THE GOLDEN AGE OF INNOVATION“I am everywhere” – LucyMark J. Barrenechea
OpenText CEO and CTO

Barrenechea, Mark J.

THE GOLDEN AGE OF INNOVATIONFirst Printing, February 2017
Printed in CanadaFirst Edition
ISBN
978-0-9936047-7-5
Published byOpen Text Corporation
275 Frank Tompa Drive
Waterloo, Ontario, Canada
N2L 0A1(519) 888-7111
info@opentext.com
www.opentext.com
Certain statements in this book may contain words considered forward-looking
statements or information under applicable securities laws. These statements are basedon OpenText’s current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections about theoperating environment, economies and markets in which the company operates. Thesestatements are subject to important assumptions, risks and uncertainties that are difficult
to predict, and the actual outcome may be materially different. OpenText’s assumptions,although considered reasonable by the company on the date of publishing, may prove
to be inaccurate and consequently its actual results could differ materially from theexpectations set out herein. For additional information with respect to risks and otherfactors which could occur, see OpenText’s Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly
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Mark J. Barrenechea
Mark J. Barrenechea serves as Chief Executive Officer (CEO) and Chief
Technology Officer (CTO) at OpenText (NASDAQ: OTEX, TSX: OTC), andas a member of the board. He joined OpenText in January 2012. Under
Mr. Barrenechea’s direction, the company has grown both organically andthrough strategic acquisitions into a $2B company. Through its commitment
to innovation and customer-centricity, OpenText has successfully realigned
its products to transform itself into a leader in the Enterprise Information
Management (EIM) market.
Before joining OpenText, Mr. Barrenechea was President and CEO of Silicon
Graphics International Corporation (SGI), where he also served as a member ofthe board. During his time at SGI, he led the company’s strategy and execution.
Prior to SGI, Mr. Barrenechea served as Executive Vice President and CTO
for CA, Inc. (CA), (formerly Computer Associates International, Inc.) and as amember of the executive management team. Mr. Barrenechea was also SeniorVice President of Applications Development at Oracle Corporation, responsible
for managing a multi-thousand member global team. He has also held anumber of other positions, including Vice President of Development at Scopus, asoftware applications company, and Vice President of Development at Tesseract,
where he was responsible for reshaping the company’s line of human capitalmanagement software.
Mr. Barrenechea holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Science fromSaint Michael’s College. He currently serves as a member of the Board and Audit
Committee of Dick’s Sporting Goods. He also serves as a member of the Board
of Hamilton Insurance.
Mr. Barrenechea has authored several books about the evolution of theenterprise software industry, including: On Digital, Digital: Disrupt or Die,e-Government or Out of Government, Enterprise Information Management:
The Next Generation of Enterprise Software, eBusiness or Out of Business,and Software Rules: How the Next Generation of Enterprise Applications Will
Increase Strategic Effectiveness.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The content of The Golden Age of Innovation is inspired by
the work of OpenText employees, customers, and its leadershipteam. I am simply the scribe, attempting to tell their story
as unbiased as I am capable of being. Let me provide a
specific acknowledgement to the World Economic Forumfor championing the discussion on Digital, its impact on ourworld, and for shaping the definition of the Fourth Industrial
Revolution. The Golden Age of Innovation is also inspired bytheir work. Klaus Schwab, the founder and Executive Chairmanof the World Economic Forum, has taken a leadership role inthis. I would also like to acknowledge Fredrik Härén for his
thinking on “ideas,” “the impossible,” and “Angry Birds.” And
without fail, for always contributing and shaping OpenText,
CMO, Adam Howatson, and my Program Office, including
Nicolas Heldmann and Scott Schultz. My PMO provides
endless support.

We Choose to Go to the Moon!
“We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge
to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won
and used for the progress of all people. For space science, likenuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own[well, not so fast!]. Whether it will become a force for good orill depends on man, ... I do not say that we should or will go
unprotected against the hostile misuse of space any more thanwe go unprotected against the hostile use of land or sea, but I do
say that space can be explored and mastered without feeding thefires of war, without repeating the mistakes that man has madein extending his writ around this globe of ours.
…
We choose to go to the Moon! … We choose to go to the Moonin this decade and do the other things, not because they areeasy, but because they are hard; because that goal will serveto organize and measure the best of our energies and skills,
because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one
we are unwilling to postpone, and one we intend to win …”— John F. Kennedy,
Rice University, Houston, Texas,
September 12, 1962

CONTENTS

1. I s t he M icrophone Work i n g ? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . .1
2 . Revolut ions . I ndust r ial or O t her w i se. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5
3. T he Fou r t h I ndust r ia l Revolu t ion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .11
4. The I mpac t on Busi ness . . . . . .. . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15
5. New Busi ne ss Model s Eme rge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
6. I ndust r ies are Tr a n s for me d . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . 23
7. New S k i l l s are Req u i re d . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
8. T he R i se of t he Mach i ne . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . 33
9. The I mpac t on t he Per son . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
10 . T h e D i g i t a l S e l f . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . .45
11. The I mpac t on G over n ment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . . . 51
12 . How Wi l l We Measu re t he G olden A ge ? . . . . . . . . . .55

1
Is the Microphone Working?

Testing, one, two, three. Testing, one, two three. Can you hearme? Is the microphone working? Testing (tapping on the mic
a few times).
By all accounts, we are entering the Golden Age of
Innovation, which many are calling the Fourth Industrial
Revolution. This seems like a very appropriate label as we will
explore in this book.
Some of the early innovations of the Fourth Industrial
Revolution are visible in consumer and personal use cases,
such as gaming, shopping, and entertainment. But thevast majority of these innovations—like software, Artificial
Intelligence (AI), medicine, robotics, and transportation—have
yet to impact society or productivity. When they do, theireffects will be exponential and staggering.
Right now, we are in the midst of a technology boom. Overthe last decade, the top 20 U.S. technology firms have createdover $1 trillion USD in value. U.S. venture investment topped$60 billion USD in 2016.1 Software is now contributing
over $1 trillion USD in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) tothe global economy.2 And there are 4.5 million professional
software developers in North America alone—more thanever before.3
Innovation drives progress. Software and hardware innovationaccounts for nearly 15% of all R&D, pharmaceuticals foralmost 10%.4 In 2015, U.S. patent applications hit a record
high, topping over 600,000.5 Half of the world’s best-known
brands are now platform companies.
2

