Peter Diamandis

If you could build a city from the ground up using first principles, how would you do it? What would it look like?

By 2050, two-thirds of the population, more than 6 billion people, are expected to live in urbanized areas.

Exponential technologies will radically change the way we build and organize our cities in the future.

In this blog, I will cover:

Mass urbanization trends

Building future cities

Exponential technology implications          

Let’s dive in.

Mass Urbanization

Cities currently house over 50 percent of the world’s population and generate 80 percent of the world’s GDP.

The UN estimates that continuing urbanization and population growth will add 2.5 billion people to the world’s urban population by 2050, with nearly 90 percent of the increase concentrated in Asia and Africa.

While the city population is growing dramatically, the footprint of the city (the number of square kilometers it covers) will grow at a faster rate, ultimately causing the city densities (people per square kilometer) to decline.

The expected increase in urban land during the first three decades of the 21st century will be greater than the cumulative urban expansion in all of human history.

This poses a unique challenge for sustainability endeavors, as low-density cities tend to produce higher carbon emissions than higher-density cities of a similar population size.

By 2050, the UN projects that demand for water and energy will increase by 55 percent. By 2035, the demand for energy will increase by 33 percent.

As people migrate to cities, existing infrastructure will need to be improved or we will face significant shortages.

Technology has the potential to dramatically reduce the downsides of urbanization.

With big data, ubiquitous sensors, computer intelligence, and transportation technology (autonomous cars, flying cars, Hyperloop, etc.) we can imagine central systems that are far more efficient and offer far greater performance than the ones around today.

Building Future Cities

Three recent projects in this area have caught my eye:

Sidewalk Labs

Bill Gates’ recent $80 million investment in an Arizona-based smart city

Dubai’s efforts to be the city of the future

1. Sidewalk Labs:

Sidewalk Labs is Alphabet’s urban development organization that seeks to imagine what cities would look like if they were built “from the Internet up.

In 2012, Sidewalk’s subsidiary Intersection began converting old payphones into free, technologically advanced access points complete with video call capability and screaming-fast wifi. Over the next several years, 7,500 “links” will be installed throughout New York City.

In October 2017, Sidewalk announced its plans to build a tech-centered neighborhood southeast of downtown Toronto called Quayside.

Waterfront Toronto, Sidewalk’s partner in the project, said that the city will be “a testbed for emerging technologies, materials and processes that will address these challenges and advance solutions that can be replicated in cities worldwide.”

2. Bill Gates & Belmont Partners:

Bill Gates recently announced his commitment of $80 million to build a “smart city” just outside of Phoenix, Arizona with the help of Belmont Partners, a real estate investing group.

In a press release, the company described the city as a “forward-thinking community with a communication and infrastructure spine that embraces cutting-edge technology, designed around high-speed digital networks, data centers, new manufacturing technologies and distribution models, autonomous vehicles and autonomous logistics hubs.”

Unlike Sidewalk’s project in Toronto, this city would literally be built from the ground up – currently, the 24,800-acre site is a patch of empty land in the desert.

Grady Gammage, a spokesperson for the Belmont Partners, argues that this fact gives the company a unique advantage: “Envisioning future infrastructure from scratch is far easier and more cost efficient than retrofitting an existing urban fabric.”

Eventually, the city (currently called Belmont) will boast 80,000 homes, 3,800 acres of industrial, office, and retail space, and 470 acres for public schools.

3. Dubai’s “Strategic Plan 2021”:

Over the next decade, Dubai will look more and more like it came from a sci-fi movie.

The city has laid out 2021 goals that include:

3D-printing 25 percent of the city’s buildings

Making 25 percent of transportation trips automated and driverless

Installing hundreds of artificial “trees” that use solar power to provide the city with free wifi, screens with mapping information, and ports for charging phones

Integrating passenger drones that can carry individuals into their public transportation system

Becoming one of the top 10 sustainable cities by 2020.

Dubai is setting a prime example for the rest of the world to follow.

When other nations see Dubai’s tourism and efficiency exponentially increase, I am confident that other cities will follow suit.

And, as cities begin to intelligently incorporate big data into their infrastructure, they will become more efficient, sustainable and prosperous.

Implications & Big Questions

The implications of exponential tech on cities is vast, and in our lifetimes, we will see exciting developments that blur the lines between science fiction and reality.

If I was starting a city from scratch, here are the questions I would ask and think about. What about you?

Would you begin with a Massively Transformative Purpose (MTP) for the city?

Would you incorporate a city-wide Token/Coin and do an ICO for city services?

Would you make human-driven cars illegal?

