Peter Diamandis has got past linear thinking to grasp the potential of a world in which knowledge is expanding exponentially. And in his brilliant book Abundance he shares his vision of what this brave new world could look like.
The book is powerful enough that I felt compelled to review it, even though it strays a bit from my usual job of covering startups in Atlantic Canada. Its message is key to the people who struggle day after day to develop companies that will change the world.
I first became aware of the book when Dan Martell, the CEO of Clarity in Moncton, tweeted that he loved it. And since I started reading it, I’ve been recommending it far and wide. What I took away from Abundance (Free Press, 2012, $26.99) is that technology is advancing so quickly that some of what we’re developing in Atlantic Canada is designed for a world that may not exist in 10 years.
Diamandis’ thesis is that exponential gains in knowledge and technology will create a world in which all people will have access to the staples of life – food, water, energy, healthcare, freedom and personal fulfillment. He doesn’t disregard the dangers of global warming, over-population and resource depletion; he simply believes advances in knowledge will overcome them.
Diamandis notes that aluminum was a rare and expensive commodity until late in the nineteenth century, even though it is one of the most plentiful elements on Earth. But the development of electrolysis in the late 1800s liberated the metal, making it affordable for a range of products.
“When seen through the lens of technology, few resources are truly scarce; they’re mainly inaccessible,” writes Diamandis, a scientist who wrote the book with writer Steven Kotler.
Diamandis brings out that Moore’s law applies to more than just software. Named for Intel Co-Founder Gordon Moore, the law states that the number of transistors on integrated circuits doubles every 18 months to two years – or if you like, the capacity of computers doubles every two months. That’s why the technology comparable to Deep Blue (the chess software that wowed the world by defeating world champ Garry Kasparov in 1997) is now available on any iPhone.
What Abundance makes clear is that these giant steps in software are happening alongside massive gains in genomics, green energy, healthcare, and education. What’s more, the “bottom billion” poorest people in the world are being lifted up to share in the abundance, which means their consumer and intellectual power will soon contribute to the rapidly changing world. And beyond that, the exponential gains in one segment will unlock innovation in another, so all these advances will feed on each other.
Abundance excites the imagination by describing the developing technology that will allow us to clothe, feed and inspire the world’s poor. Diamandis’ world is a world of backyard nuclear power generators, brassieres that administer mammograms and send the results to a doctor, children in ghettos learning through cheap tablets, and in vitro meat produced by "tissue-engineering" technology so no animals are killed.
I never talk about “a book that everyone should read”, but Abundance comes damn close to it. It’s inspirational, but it’s also a warning for anyone dabbling in technology. It details how astonishing the global technical gains are, and should remind entrepreneurs that someone may be leaps and bounds ahead of them. Certainly anyone involved in green energy should read the 19 pages devoted to the future of energy.
Here’s one final thought: I wrote a book called Backwater: Nova Scotia’s Economic Decline in 2009, which says the Maritimes are in deep economic trouble because of the aging population, excessive and fragmented government and high taxation. I’ve never changed my outlook, even though I choose to focus now on the overwhelming good news in the startup community. So here’s my problem: how can I buy into Diamandis’ view of global abundance and yet believe the Maritimes are headed over an economic cliff?
It’s something I haven’t completely sorted out in my own mind. But I think my answer is that the Maritimes are not fully geared up to take advantage of the huge gains humanity is about to experience, so we’re likely to stagnate rather than capitalize on the coming boom. This book reduces my worries for the future of this region, but makes me wish like hell we were doing more to take advantage of what’s coming.