We all need to be software companies. The ability to innovate
at scale needs to transcend nations, cultures, and people.
Many cultures find it difficult to innovate. My experiencesuggests there are three key ingredients to innovation: accessto talent, access to capital, and an entrepreneurial spirit.
All industries will be transformed over the next 10 to 20 years
by technology. These transformations will vastly impact us asindividuals, as a society, as businesses and governments, andwill change how we live, work, govern, keep the peace, andwage wars. We will explore this in coming chapters.
But what will be the ultimate measure of this transformation:is it profit, peace, quality of life, or a new form of conscious
capitalism? The Organization for Economic Co-operation
and Development (OECD) Better Life Index ranks Norway,
Australia, Denmark, Switzerland, Canada, Sweden, New
Zealand, Finland, United States, and Iceland as the top 10
countries for wellbeing.6
The United States would rank in the top three if not for:community, civic engagement, and work-life balance. I am
not one to lecture on work-life balance. But democracy is
not easy, and the great American experiment has invested
deeply in a government of, by, and for the people, yet only
50% of eligible American citizens vote or experience civic
engagement.7 This is shameful. In regards to community,
despite progress over the last 100 years, 15% of Americans
still live in poverty, which is completely unacceptable.8

3

My grandfather was born before planes, cars, televisions,
telephones, and electricity were commonplace. He lived for 98
years (smoked for 60 of those and ate bacon and eggs every
morning). He also worked on his farm every day until hepassed, and left America only once to sail across the Atlantic
to France to join the Allied Liberation Forces in WWI. There
were many phenomenal aspects to my grandfather, but letme highlight the incredible human spirit of adaptability that
led him to transition from horses to planes, from whale oil
to electricity, from dirt roads to a nationwide transportation
network. He also lived to see the first personal computer, andhis grandson earn a computer science degree.
As a software engineer, I have never seen a more gilded time
to positively impact society and humanity through technology.
This is the Golden Age of Innovation: And so begins
the Fourth Industrial Revolution and our individual
responsibilities for creating a better future.
Testing, one, two, three. Is the microphone loud enough?

4

2
Revolutions. Industrial or Otherwise.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) changes everything.
Although it has many names—Industry 4.0, Digitalization,
the Singularity, the Internet of Things (IoT), Connected
World, Smart Home, Cognitive, etc.—it will be known as the
Fourth Industrial Revolution, or 4IR. And it will be driven
by vast technology advancements in software, analytics, AI,
machine learning, quantum advances in hardware, robotics,
material science, 3-D printing, medicine, connectivity, andtransportation. The Fourth Industrial Revolution will change
the nature of wealth, health and happiness, how we live,
work, relate to one another, as well as how governments
engage, regulate, serve, and protect.
By 2025, 50% of the world’s GDP will be derived fromdigital (a process that is completely automated by machines,
which does not require human intervention).9 This will haveprofound implications.
The First Industrial Revolution (1750 – 1840) was powered bywater and steam to mechanize production. Inventions such as
the steam engine, iron working, textiles, cement, and railroads
terraformed our landscape as humans migrated from rural(agrarian) to urban (city) settings in massive population shifts.
Language and reading skills increased with the printingpress and so our civilization advanced. Great libraries of
the world were built and opened to the public. Revolutions
ensued in America and France with Napoleon conquering
most of Europe. The very fabric of society changed. Voltaire,
Paine, and Rousseau agreed that society should be organizedaccording to rules based on rational thought rather than6

religious ideology. Indeed, most western advances are basedon rational thought, behavior, and market dynamics. This ischanging in our time.
The Second Industrial Revolution (1840 – 1969) was
driven by electronic power to create mass production
and predicated inventions such as the car, the plane, thetelevision, the telephone, the submarine, the typewriter,and even the hydrogen bomb. It was the great age of iron,steel, rail, electrification, petroleum, chemicals, engines,
telecommunications, and modern business management. It
demonstrated the greatest increase in economic growth in
the shortest period ever, introduced by mass production andmodern manufacturing. The foundations of globalization
were laid and great western populations rose up out ofpoverty while many deadly commonplace diseases, such as
measles, mumps, polio and more, were eradicated. Civil war
defined America, Germany rose to power, and two world wars
were fought.
The Third Industrial Revolution (1969 – 2000) was enabled
by Information Technology to automate production. Inventions
included the integrated circuit, the personal computer,smartphones, the Internet, space exploration technologies, andthe laser. In 1988, Kodak had 170,000 employees and sold
85% of the world’s paper. Within a few years, their businessmodel disappeared and they went bankrupt.10 Yes, digitaltechnologies replaced film, but what Kodak failed to realize
was the disruptive force around them, its opportunities,
and the appropriate investment in them (thus, the defining
7

“Kodak Moment”). In the year 2000, the Third Industrial
Revolution gave way to the Fourth, which ushered in great
technological advancements, along with wage stagnation andincome inequality.
The Fourth Industrial Revolution (2000 – present) not only
digitizes production, but also “intelligence-based tasks,”
which previously could only be handled by the human mind.
This revolution is of a scope, scale, velocity, and complexity
unlike anything else we have faced. Its effects will impact
all of humankind, all industries, all countries, every facetof every glorious element of our society—revolutionizing
business models, reshaping the world, and even redefining
our very existence. As Kennedy observed in his famous“We choose to go to the Moon” speech, the technologicalopportunities presented by this revolution will be unlimited
and challenging, having the power to create and the power todestroy; and as we say in Vermont, any fool can burn downa barn.
The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event (i.e., the meteor
that wiped out the dinosaurs) decimated some 75% of theplant and animal species on Earth. The last ice age only
ended about 10,000 years ago, and you can still travel the
Moraine line today (which I have done from California to NewYork). Extinction events happen. Present possible extinction
events include meteor, nuclear, climate change, and some
now add sentient machines and the Singularity—or the point
at which a machine can think and act at or beyond humancapability (thereby rendering us redundant)—to this list.
8

The vast majority of this book will highlight the power tocreate inherent in the 4IR as the Golden Age of Innovation,
but it is important to note the perils that are equally present.