Would all-autonomous cars allow the elimination of all parking lots, parking garages and street parking?

Do you need traffic lights?

Would you make the city and all transportation 100 percent renewable electric, with maximum solar penetration?

Would you put a Hyperloop station at the center of the city plan?

Would you require vertical farming to generate 50 percent of the food supply?

Would you offer wireless gigabit services for free within the city footprint?

These are all questions we must ask as we adapt to large and fast-growing city populations.

To me, one thing is crystal clear: the future of cities is an exciting place for innovation and disruption.

Join Me

1. A360 Executive Mastermind: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive Mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective, for 360 abundance and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $10B companies). If you’d like to be considered, apply here.

Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

2. Abundance Digital Online Community: I’ve also created a Digital/Online community of bold, abundance-minded entrepreneurs called Abundance Digital.

There is a growing abundance of capital to fund entrepreneurs’ Massively Transformative Purposes (MTPs) and Moonshots.

Just this year, venture capitalists in the United States have poured over $70 billion into entrepreneurs — just the tip of the iceberg.

In this blog, I’ll cover three places outside of traditional venture funding where I am seeing an growing abundance of capital:

Crowdfunding and equity crowdfunding

Initial coin offerings (ICOs) and token generation events (TGEs)

Sovereign wealth funds and mega funds          

Let’s dive in.

1. The Rise of Crowdfunding

Global crowdfunding has exploded onto the scene, and crowdfunding websites make it easy for anyone to market their ideas and get funded.

The total worldwide volume of crowdfunding is $16.2 billion as of 2017, with 375 crowdfunding platforms in North America alone. World Bank predicts that crowdfunding investments will be a $96 billion/year market in developing countries by 2025.

Kickstarter, one of the most popular reward-based crowdsourcing platforms, has launched almost 400,000 projects, and over $3 billion has been pledged on the site.

The most successful Kickstarter to date, Pebble Time, raised over $20 million in 37 days, with $7.4 million in the first day alone.

Even the Oculus Rift, the product responsible for making VR a household name, was funded initially via a Kickstarter project.

Equity crowdfunding is also taking off tremendously, with worldwide volume exceeding $4 billion in 2016 and expected to grow $20 billion by 2020, surpassing worldwide angel capital.

Importantly, crowdsourcing democratizes funding, allowing any good idea, regardless of its origin, to become a reality. As such, Goldman Sachs described crowdfunding as “potentially the most disruptive of all the new models of finance.”

For more of my research and advice on Crowdfunding, check out Chapter 8 of my book “BOLD”, where I outline 12 key steps to designing a successful crowdfunding campaign.

2. ICOs & TGEs

An Initial Coin Offering (ICO) or Token Generation Event (TGE) is a new fundraising tool from the cryptocurrency realm.

In some ways, ICOs and TGEs are like a crowdfunding campaign, but instead of offering a product or shares of equity in a startup, companies offer “coins” (for ICOs) or “tokens” (for TGEs), which allow their buyers to access blockchain-based software services.

Rather than pitch their service to a venture capitalist, programmers may host a TGE and sell a fixed number of their tokens to the open market (usually in exchange for Bitcoin or Ethereum) to fund their idea.

Consumers buy the tokens with the hope that, over time, the software or service will become widely used and increase the token’s value.

This route is especially popular for companies that aim to create decentralized platforms because, by definition, no one owns these platforms or directly profits from them.

Nearly $2.3 billion has been raised to date in ICOs, with the large majority of that taking place in the first half of 2017 ($800 million in Q2 2017).

In fact, in Q2 2017, ICOs outcompeted VC funding in virtually every regard as it relates to funding Blockchain projects (see chart).

Recently, an Ethereum startup and incubator called ConsenSys has been raising eyebrows in this exciting market.

ConsenSys’s MTP is to create simplified and automated decentralized applications to facilitate peer-to-peer transactions and exchanges.                  

They hope to spearhead this revolutionary idea into the mainstream.

In September, the company launched a $50 million venture fund for startups working in blockchain technology.

I’m pleased to announce that Joe Lubin, founder of ConsenSys (and a co-Founder of Ethereum), will be at Abundance 360 in January 2018.

If you’re an A360 member (or participating via Abundance Digital) and want to know more about the future of blockchain, Joe is the perfect person to talk to. I can’t wait to pick his brain and learn more about his budding company.

3. Sovereigns Stepping Into Venture

I’ve noticed an uptick in funding from Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) to promising startups.

SWFs, which run over $6.59 trillion in assets, hope that investing at an early stage will yield outsized returns if the funded firms experience exponential growth.

