The Future Is Faster Than You Think (Book Review)

In the dot-com boom of the 1990's, technology evangelists foretold of a not-so-distant future where Star Trek Communicators and Dick Tracy wrist watches would become commonplace. That time has come and gone with the advent of smartphones, and more recently, the Apple (AAPL) watch. Forward thinking investors that got in near the ground floor benefited tremendously. Apple is closing in on a two trillion dollar market cap at $440/share. In 1997, split adjusted, it traded for under a dollar. Market participants looking for some foresight as to where technology may be heading in the next few years, should look no further than The Future Is Faster Than You Think by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler. Clear, concise, full of statistics - you'll be hanging on every word. This is the duo's third collaboration. Their two previous works are Abundance and BOLD. Neither is required reading to take advantage of the new offering.

I believe what makes this book unique is that not only does it report the futuristic projects of the usual suspects, corporations such as Apple, Alphabet (GOOG)(GOOGL), Amazon (AMZN), Facebook (FB) and Microsoft (MSFT), but it also includes the not quite ready for prime-time players. Smaller companies, some public, some not, that can be monitored for portfolio inclusion at the appropriate time. Better known examples are the peer-to-peer insurer Lemonade (LMND), or, the cloud based realtor eXp Realty (EXPI) which ditched brick and mortar for cyberspace. One "affective computing" startup discussed is Ubimo which was recently acquired by Quotient Technology (QUOT). However, most of the trailblazers are very small organizations funded by venture capitalists. Cluep, Lyrebird, Betterment, and v7Labs are just a few of these businesses. The authors give a theoretical blueprint as to what type of firms could become mainstream in the next five years. 

Steve Jobs liked to quote Wayne Gretzky's famous chestnut: "Skate to where the puck is going, not where it's been.". Diamandis and Kotler believe that exponentially accelerating technologies are converging with other independent waves of exponentially accelerating technologies to create disruptive innovation on a scale never seen before. Some of these applied sciences include augmented reality, sensors, artificial intelligence, blockchain and nanotechnology. One example of this inevitable amalgamation is: "When we combine autonomous vehicle technology with smart traffic systems and sensor-embedded roads - two developments that have already begun rolling out - transit risks don't just plummet, they mutate.". That's a more pedestrian case in point. If we include the aforementioned "affective computing", "Or the science of teaching machines to understand and simulate human emotion. It's the intersection of cognitive psychology, computer science, and neurophysiology, combined with accelerating technologies like AI, robotics and sensors.". It sounds creepy at times, but that's where we're going. 

It's all about large corporations adding to their war chests by increasing productivity and cutting costs. For instance: "In 2001, sequencing the entire human genome took nine months to complete and cost $100 million. Today, Illumina's latest generation sequencer can do that in an hour and for $100 - or 6,480 times faster and a million times cheaper. And what is true for gene sequencing is true for dozens of fields. Tools only accessible to only the wealthiest companies and the largest government labs are now available at near-zero prices to just about anybody.".  With cloud based services such as Amazon Web Service and Microsoft's Azure at hand for the masses, the future is now.

The authors appear to be influenced by Alphabet director of engineering Ray Kurzweil who came up with the concept of "computer singularity" where humans and machine intelligence merge. Although this phenomenon won't happen for another decade or longer, it's coming. This will be ushered in by the era of quantum computing and Rose's Law which has been described as "Moore's Law on Steroids". In Moore's Law, computing power doubles every two years. In Rose's Law, the number of qubits (a quantum bit) doubles every year. They mention Rigetti Computing that manufactures quantum integrated circuits. Already rumored to be coming soon to the public market. "Established organizations will have a hard time keeping pace. Our biggest companies and government agencies were designed for another century, for purposes of safety and stability. That is why 40 percent of today's Fortune 500 companies will be gone in ten years, replaced, for the most part, by upstarts we've not heard of.".

This is not to say you can just scoop up these young upstarts when they come public and make your fortune. A technological advancement Diamandis and Kotler discuss, and one that I am particularly interested in, are holograms, a form of augmented reality. They give a cautionary tale of Magic Leap, an organization that wants to eliminate video screens by manufacturing AR glasses. They were leapfrogged by another young company, Mojo Vision, that is developing AR contact lenses. Theoretically, you no longer have to wear a headset, the screen is mounted on your cornea and projects onto the back of your retina. It's not science fiction anymore. However, public AR company Microvision (MVIS) has been trading since the 1990's, and has given investors nothing but heartaches. It shows a lot of promise, but never seem to come through in the clutch. Perhaps these companies are ready for their close-ups now that 5G networks and other converging technologies are being rolled out nationally. 

The authors claim theirs is not a techno-utopian thesis. They're just telling it like it is. To use the old cliché, "The genie is out of the bottle". For instance, the largest increase in productivity historically is augmenting machines with humans. They state, "Workers have been on the fast track to obsolescence since the Luddites took sledgehammers to industrial looms in the 1800's. Automation produces job substitution far more than job obliteration.". To reinforce the fact, they give the example of the bank ATM. "Because ATMs made it cheaper to operate banks, the number of banks grew by 40 percent. More banks meant more jobs for human bank tellers.". That may have been a convincing argument in a previous era. I have my doubts with these large corporations. Plus, Diamandis and  Kotler rarely discuss the privacy aspect of all our personal information flowing to the digital oligopoly. Early in the book, they did touch on the subject: "While knowing everything about one's customers presents an alarming privacy concern, it does provide organizations with an incredible level of dexterity - which may be the only way to stay in business in these accelerated times.".

I have no doubt that this is a book worth reading. I have no doubt that I may profit from becoming aware of some of these startups. I also have no doubt that these converging technologies are on my doorstep. What I do doubt are the motives these powerful West Coast technology companies have with too much of my personal information. Maybe it's a generational thing. I was always taught to question authority. Although I benefit from lower prices, split second communications, and information at my fingertips, I am not so sure that's such a good thing if left unchecked.