93
The Fourth Industrial Revolution

What makes the 4IR different from the Third Industrial
Revolution (3IR)? Well, everything.
It is marked by exponential thinking where linear solutions nolonger apply. The digital version replaces the analog version.
Knowledge and invention are cumulative. Evolution is just there-encoding of information, after all. Every person, culture,industry, and country is affected. All forms of production,
management, systems, and governments will be transformed.
The opportunities are unlimited: faster prototyping andtime-to-market with 3-D printing and production, conquering
disease and illness with nanotechnology, micro-financing
using robo-advisors and advanced algorithms, more efficientand affordable connected homes, safer and more convenient
travel with autonomous vehicles. Not to mention otherimprovements made in human longevity, energy, materialsciences, entertainment, consumerism—the list goes on andon. All of these advances will be predicated by developments
made in AI, machine learning, algorithms, massively large
data sets, and robotics.
But as the opportunities flourish, so will the perils: identity
theft, cyber-crime, espionage, new definitions of conflict
and war, de-humanization, a widening of the digital divide,
automation anxiety, radicalization, propagandizing. Last year,
my identity was stolen and I only discovered this because
the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) rejected my tax return
saying that I had already filed. Sixteen months later, I am stilldealing with the aftereffects.
12The 4IR is delineated from the 3IR by three main concepts:
extreme connectivity, extreme computing power, andextreme automation.
Extreme Connectivity: Cell phones currently connect almost
5 billion people.11 By 2025, this number will be 6 billion.12
Today, a smartphone costs $150 a month. By 2025, it will
cost $150 a year.13 Further, it is easy to follow the curve toattaining 1 trillion connected devices (machines) over theInternet (cars, phones, homes, machinery, airplanes, trucks,
ships, soda machines, etc.). Six billion connected people, 1
trillion connected machines—this is extreme connectivity.
Extreme Computing Power: Today, you can rent almost
endless processing power from Microsoft Azure or Amazon’s
AWS. Enter quantum computing and the Qubit. Quantum
computing will become a reality in the 4IR. Humans can nolonger beat a computer at chess. The world’s Go championis also a computer; the alpha male is replaced by Google’s
AlphaGo.14 This is nothing compared to the capabilities ofquantum computing and the Qubit. Quantum computing
has already reached 128 Qubits of processing capacity for asingle system. At 1024 Qubits of quantum processing power,
all the world’s traditional encryption codes can be unlocked bya machine in near real time. All doors are instantly opened,from banks, to vaults, to personal accounts, to weaponssystems. It would be a world without doors and locks. This isextreme computing power.

13

Extreme Automation: With extreme connectivity andextreme computing power, the exponential opportunities forautomation are revealed (truths are revealed, never created):
cognitive, AI, machine learning, 3-D printing (prosthetics,
cloths, and machine parts), algorithms, and methods at
hyper-scale. Five billion Google searches a day15, 200
million daily orders on Alibaba16, and 2 billion worldwide
Facebook subscribers.17 Automation will drive cars, cure
cancer, replace entire labor pools, reduce underwriting risk,fight wars, and entertain us. Ultimately, it will create a newclass of sentient beings with artificial consciousness. This isextreme automation.

14

4
The Impact on Business

The 4IR is presently servicing new market needs while
simultaneously disturbing existing products and services. New
business models and value chains are emerging, and in somecases, supply and demand cycles are being slammed together
to become one.
In almost all cases, new entrants have an advantage overincumbents. New entrants have vast access to capital, have nolegacy infrastructure to transition into the future, innovate at
the speed of thought and without political or organizationalboundaries, and investors are more interested in grabbing
subscribers and market share than generating profits in theearly years of the 4IR.
Even more important than all of this is the ability toconceptualize in the 4IR, perhaps because the new inventors
are borne of an age with a maniacal focus on the customer
experience, transparency of their services, and a reinvention of
how products and services are conceived, designed, delivered,marketed, sold, and supported.
Business leaders need to transform their thinking along
fundamental lines to break synchronous orbit and achieve
exponential thinking. How do we deliver solutions thatare more customer-centric, faster, at greater scale, and are
disruptive and thus provide higher barriers to entry?

16

In the 4IR, I see a new business codex:
 It is more important to be fast than perfect We need less data and more insight Conduct less planning, and encourage moreexperimentation (and at scale) Be customer-led, versus merely customer aware
 Talent, in many cases, is more important than capital The skills of critical thinking and creativity are more

important than interpersonal and organizational skills
 Innovation is real time, iterative, and not a linear waterfall
 Experiment at hyper-scale It is one world; build one company
 Do for machines what we did for humans

There is a new latticework for the 4IR.

17

5
New Business Models Emerge

New business models have emerged in the 4IR that
distinguish themselves from “the way business was
conducted” in the 3IR. A common theme that has
been applied to these new methods is disruption. Let us
look beyond disruption and consider the distinguishing
characteristics of these new models:
From Analog to Digital: This is perhaps the most obvious.
Every analog version of a product or service has a digital
version. The quest to eliminate every piece of paper often
requires the rethinking of a process. It could be the “Kodak
Moment,” the elimination of the wallet and cash, removing
a lockbox process, challenging a title process, redefining
intellectual property, or going wireless with headphones.
Challenge every analog process or product you have, even thevery notion of being human.
From Partners to Disintermediation: One of the
distinguishing elements in the 4IR is disintermediation,or the removal of the middle person or partner, goingdirect, direct to the customer, buyer or supplier. We see
disintermediation occurring in all industries. Direct in retail.
Direct in software. Direct in insurance. The ownership of thecustomer or consumer is a new battleground for trust, brand,
and share of wallet. If the intermediary does not add value, itwill be destroyed.
From Transactional to Subscription Economy: In the 3IR
we purchased products or services to own them. In the 4IR,
we will subscribe to products or services. This will change
relationships and processes from one time to recurring.
20