Globally, there were 42 SWF deals valued at some $16.2 billion last year, according to the Sovereign Wealth Lab research center at Madrid’s IE Business School.

The largest technology investment fund ever, Softbank Vision fund, is backed by two sovereign nations: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

The $100 billion Softbank Vision Fund plans to invest over $1 billion in Uber when it goes public.                                                                                                  

The fund recently bought Boston Dynamics (famous for its “kickable” robot dog) from Alphabet.

In addition to the Vision Fund, Saudi Arabia has also made recent headlines with its Vision 2030 initiative.

Vision 2030 describes a prosperous and sustainable future for Saudi Arabia, as the Kingdom prepares for new technologies to outcompete the oil market that its economy currently relies on.

Recently, Saudi Arabia announced plans to invest $1 billion in Virgin’s space tourism companies – an exciting development for those of us who eagerly await our first trip to space.

Many more examples exist of SWFs throwing millions of dollars to promising new companies, including Ireland’s “Strategic Investment Fund” and Australia’s “Future Fund.”

Many countries are so convinced that the future belongs to powerful entrepreneurs with a vibrant MTP that they are pooling together billions of dollars to give them a chance.

They see the potential of exponential technology and the DIY innovator, and they want a slice of the pie.

Perhaps your startup could be the next to catch the imagination of an entire country.

Final Thoughts

For entrepreneurs, this is an exciting time.

As our future continues on its exponential path, we are heading towards a growing abundance of capital, technology and opportunities, giving an entrepreneur with a vision a shot at extraordinary success and a chance to positively impact the world.

Between crowdfunding sites, ICOs, and SWFs, there is no excuse to put off pursuing your MTP and Moonshot.                

The speed at which we can go from "I've got an idea" to "I run a billion-dollar company" is moving faster than ever.

How will you fund your next bold venture?

Join Me

1. A360 Executive Mastermind: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive Mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective, for 360 abundance and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $10B companies). If you’d like to be considered, apply here.

Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

2. Abundance Digital Online Community: I’ve also created a Digital/Online community of bold, abundance-minded entrepreneurs called Abundance Digital.

Abundance Digital is my ‘onramp’ for exponential entrepreneurs – those who want to get involved and play at a higher level. Click here to learn more.

We are local and linear thinkers in a global and exponential world.

Our biggest challenge as entrepreneurs is to retrain our linear brains and project exponentially.

This isn’t easy… but it directly affects your ability to do big, bold things.

In the following video from my Abundance 360 Digital Program, I discuss what exponential growth actually looks like, and the radical power it can have.

Watch it here.

Here’s the overview…

Our brain is excellent at extrapolating linearly.

It’s easy to predict where you’ll end up after 30 linear steps (30 meters away).

But if I asked you to predict where you’ll be in 30 exponential steps — where an exponential is a simple doubling... 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and so on — it gets harder.

In 30 exponential steps you’ll be a billion meters away – put differently, you’ll circumnavigate the Earth 26 times!

Predicting exponential growth is not intuitive.

It’s probably worth memorizing the following:

Double something 10 times, you get ~1,000x

Double something 20 times, you get ~1 million-fold increase

Double something 30 times, you get ~1 billion-fold increase

Entrepreneurs who understand the power of exponential growth, and can hop onto an exponential growth curve, can benefit significantly where others do not.

Let’s close with a fun experiment… If you have a child or younger brother or sister, consider giving them the following choice:

Option #1: Offer them $1 a day for the next 30 days.

Option #2: Offer them a penny on the first day, two cents on the second day, four cents on the third day, and so on.

Chances are, they take the first option.

$30 isn’t bad for zero work.

But if they took the second offer, what started out with a penny would result in $10 million on the final day.

Now we’re talking!

Remember these numbers and how vital it is to recognize exponential growth.

The same forces that enabled the fall of Kodak and the rise of Facebook can also lead to your next billion-dollar opportunity.

Interested in Joining Me? (Two options)

1. A360 Executive Mastermind: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive Mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective, for 360 abundance and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $50B companies).

If you’d like to be considered, apply here.

Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

2. A360 Digital Mastermind: I’ve also created a Digital/Online community of bold, abundance-minded entrepreneurs called Abundance 360 Digital (A360D).

Earlier this month, 13 U.S. government agencies (NOAA, NASA, DOE, etc.) concluded that climate change is real and caused mainly by human activity.

There is no question that this is happening...

The only question now is: what do we do about it?

This blog looks at four options:

Pass government legislation that incentivizes carbon abatement

Drive mass adoption of solar energy and battery technology

Adapt ourselves and our civilization to the changing climate

Invest in geoscale engineering projects        

Let’s dive in.

