Exponential: How Accelerating Technology Is Leaving Us Behind and What to Do About It

Accelerating technology is upending our society. This book explains how.

'Comprehensive but lively . . . Highly recommended!' Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and author of Blitzscaling

We are entering the Exponential Age. Between faster computers, better software and bigger data, ours is the first era in human history in which technology is constantly accelerating.

Azeem Azhar - writer, technologist, and creator of the acclaimed Exponential View newsletter - understands this shift better than anyone. Technology, he argues, is developing at an increasing, exponential rate. But human society - from our businesses to our political institutions - can only ever adapt at a slower, incremental pace. The result is an 'exponential gap', between the power of new technology and our ability to keep up.

In Exponential, Azhar shows how this exponential gap can explain our society's most pressing problems - from established businesses' difficulty keeping up with digital platforms, to the sclerotic response of liberal democracies to fast-moving social problems. And he draws on cutting-edge social science to explain how to stop the exponential gap eroding our economies, our politics and our lives.

__

'Read this book if you are interested in how we can design a more inclusive and sustainable system with a re-direction of technological change at its centre.' Mariana Mazzucato, UCL professor and author of The Value of Everything and Mission Economy

'Azeem Azhar is one of the best-regarded thought leaders in the industry . . . He has a broad understanding of the ways technology can be used to solve our biggest problems, shape our society, and bridge cultural divides.' Daniel Ek, co-founder and CEO of Spotify