Customers and consumers will desire more agility andflexibility. But do the math. There are breakeven models ofowning versus renting. I find the answer to many of life’squestions is 42 (as in The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy
by Douglas Adams). In the case of owning versus renting, thebreakeven point is usually 42 months. After 42 months, youare better to own.
From Me to We: The Sharing Economy: The sharing
economy, as it is called, is all about asset utilization. How
do I utilize non-working labor or an idle car? Uber. How do
I utilize an unoccupied room or house? Airbnb. How do I
utilize programmers with available time? Code sourcing. How
do I utilize the collective energy of a group of individuals?
Crowdsourcing. And so on.
These new business models are rooted at the nexus of theextreme changes in technology (connectivity, computing
power, and automation) and a generational or societal change.
Millennials are changing the way we do business. Millennials
are not shackled to tradition or location, they do not believein the value of face time, they are impatient learners and seek
immediacy, they prefer to learn through experiences, and they
believe in life, not a work-life balance.
Technology reflects life. This drives innovation, such as ondemand, public SaaS, Cloud, a sharing economy, subscription
services, and disintermediation. After all, you can run yourlife today only using one finger on an iPad.

21

6
Industries are Transformed

Every industry will be transformed by new technologies,
a new workforce (Millennials), new business models, newsupply/demand chains, new value chains, and new buyer
expectations. Over the next 10 to 20 years, this will come tofruition due to extreme connectivity, extreme automation, andextreme computing power.
At the end of the day, all businesses will become softwareand analytics companies. Uber, after all, is just software; they
do not own any cars or have many employees, yet they are
becoming the world’s largest logistics company. Bitcoin is justsoftware called cryptocurrency. Money will soon be software
too—in fact, most of it already is.
In 2001, in my book eBusiness or Out of Business, I wrote“you banish software, you banish the world.” Let us consider
how software will transform a number of industries over the
next 10 to 20 years:
Financial Services and Banking: The wallet will go away
and be replaced by your phone. Cash will also be eliminated.
Processing will be instant for account creation, credit, andmoney transfer. In 1990, 90% of all NASDAQ volume wasdriven by humans. By 2025, 95% of all NASDAQ volume
will be driven by machines. A handful of algorithmic trading
firms will capture the vast majority of equity value creation—
after all, it will be a zero-sum game and the person with thelargest computer will win.

24

Automotive: Self-driving cars will appear on the roadand the automotive industry will be disrupted. Automatedcars will be summoned using your phone, show up at yourlocation, and drive you to your desired destination. Parking
will be coordinated by software and cameras. You will pay
only for the distance traveled and be productive in theprocess. With autonomous cars, will our children even need adriver’s license? Cities will be transformed as cars are reducedby 75%. Car accidents will drop by 90%, saving millions of
lives each year. The engineers at Daimler, VW, and Audi are
already reeling at the advances being made with driverlessand electronic cars by Tesla, Google, and Apple. Traditional
car companies as we know them today will disappear. Eachcar will be powered by over 150 million lines of software
code, more than is currently required by Windows Vista,
Google Chrome, the Mars Curiosity Rover, or an F-22 Raptor.
Did I mention cars will be electric?
Insurance: The average age of an insurance agent in the
U.S. is 59 years old.18 Agents will be replaced with direct
relationships between customers and insurance companies
as they fortify their franchises. Data companies will emergethat have a digital sequence of the person or a property,
eliminating the need for applications or consumer-supplied
information. Algorithms in massive computer farms will beapplied to instantly measure risk profile, underwriting needs,
and the required premium for each specific policy. As cars
become autonomous, accident rates will plummet and the car
insurance market will disappear. The day of digital reckoning
is quickly approaching for the unprepared insurer as extreme
25computing, online data, and mobility reach critical mass.
Know the person or the property (or its digital sequence), andyou know the risk.
Agriculture: Enter the agricultural robot, or agbot. Agbots
will bring efficiencies and benefits to agriculture, eliminating
physical, back-breaking tasks with everything from lettucebots to wine bots and even the modern-day MarlboroughMan as drones herd cattle. When the price of an agbot falls
below $1,000 USD, farmers will transition from working intheir fields to working as managers of their fields. In many
ways, this is still analog thinking; in the future, we may noteven need livestock farms. Agbots will change the world andthe future of food production by optimizing land use andeliminating a dependency on livestock. Nearly 60% of all
ag-lands are used for beef production.19 A single cow takes
up nearly two acres20 of land and 441 gallons of water21 for
one pound of beef. That same cow produces the methane
equivalent of four tons of carbon dioxide a year22 (a significant
percentage of all greenhouse gases). The need for beef will bediminished by innovative approaches like substituting insect
protein for meat or in-vitro (synthetic) meats designed to taste
like grade-A5 Kobe beef. Are you ready for your veal createdin a petri dish?

26

Legal: Law school graduate unemployment has hit a record
high. What was once a future-proof degree will see 80%
of its work eliminated by supercomputers. Within seconds,
computers will be able to produce legal advice with 90%
accuracy compared to 75% human accuracy. Though perhaps
there will always be a need for human specialists.
Retail: I liken transformation in this industry to an iceberg,with 20% visible above the surface, and 80% hidden fromview, below the surface. There are the must do’s above thesurface for extreme automation of operations, customercentricity, omni-channel experiences, two-hour delivery, andtechnology augmentation for every sport, for every age (fromteam scheduling to fantasy sports to golf-swing analysis). The
transformative technology is 3-D printing. Take a highscan image of your head and get a custom helmet. Take ahigh-scan image of your hand and get a custom glove. Takea high-scan image of your foot and get the perfect athletic
footwear. When raw materials, suppliers, supply chains,
distribution, and logistics are all transformed, the end result
will be perfect, bespoke, high-performance products for the
consumer. A China-based company is 3-D printing homes.
They can print 10 homes a day at a cost of $5,000 per home.23
Energy and Electricity: Renewables win. Electricity will
become cheap and clean. We are now installing more solar
energy than fossil fuel-based systems. The price of solar will
drop so much that it will force coal companies out of business.