1. Government Regulation and Top-Down Incentives

We’ve seen many government debates, laws passed and treaties signed. We’ve heard a lot about the efficacy of cap and trade, taxing carbon, and other regulations that incentivize carbon abatement.

While we should rally behind policies that can assist in slowing the rise of global temperatures, forgive me if I don’t depend on this option to handle the problem.

Many special interests and scientifically ignorant members of the electorate make this option unlikely and risky to baseline as our primary strategy.

The time for radical action is now.

2. Make Renewables so Cheap that they KILL Fossil Fuels

Society faced a similar environmental crisis 120 years ago...

At the end of the 19th century, London was becoming uninhabitable because of the accumulation of horse manure.

As citizens moved from the rural countryside to the urban cities, they brought with them their motive force, the horse, and the piles of horse manure piled up rapidly, bringing disease. People were absolutely panicked. Because of their anchoring bias, they couldn’t imagine any other possible solutions. No one had any idea that a disruptive technology — the automobile — was coming.

What is today’s equivalent transformative technology? Clearly, it’s the mass adoption of renewal energy: solar, wind, geothermal and nuclear.

Let’s look at solar alone. Few people have any idea that 8,000x more energy from the sun hits the surface of the Earth in a day than we consume as a human race.

All the energy we could ever need is literally raining down from above. A squanderable abundance of energy.

These staggering numbers, in combination with an exponential decline in photovoltaic solar energy costs ($ per watt price of solar cells), put us on track to meet between 50 percent and 100 percent of the world’s energy production from solar (and other renewables) in the next 20 years.

Even better, the poorest countries in the world are the sunniest.

At the same time that renewable energy sources are on the rise, the demise of the internal combustion car is synergistically bringing about the end of the era of fossil fuels.

India, France, Britain and Norway have already completely ditched gas and diesel cars in favor of cleaner electric vehicles. At least 10 other countries (including China and India) have set sales targets for electric cars.

In the last year alone, every manufacturer has announced aggressive plans for electric vehicles. Ford Motor Company, for example, is investing $4.5 billion in electric cars, adding 13 electric cars and hybrids by 2020, making more than 40 percent of its lines electrified.

An EV market of two models in 2010 has climbed to more than 25 models today.

At the same time, many automotive companies (e.g. Volvo) have announced the end of the internal combustion car altogether.

Batteries: It’s next reasonable to ask whether the required battery technology will advance fast enough to give us the storage capacity needed for an “all-electric economy.”

The following chart shows that the battery performance pricing ($/kWh) is dropping 2x faster than even the optimists projected.

The bottom line: Our second option for combating climate change is to make renewable energy so cheap, such a ‘no-brainer’, that fossil fuels disappear for the same reason the Stone Age vanished: Not for a lack of stones, but for a 10x better option.

Abundance-minded entrepreneurs have the option to make solar and renewables easier, cheaper, and better, putting the petroleum, natural gas and coal industries out of business.

3. Adapting to a Warmer World

The Earth’s environment has been continuously changing for more than 4 billion years.

When life first emerged on Earth, our atmosphere was a deadly combination of carbon dioxide, ammonia and methane. Then, about 3 billion years ago, a poisonous and corrosive gas called oxygen came about from a process called “photosynthesis,” a process that transformed the climate and killed much of the existing life forms.

Ultimately life, whether it is microbial or homo sapiens, changes the environment. Our challenge today is the speed with which humanity’s use of fossil fuels has destabilized our ecosystem.

So, the question is, in parallel with items 1, 2 and 4 in this blog, do we accelerate our efforts to adopt to these changes as well?

One such example comes from China, where a team of scientists have successfully modified rice to grow in saltwater, which will allow them to feed their populace as sea levels rise. Cornell University projects that 2 billion people – around 20% of the world’s population – are at risk of being displaced by rising sea levels.

4. Geoscale Engineering: A Solution in Space

I recently had a conversation with a billionaire friend of mine from Silicon Valley who is committing his wealth and intellect to solving our climate problem. He’s tired of all the inaction and sees the climate crisis as one of humanity’s greatest existential threats today.

One solution that I discussed with him that I find compelling and elegant is called a “sunshade.”

Imagine a large, deployable mega-structure that sits between the Earth and the Sun, and blocks out very small (<0.1 percent) (variable) fraction of the photons coming from the sun to the Earth.

The preferred location for such a sunshade is near the Earth-Sun inner Lagrange point (L1) in an orbit with the same 1-year period as the Earth, and in-line with the Sun at a distance ≥ 1,500,000 kilometers from Earth.

