From former CEO and popular TED speaker Margaret Heffernan comes a timely and enlightening book that equips you with the tools you need to face the future with confidence and courage.
How can we think about the future? What do we need to do—and who do we need to be? In her bold and invigorating new book, distinguished businesswoman and author Margaret Heffernan explores the people and organizations who aren't daunted by uncertainty. We are addicted to prediction, desperate for certainty about the future. But the complexity of modern life won't provide that; experts in forecasting are reluctant to look more than 400 days out. History doesn't repeat itself and even genetics won't tell you everything you want to know. Tomorrow remains uncharted territory, but Heffernan demonstrates how we can forge ahead with agility.
Drawing on a wide array of people and places, Uncharted traces long-term projects that shrewdly evolved over generations to meet the unpredictable challenges of every new age. Heffernan also looks at radical exercises and experiments that redefined standard practices by embracing different perspectives and testing fresh approaches. Preparing to confront a variable future provides the antidote to passivity and prediction. Ranging freely through history and from business to science, government to friendships, this refreshing book challenges us to mine our own creativity and humanity for the capacity to create the futures we want and can believe in.
Late in 2017, the conversation about the global impact of artificial intelligence (AI) changed forever. China delivered a bold message when it released a national plan to dominate all aspects of AI across the planet. Within weeks, Russia's Vladimir Putin raised the stakes by declaring AI the future for all humankind, and proclaiming that, "Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world."
The race was on. Consistent with their unique national agendas, countries throughout the world began plotting their paths and hurrying their pace. Now, not long after, the race has become a sprint.
Despite everything at risk, for most of us AI remains shrouded by a cloud of mystery and misunderstanding. Hidden behind complex technical terms and confused even further by extravagant depictions in science fiction, the realities of AI and its profound implications are hard to decipher, but no less crucial to understand.
In T-Minus AI: Humanity's Countdown to Artificial Intelligence and the New Pursuit of Global Power, author Michael Kanaan explains the realities of AI from a human-oriented perspective that's easy to comprehend. A recognized national expert and the U.S. Air Force's first Chairperson for Artificial Intelligence, Kanaan weaves a compelling new view on our history of innovation and technology to masterfully explain what each of us should know about modern computing, AI, and machine learning.
Kanaan also illuminates the global implications of AI by highlighting the cultural and national vulnerabilities already exposed and the pressing issues now squarely on the table. AI has already become China's all-purpose tool to impose authoritarian influence around the world. Russia, playing catch up, is weaponizing AI through its military systems and now infamous, aggressive efforts to disrupt democracy by whatever disinformation means possible.
America and like-minded nations are awakening to these new realities, and the paths they're electing to follow echo loudly, in most cases, the political foundations and moral imperatives upon which they were formed.
As we march toward a future far different than ever imagined, T-Minus AI is fascinating and critically well-timed. It leaves the fiction behind, paints the alarming implications of AI for what they actually are, and calls for unified action to protect fundamental human rights and dignities for all.
Leading Without Authority offers a transformative approach to leadership where the power of co-elevation reshapes the way we conduct business and foster relationships. Bestselling author Keith Ferrazzi, with Noel Weyrich, introduces a bold methodology that challenges traditional hierarchical structures, empowering individuals at all levels to take initiative and inspire collective success.
In a rapidly evolving workplace, co-elevation surpasses the limitations of bureaucracy and formal titles. Ferrazzi's philosophy encourages mutual support and accountability, unlocking the potential for unprecedented productivity and engagement. Drawing from extensive research and experience guiding CEOs and senior leaders, this book provides a roadmap for navigating the challenges of modern industries and elevating everyone's performance.
Leadership is redefined to be inclusive, collaborative, and accessible to all, demonstrating that true authority comes not from a title, but from the ability to drive change and encourage teamwork.
Think Like a Rocket Scientist is not just about the celebration of technology's greatest triumphs; it's about the thought process that allows us to reach beyond the known into the realm of the unknown. Ozan Varol, a former rocket scientist, shares the habits, ideas, and strategies that can transform the seemingly impossible into the possible.
The same thought process that allowed Neil Armstrong to take his giant leap for mankind and spacecraft to traverse millions of miles through outer space is now accessible to everyone. Varol introduces nine simple strategies from rocket science that can be applied to our work and life challenges. Whether you're aiming to land your dream job, propel your business forward, pick up a new skill, or create an innovative product, these strategies provide the tools to achieve extraordinary results.
In our world of complex and unfamiliar problems, those who can approach these issues creatively and persistently hold a significant advantage. Think Like a Rocket Scientist will inspire you to embark on your own moonshot project and give you the confidence to achieve liftoff.
An acclaimed tech reporter reveals the inner workings of Amazon, Facebook, Google, Apple, and Microsoft, showing how to compete with the tech titans using their own playbook. At Amazon, "Day One" is code for inventing like a startup, with little regard for legacy. Day Two is, in Jeff Bezos's own words, "stasis, followed by irrelevance, followed by excruciating, painful decline, followed by death." Most companies today are set up for Day Two. They build advantages and defend them fiercely, rather than invent the future.
But Amazon and fellow tech titans Facebook, Google, and Microsoft are operating in Day One: they prioritize reinvention over tradition and collaboration over ownership. Through 130 interviews with insiders, from Mark Zuckerberg to hourly workers, Always Day One reveals the tech giants' blueprint for sustainable success in a business world where no advantage is safe. Companies today can spin up new products at record speed -- thanks to artificial intelligence and cloud computing -- and those who stand still will be picked apart.
The tech giants remain dominant because they've built cultures that spark continual reinvention. It might sound radical, but those who don't act like it's always day one do so at their own peril. Kantrowitz uncovers the engine propelling the tech giants' continued dominance at a stage when most big companies begin to decline. And he shows the way forward for everyone who wants to compete with--and beat--the titans.
From the New York Times bestselling authors of Abundance and Bold comes a practical playbook for technological convergence in our modern era.
In their book Abundance, bestselling authors and futurists Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler tackled grand global challenges, such as poverty, hunger, and energy. Then, in Bold, they chronicled the use of exponential technologies that allowed the emergence of powerful new entrepreneurs. Now the bestselling authors are back with The Future Is Faster Than You Think, a blueprint for how our world will change in response to the next ten years of rapid technological disruption.
Technology is accelerating far more quickly than anyone could have imagined. During the next decade, we will experience more upheaval and create more wealth than we have in the past hundred years. In this gripping and insightful roadmap to our near future, Diamandis and Kotler investigate how wave after wave of exponentially accelerating technologies will impact both our daily lives and society as a whole. What happens as AI, robotics, virtual reality, digital biology, and sensors crash into 3D printing, blockchain, and global gigabit networks? How will these convergences transform today's legacy industries? What will happen to the way we raise our kids, govern our nations, and care for our planet?
Diamandis, a space-entrepreneur-turned-innovation-pioneer, and Kotler, bestselling author and peak performance expert, probe the science of technological convergence and how it will reinvent every part of our lives—transportation, retail, advertising, education, health, entertainment, food, and finance—taking humanity into uncharted territories and reimagining the world as we know it.
As indispensable as it is gripping, The Future Is Faster Than You Think provides a prescient look at our impending future.