27

In 2014, Ontario, Canada eliminated coal production.24 Withcheap electricity comes cheap transportation and abundant
water. The average consumer could save $2,000 USD a year.25
Producing water from desalination will cost less than running
your toaster for a year. Water is not scarce, potable water is.
Imagine a world where potable water is abundant.
Healthcare: Big data will create cures for cancer, turning
clinical specialization (a single doctor’s knowledge throughexperience) into globally available protocols. Nanotechnology
will change drug delivery and targeted therapy. The cyberknife will become widely available. Genome editing could
eliminate mutations and deliver enhanced humans (H+).
Three-dimensional printing will make prosthetics affordable
and liberating. Life expectancy now exceeds 80 years of age.26
Living to be 100 years old is well within reach.
Education: Billions will have access to the Internet and abasic laptop and/or smartphone. Younger generations will
have access to education like never before, without evenleaving their homes. Education will become democratized,
despite threats from terrorist groups or governments
controlling or limiting access to education—especially foryoung women. Gender will no longer be a roadblock toaccess to education and educated young women will become
educated mothers, ensuring generational access to education.

28

7
New Skills are Required

Over the last decade, we can say with confidence throughresearch and direct experience that much attention has been
applied to a handful of skills for the professional worker. Thisis about the future of jobs, skills, and workforce strategy. To
date, emphasis has been placed on some key skills: people
management, coordinating with others, negotiating, and active
listening. These are all good skills, and in many ways, aretable stakes for a modern workforce.
But what skills will change the most and what is required forthe 4IR?
As we look to the future of jobs and the most important skills
required to succeed, these top three skills emerge: creativity,
critical thinking, and complex problem solving.
With new products, new technologies, and new ways to work,
both employees and employers will have to be more creative
to make businesses function cohesively. Disruption will drive
more critical thinking and new business models will require
more complex problem solving.
Think of a taxi driver. They require two skills: driving andthe ability to read a map. Both of these skills are being
replaced by self-driving cars and online map services. In
airports, you order your meals on an iPad. Grocery stores
have moved from self-service checkout to monitoring youractivity and just billing you.

30

I have always believed in this formula, and as time passes, I
become more convinced:
Killer Product = Function {Knowledge + Idea + Innovation}
Turning an idea into a killer product is insanely hard and thesuccess rate is abysmally low.
Turning an idea into a killer product is a function ofknowledge and innovation. Knowledge is the accumulation offacts and information, with new methods applied: Innovation.
The plus (“+”) is the human, our talent pool, requiring new
skill sets in the 4IR.
Is Angry Birds (product) a function of cumulative knowledge(Sesame Street characters) plus a new idea (a sling shot)
added to the innovation of mobile technologies? It may look
simple, but developing the concept is insanely hard.
27

Conventional thinking is a hurdle that must be overcome
to free up creativity for true innovation to happen. When I
travelled throughout Asia speaking about the 4IR and thisGolden Age of Innovation, Fredrik Härén gave a presentation
on ideas and the impossible. During this talk he asked
members of the audience to imagine achieving the impossible
and to write down their top three or four answers. His
findings were incredibly revealing.
31

The majority of people wrote down the same answers: flying,walking on water, time travel, immortality, space travel,
world peace, the ability to teleport, invisibility, discovering acure for cancer, and proving the existence of God or even to
be godlike.
If we asked a child the same question, their answers would be
imaginative, limitless, and truly impossible: “I want to hold anelephant in the palm of my hand.”
Products are a function of knowledge plus innovation. The
skill sets required for the future of work has changed.
Generation Xers need to redefine their thinking about what
is impossible.

32

8
The Rise of the MachineIt is happening so fast it cannot be stopped. From Oxford to
MIT to Harvard to the World Economic Forum, they all say
the same thing: The 4IR will automate up to 47% of all jobs
in the U.S. over the next 20 years.28 This will motivate a labor
migration greater than that of the Great Depression. Even at
the lower end of this range, it will be a rude awakening inwhat some call “a world without work.” I am a believer that it
will be a full-on technological revolution for robots, machines,
and cognitive systems (incorporating analytics, AI, andmachine learning).
Extreme connectivity, extreme computing power, and the new
economics of automation are driving the rise of the machine.
For an employer, the cost of an employee (including salary,
healthcare, and other benefits) can total $45,000 USD a year.

34

A robot can do exactly the same work for much less and be
more “reliable” in the process, requiring maintenance rather
than benefits (robots don’t take sick days). It can also produce
the same product or service at the same (or faster) rate inexactly the same way every time.
Jobs that are labor-intensive are at risk, especially when thecost of a robot is significantly lower than a human salary.
The more human incomes increase and benefit costs soar, thewider the crossover point grows, or if you will, the alligator
jaws widen. This is the economic argument, not the moral
one. The two arguments need to be solved, conjunctively.
Agbots will transform the way the world is fed.
Drones can do dangerous tasks, from building inspections to
putting out wildfires to monitoring borders.
Robots can explore our universe (there are now a total of six
robots and satellites exploring Mars).
Machine-to-machine communication is driving vast increases
in asset utilization and efficiency, more accurate information,and greater safety. For example, by the end of 2020, there will
be approximately 53 million smart meters throughout the
U.K.29 Will it make sense, or even be feasible, for a human
to be dispatched four times a year to read and record theinformation and hand this to another human only to becorrect 80% of the time?

