our universe. Are you ready?

The Future is Faster Than You Think takes the reader on a journey through modern technologies and the associated growth curves and the consequences for our lives. It gives a solid overview of how we are living in an age of great change where exponential growth in computing power is allowing for major shifts in the impact of technology in shopping, advertising, entertainment, healthcare, finance, food and life expectancy. The language is at times exaggerated but the overall content is useful for those looking to get a picture of the abrupt changes that are taking place in almost all industries due to the influence of technology.In the Future is Faster Than You Think, the authors discuss how we often overestimate what will change in the short term but underestimate what can occur in the long term. This is a common adage and many businesses have underappreciated the impact of technology and are now struggling with the consequences. The authors start by describing why the changes are of such scale at the moment with several exponential growth curves converging to accelerate the influence of technology on our lives. The setting the stage language is exaggerated but sets the tone for how the authors frame the changes that will unfold in the coming decades. The authors then discuss how technology is being used to enhance consumption matching via shopping platforms and how advertising has shifted from times of past to now using user data to optimize ad placement effectiveness. This is merely a description of why Amazon and Google/Facebook have had such successful business models as service providers/platforms for their users rather than traditional business providers of goods or services. The authors discuss entertainment in the future and technologies like augmented reality and virtual reality with suits which have tactile sensation. It is certainly the path and our abilities to fabricated reality via headset is already quite remarkable but the anecdotes are at times too colorful. For examples the authors describe a simulation for a circuit judge who 2 decades ago tries a VR headset and lost his balance due to the immersive reality of VR, but in that time headsets would create dizziness and were anything but immersive. Thus the cases made to make the reader think this is coming tomorrow must be taken with a serious grain of salt. The authors describe how education is evolving and online learning will change how education takes place. They highlight how collective experimentation can lead to exciting solutions where literacy training was enhanced from a school group in Africa after a world wide competition to create education apps. The authors discuss how healthcare devices and sensors will fundamentally change our day to day health monitoring and will lead longer and more nurtured lives with the help of technology. This leads the authors to describe how technology could lead to perpetual life with discussions of how gene therapy extends the lives of single celled organisms and other treatments extent the lives of rats. It is certainly fascinating scientific work, but as usual the authors projecting the consequences onto benefits for us around the corner are improbable at best. The authors discuss emerging blockchain technologies and their ability to influence finance and insurance, discussing how gofund me as a platform creates a more egalitarian means to raise money vs centralized finance. Lastly the authors discuss the future of food and technologies like vertical farming, discussing how we could increase yields decrease our carbon foot print and reduce the pressure on our water supply immensely.One can read this book and be in wonder at the technological roads we are embarking on as it appears like we have solutions to all of our problems. To some extent we do, as most problems have partial solutions that we are aware of. The issue is always commercialization to which the authors trivialize this complexity. For a quick overview on what people in the VC world are looking at, this i think is a good overview. In terms of discussing an actual technology roadmap for any of the topics covered there is a huge amount that is glossed over. Nonetheless the book is entertaining and informative and in some respects it inspires some awe at what our collective intelligence has produced and how our lives could be better for it.

I have read this book twice so far. It's the kind of book I buy extra copies of to pass around to anyone that would be willing to read it. It tells the story of amazing technologies that are here and on the way without the need to highlight the doom and gloom that most people use to sell headlines. It focuses on the positive impact that will be made in every industry and does a great job explaining what led us to this point, and why it's accelerating at a speed that will continue to blow our minds, and how we can empower ourselves by understanding the fluidity and adaptability that will be needed from us going forward. Damn I'm excited. Let's GOOOOO!!!!

Excellent book about the convergence of current technologies and how they will affect our daily lives in the coming decade and beyond! 3-D printed stem cells and food will improve life for the masses, crowd-sourced insurance that removes the middle man and reduces cost for the consumer, augmented and virtual reality interfaces that make working from home the norm, automated vehicles and drones that make the long-commute to work obsolete (and car ownership a thing of the past), and block-chain networks that will upgrade and safe-guard our currency and voting systems. There is even a mention of how immigration has accelerated scientific progress in countries that have accepted foreigners vs. those that closed their borders.Change is happening faster than ever before and it's better to ride the wave than crash against it. A good read, especially for those who love science, tech and our human legacy!