35

Engine monitoring—planes, trains, and automobiles—is agreat advancement. Sensors in various locations can gather
information about the engine. Fuel consumption, engine
performance, irregularities, preventative maintenance, andmore—all of this information is sent in real time to theoperator for correction, or to machines for analysis, or to
ground crews to ensure parts and labor are immediately
available to get the asset performing again.
The same goes for robotic handling, welding, assembly,
dispensing, and processing. Over the last 10 years, theprevalence of industrial robots in welding has grown bynearly 100%.30 At the same time, U.S. manufacturing jobs
have fallen 15%.31 In the auto industry today, one robot is
employed for every 10 humans.32
Numbers are reaching critical mass. Researchers predict thatby 2025, Japan will have 1 million industrial robots installed33
and there will be more than 7 million unmanned aircraft (or“civilian drones”) flying the U.S. skies.34 Over the next 10
years, there will be 60 million robots in the world.35 That’s
the equivalent of the entire U.K. population!
The rise of machines is real and reaching scale and the futureof employment is being redefined. The business, ethical, andpolicy questions on how we treat a machine versus a humanneed to enter public discourse. As machines get smarter, more
perceptive, better at manipulation, more creative and sociallyintelligent, more jobs become vulnerable.

36Here I am talking to a robot while checking in for a flightfrom Tokyo to San Francisco. The robot was useless. I tried touse one of those passport scanners and it could not read mypassport, so I ended up speaking to a human and printing
my ticket.

37

9The Impact on the Person

The “Physical” Self
The 4IR is expected to accelerate knowledge like neverbefore. As I mentioned previously, technology will
advance with artificial intelligence, resulting in medical
breakthroughs. As a leukemia survivor, I carry three DNA
sets and, thanks to a third-party donor, replaced my stem cell
production. I guess that makes me not a cyborg, but a chiborg(chimerism + technology). (And yes, I just coined a newterm.) Medical advancements like these will redefine what itmeans to be human. Nanotechnologies in the medical field
will drastically change how we deliver drugs, kill microbes,
repair cells, and perform surgery—all on a nano-scale thatis more targeted and more accurate than previous medical
methods and practices.
As a result of breakthrough technologies, life expectancy
should increase as we finally slow—or even reverse—theeffects of aging and decay at a cellular level. In addition,body parts that have failed will be replaced with parts grownfrom stem cells, cultivated and harvested by nanorobots orwith biomechatronic body parts, or perhaps even 3-D printedorgans. More humans will become cybernetic organisms(cyborgs), like Motoko Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell, a movie
in which much of humanity is connected to a vast electronic
network through cybernetic bodies (“shells”) which possess
their consciousness and give them superhuman abilities.

40

In addition to increasing life expectancy, technologies suchas genome editing will provide us with the tools for humanenhancement, including genetic engineering to produce
designer babies. Genome editing is also crucial to genetherapy, or replacing defective genes or modifying immune
cells to fight diseases, such as HIV, Alzheimer’s, or cancerous
cells. As technology advances exponentially, so too must ourcivil, moral, and spiritual motivations to accommodate andadapt to the 4IR.
The 4IR will, therefore, change our fundamental
understanding of our physical selves—that we were born todie naturally. The introduction of designer babies, cyborgs,
and veritable immortality will shift how we view our physicalself and how we fundamentally organize ourselves. Our
traditional concept of the family might cease to exist. The way
we appropriate resources might also shift as designer babies
have the potential to outsmart and outwork the now older, yetstronger cyborg population that might not die.

Cogito ergo sum
Descartes’ famous assertion that “I think, therefore I am”
has guided modern western philosophy and ontology forcenturies. The notion of self is based on humankind’s ability
to think and acquire knowledge. This ontological concept of
the self will be challenged during the 4IR. Machine learningand interconnectedness, along with the advancement ofAI, will eventually produce an intelligence that is sentientand may potentially trigger the Singularity. A self-thinking
and self-improving machine would transcend our notion of41

self because if a machine is self-thinking, does that makeit human or does it simply make it sentient? Would you
consider Dolores in Westworld to be human or merely asentient machine? If we were to consider these androids tobe humans, what changes would we need to make to oursociety to accommodate these increasingly powerful andsmarter “humans”?
On the other hand, with the advance of cybernetics and a vast
network of connectedness, can humans also attain the samelevel of knowledge as a sentient machine? Imagine again
Kusanagi in Ghost in the Shell, where her self inhabits a shelland connects to everything. Is she still a human? Or would
transhumanism (H+) take over and advance the human race?
Humans could start to control machines throughsynchronization to accomplish tasks no machine or human
could accomplish alone (like the large fighting machines
in Evangelion controlled by teenagers). Or maybe, humans
would possess so much knowledge that an omnipotent, Lucylike person could exist. Finally, humans could potentially tap
into our stardust memories to unlock the inner universe’s
power within us, like Akira did.
The 4IR will advance machine intelligence and sentience
while also ushering in transhumanism. Thinking will nolonger be sufficient in defining who we are.

42

Disappearance of the Self or Enhancement of
the Self ?
The 4IR will connect everything—all networks, all things, allselves. Everything will have access to every datum, available
for access in real time. Robots with AI will roam among
humans. Humans will have cyborg bodies and their selves
digitally copied, stored, and continually backed up in multiple
locations, like the horcruxes of the Harry Potter universe.
Transhumanism will be a reality.
Will the notion of the self disappear, whether physically or
ontologically? If everyone is connected and doesn’t die, would
humans as a race be the only self that is left—a collective
self and mind? Would all humans merge into this self andbecome a godlike creature, rivaled only by the equally
godlike AI?
Or will humans retain their individuality and personality,
remaining connected to others as an enhancement of theirown selves? The 4IR will not only accelerate technologicalrevolutions and knowledge acquisition, it will challenge
the most fundamental understanding of what it is to be
human and the notion of the self. Philosophers, ethicists,
and thinkers should not delay in addressing this issue,
because without a proper foundation of the notion of theself, mass hysteria might ensue when humans can no longer
identify or distinguish themselves based on outdated notions
or characteristics.

43

10
The Digital Self

Just as our analog notion of self (flesh and blood) consistsof RNA and DNA, our digital sequence—let us call it the“Digital Self”—consists of code. Each day, we are creating
massive and permanent data trails that contain essential
attributes of encoding, decoding, and expressions of ourgenes (or self). We do this both consciously and explicitly, andsubconsciously and indirectly.
Consider the behaviors that you produce every day, stored
permanently in “Digital Land”: your psychological profile,
your physical profile, your consciousness and belief profiles,
your emotions and character, and your net worth. Billions ofus have actually submitted our own definition of our Digital
Self into various social networking sites (name, address, age,marital status, education, employment, friends, likes, dislikes,
political views, etc.). We volunteer this information!
Think of your gene expressions every day in Digital Land:You search the web, you read ebooks, watch movies, post
videos, tweet, list your friends, order food, and complete
online transactions. Imagine storing rock solid patternsof your behavior—sharing your movements via wearable
technology, updates to your medical records, bank records,
birth records, employment history, education, driving
information, purchase history, and online articles that you
read. It is all there, a complete record of your digital RNA,
DNA, and behaviors. Permanent, indefatigable, revealed
truths, one digital bread crumb at a time, uploaded to the
Cloud—sounds like heaven.

46

Now suck all this information into a computer, every minuteof every day. Run an algorithm against that data, and a digital
sequence of you is created. Perhaps multiple sequences are
created. You could use a CRISPR and have a super-digital
sequence of yourself. Then pump that into an artificial
intelligence or learning machine, and suddenly your Digital
Self is “alive.”
Science fiction or a revealing truth?
A friend recently told me a story where he received a callfrom his granddaughter who was in jail. She was locked ina cell, being treated poorly, and surrounded by threatening
cellmates. She needed a $2,500 wire transfer to post her bailand get out of jail, but she wasn’t able to ask her parents forhelp. This was her one call and it was being recorded by thepolice, so she needed to keep it short. “Granddad, can you
help?” Of course he could! And he did. He wired the money,
but it turned out that the call was a scam.
The bad actor in this case reproduced a digital self of the
granddaughter, right down to the voice and behaviors,and perpetrated the petty crime of stealing funds using
digital payments.
What does this mean for the person, for business, forgovernments and society?

47For the person, if we dismantle the notion of the self, thesocietal, spiritual, and religious impacts are profound. Your
Digital Self lives on, ever collecting knowledge, and is in allplaces at once. To quote the movie Lucy: “I am everywhere.”
We all become Brahma (the creator) and Shiva (the destroyer).
Facebook is buying data to “fill in the profiles” of their almost
2 billion subscribers; rounding out their digital selves without
the users’ explicit consent.36
For business, the Digital Self will be exploited to deliver
better ads, provide better recommendations, drive purchasing
decisions, and reduce risk. Consumer businesses will knowwhat you need before you even need it. A perfect andpersistent personal assistant.
Governments will be obliged to protect the rights of
our Digital Selves. Does the Digital Self become like a
corporation, thus serving as a new shareholder in thedefinition of a Corporate Self?
Ultimately, one has to “opt in” to this new Digital Land, thedigerati, and leave the Flat Land, the land of the Luddites.
For those who opt out, can they function in society, or are
they a new super-culture or subculture?
The British television series Black Mirror features an episodethat addresses this notion of a Digital Self being created,
captured, and exploited. It is a modern-day Twilight Zone,
with sharp undertones of an expectant and emerging reality.

48

It is so much an emerging reality that it is already happeningin Shanghai with the recent release of the app, Honest
Shanghai. In an effort to make Shanghai a global cityof excellence, the government is using apps like Honest
Shanghai to reward residents for their honesty, morality,
and integrity. Using facial recognition software, the app
aggregates some 3,000 items of personal data collected by thegovernment—creating a digital copy of Shanghai residents—togenerate “public credit” scores that range from “very good”
to “good” to “bad” (imagine your government rating you).
Users with a higher score can reap the benefits in the formof discounts, lower loan rates, better positions in lines, travel
discounts, and more—while those with a bad score may
have to deal with declined loan applications or inferior seatson planes.
There goes a little honest graft.
We need to harness the transformative aspects of the 4IR tochange the world, and obsessively but thoughtfully conquer
the perils. For me, I am all in.

49

11
The Impact on Government

“Good enough” as a measure for government work is nolonger good enough. The changing nature of the citizenry(Millennials and subsequent generations) will massively raise
the bar for government.
Citizens want to engage with their governments. They want tovoice opinions, coordinate their activities, and in some cases,
circumnavigate their officials. Citizens want full transparency
and automated services. Why do we need to file a tax return?
If all of our transactions are digital, we should simply beemailed a check or a bill. If the wallet disappears, will ourneed for a passport, ID card, or a driver’s license persist? Or
will we be provided with a digital identity in the form of adigital fingerprint or retina scanner?
The revolutionary wave in 2011 known as Arab Spring
highlighted the power of social media; the U.S. election of2016 weaponized its capabilities.
Governments will have more data and massive controls overpeople via their information and behaviors, obtained throughpervasive surveillance. Governments can also do good with
their data, and set agendas for Open Data, to unlock the valueof data sets to spur innovation and invention. Imagine theemergence of educational institutions using the billion dollar
infrastructures of NASA and the Departments of Energy orAgriculture to drive innovation.
It will be a battle over privacy and citizens must never relent
on the protection of their information. Data corrupts, absolutedata corrupts absolutely.
52

The very nature of conflict and war will be redefined in the
4IR. Mobilizing troops, engaging in gunfire, bombing power
plants, and blowing up dams will be replaced with hacking
systems and shutting down power grids. These will be the
new acts of war.
A new playbook will be required to counterbalance the blackhats, to protect our way of life, and to ensure the analog
version of war is minimized and avoided.
Just as the rules of war will change, so too will governments.
They will need to conform to the theory of global governanceepitomized by transgovernmentalism (G+)—as administratorsof the collective good, purveyors of the ultimate surveillance
program (such as PRISM), and as power centers competingwith other governments. At the end of the day, governments
will need to re-think how they protect citizen workers in the
4IR as labor is displaced at scale.

53

12
How Will We Measure our Golden Age?

“Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic
answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame
for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.”— John F. Kennedy
Industrial revolutions tend to benefit the rich more than thepoor, initially. They all begin with great inequality. In unequal
societies, life expectancies and trust levels are lowered. They
tend to be more violent, experience greater levels of mental
illness, and have higher rates of incarceration. In the U.S.,
one in 50 adults are on community supervision, probation, or
parole.37 One in 50!
As it stands today, the future is not evenly divided. The richest
1% of the population now owns 75% of all household wealthand 8 individuals control more assets than the poorest 3.6
billion people combined—or half of the world’s population.38
The anxiety over automation, the growing digital divide, isreal, is present, and is the greatest moral question of our time.
Reports vary in their quantum, with some at the low end(25%) and others at the high end (47%)39, but they all agree
that the human workforce of the future is shrinking as more
and more jobs are automated out of existence.
This increasing anxiety, divide, and inequality will create
instability and security concerns for both citizens andstates—a general state of unrest. The unrest can manifest
itself from within—witness the BREXIT vote—or externally,
with bad state-sponsored actors. The transformation is realand it will impact jobs and equality.
56

The strategic space for conflict is changing and newbattlegrounds are emerging. In the future, power plants will
not be bombed, they will be turned off. Leaders will not be
assassinated, they will be toppled by propaganda, data leaks,
and fake news. This has already happened in Iran with
Stuxnet40 when Hackers made Iran’s nuclear computers blast
AC/DC’s song Thunderstruck in the middle of the night, andeven with the 2016 United States Presidential election.
The 4IR also goes deeply into who we are as a people,
as a species, and speaks directly to our identity andour communities.
Beyond the transformation of all industries, beyond the newwinners and losers and the creation of new “Kodak Moments,”
how will we measure our new Golden Age of Innovation?
I have a series of modest proposals:
Personal Responsibility: We each need to take personal
responsibility and be a driving force for positive change. We
choose and instigate our own actions and we each need to be
morally accountable, and thus, drive a common purpose ofhumanity in our new world, one leader at a time.
Education: Education is a game-changer. It creates a happierand more stable life, raises income levels, and creates moreequality. It has the power to create independence and turnaspirations into a reality. A more educated world is moretolerant, safer, peaceful, and surely, more economicallyprosperous. Educational equality is a dual-track system,
supporting vocational and academic advancement, and57

ultimately, equality. The world needs skilled electricians,
plumbers, roofers, carpenters as much as we need doctors,
programmers, and lawyers.
Youth Sports: I am a product of public education and youth
sports. Athletics have a positive, life-long impact. They instillin children the value of teamwork, personal discipline andhealthy competition, and teach youths how to recover fromsetbacks. Sports help children to develop their cognitiveand motor skills, provide positive influences and inspiration,and keep kids out of trouble. There is no other activity thataffords the opportunity to impart so many positive qualities inchildren. In the U.S., youth sport participation is declining.
Roughly 40% of American youth participates in a regularteam sport.41 There is a direct correlation between youth
sport participants and a more productive future, so we must
increase participation to ensure a better future.
Technology Everywhere: Technology needs to find its way
into the poorest communities and countries. Getting fees
for a smartphone and rural connectivity down to $150 a
year is still too expensive. For many, this represents a large
portion of their annual income. A billion smartphones inunderdeveloped countries like Africa would raise not just a
community or a country, it would carry the entire continent
into the 4IR.

58

Raising Humanity Out of Poverty: Enough with technology
driving my car, having a “Like” button, or delivering areal-time movie—these comforts are meaningless when you
consider that much of the world is still living in poverty.
Circa 1800, 95% of the world lived in poverty. Today, 50% of
the world still lives in poverty.42 Fifty percent!!! While many
view this as an improvement, I believe we can do better.
The greatest injustice in this world is poverty. There is no
structural reason why we cannot radically change the world—
and technology can be the enabler for this.
Our Age of Innovation will be truly golden if we can raise theworld’s citizens above the poverty line in our lifetimes andperfect conscious capitalism.
Testing, one, two, three. Is this microphone working? Can you
hear me?

59

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4“ 2016 Global Innovation 1000 Study,” PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), 2017, http://
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5D avid Rogers, “United States patent application filings exceed 600,000 for thesecond straight year,” Inside Counsel, June 4, 2015, http://www.insidecounsel.
com/2015/06/04/united-states-patent-application-filings-exceed-60 (accessed
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6O ECD Better Life Index: http://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/ (accessed
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7V oting Turnout Statistics: http://www.statisticbrain.com/voting-statistics/ (accessed
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8M ark Gongloff, “45 Million Americans Still Stuck Below Poverty Line: Census,”
Huffington Post, September, 2015, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/16/
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9M ark Knickrehm, Bruno Berthon, and Paul Daugherty, “Digital Disruption: The
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10

Udo Gollub: https://www.facebook.com/udo.gollub/posts/10207978845381135(accessed January, 2017).
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“Number of mobile phone users worldwide from 2013 to 2019 (in billions),”

Statista: the Statistics Portal, https://www.statista.com/statistics/274774/forecast-ofmobile-phone-users-worldwide/ (accessed January 2017).
12

Peter Diamandis, “The World in 2025: 8 Predictions for the Next 10 Years,”

SingularityHub, May 11, 2015, https://singularityhub.com/2015/05/11/the-world-in2025-8-predictions-for-the-next-10-years/ (accessed January 2017).
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“Ericsson Mobility Report,” November 2016, https://www.ericsson.com/mobility-

report (accessed January 2017).

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C
 hristof Koch, “How the Computer Beat the Go Master,” Scientific American,
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15

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18

C aitlin Bronson, “One in four insurance agents will be gone by 2018,” Insurance
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23

Lucy Wang, “Chinese Company Assembles 10 3D-Printed Concrete Houses in a Day

for Less Than $5,000 Each,” Inhabitat, June 6, 2014, http://inhabitat.com/chinesecompany-assembles-ten-3d-printed-concrete-houses-in-one-day-for-less-than-5000each/ (accessed January 2017).
24

D aniel Gross, Slate, “How Ontario is winning the war on coal (according to an
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62

26

W
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27

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M
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32

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33

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34

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