While researching the idea, I found three well documented write-ups:

In 1989, James Early (from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory) proposed putting a giant, 2000 km-wide glass deflector at L1.

A 1992 NASA report suggested lifting 55,000 “solar sails” into orbit at L1, each with an area of 100 km2, blocking about 1 percent of sunlight.

In 2007, Roger Angel (an astronomer from the University of Arizona), suggested creating a “cloud” of tiny sunshades at L1, each weighing about 1.2g and measuring 60cm in diameter.

All of these proposals have their respective limitations, whether it be cost, technical feasibility, and so on.

Roger Angel’s solution, which proposed millions of micro-shades rather than one large, expensive structure, has various pros and cons. It’s estimated that his concept could be developed and deployed in 25 years at a cost of a few trillion dollars, <0.5 percent of the world’s GDP over that time.

This is just one example of many geoscale engineering projects worth exploring.

Others (which I don’t like as much, because they may not be as easily reversible and controllable) include documented ideas like seeding our oceans with iron to increase the growth of plankton, or deliberately injecting the stratosphere with sulphur compounds to increase the Earth's reflectivity.

Clearly, I can’t put forth this option without acknowledging that we can’t fully know the secondary effects of these efforts. As Jim Haywood, professor of Atmospheric Science at University of Exeter said in an interview, “…there’s a healthy fear surrounding a technique that, without being hyperbolic, would aim to hack the planet’s climate and block out the sun.”

Final Thoughts

We can either wait for climate change to continue to decimate elements of our society, or we can begin focusing aggressively on solutions.

Given our access to exponential technologies, I am far more hopeful about our ability to address the climate crisis today, rather than 50, or even 20, years ago.

We can fix the problem — we just need to focus our intellect, resources and technology, and focus it fast.

Over the next decade, as climate change becomes more devastating and visible, great thinkers and entrepreneurs will emerge with even more surprising solutions to help tackle this grand challenge.

As I have often said, the world’s biggest problems are the world’s biggest business opportunities.

Join Me

1. A360 Executive Mastermind: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive Mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective, for 360 abundance and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $10B companies). If you’d like to be considered, apply here.

Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

2. Abundance-Digital Online Community: I’ve also created a Digital/Online community of bold, abundance-minded entrepreneurs called Abundance-Digital.

The world is getting better at a *stunning rate*, and as we celebrate Thanksgiving here in the U.S., I wanted to offer you some convincing details and data.

My amazing team (for whom I am very grateful) has put together an Evidence of Abundance ebook with those charts and data.

Consider it “conversational capital” for your dinner table conversations or some inspirational reading for your travels.

Download it here.

This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for the opportunity to inspire abundance-minded leaders like you... and that I get to spend every day coaching exponential entrepreneurs tirelessly working to solve the world’s greatest challenges.

Join Me

1. A360 Executive Mastermind: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive Mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective, for 360 abundance and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $10B companies). If you’d like to be considered, apply here.

Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

2. Abundance-Digital Online Community: I’ve also created a Digital/Online community of bold, abundance-minded entrepreneurs called Abundance-Digital.

Last week, Eric Schmidt, Chairman of Alphabet, predicted that China will “rapidly overtake the U.S. in artificial intelligence… in as little as five years."

Last month, China announced plans to open a $10 billion quantum computing research center in 2020.

Bottom line, China is aggressively investing in exponential technologies, pursuing a bold goal of becoming the global AI superpower by 2030.

Based on what I’ve observed from China’s entrepreneurial scene, I believe they have a real shot of hitting that goal.

As I described in a previous tech blog, I recently traveled to China with a group of my Abundance 360 members, where I was hosted by my friend Kai Fu Lee, the founder of Sinnovation Ventures.

On one of our first nights, Kai Fu invited us to a special dinner at DaDong Roast, which specializes in Pei King duck, where we shared an 18-course meal.

The meal was amazing, and Kai Fu’s dinner conversation provided us priceless insights on Chinese entrepreneurs.

Three topics opened my eyes. Here’s the wisdom I’d like to share with you.

1. The Entrepreneurial Culture in China

Chinese entrepreneurship has exploded onto the scene and changed significantly over the past 10 years.

IMHO, one significant way that Chinese entrepreneurs vary from their American counterparts is in work ethic. The mantra I found in the startups I visited in Beijing and Shanghai was “9-9-6” – meaning the employees only needed to work from 9 am to 9 pm, 6 days a week.

Another concept Kai-Fu shared over dinner was the almost ‘dictatorial’ leadership of the Founder/CEO. In China, it's not uncommon for the Founder/CEO to own the majority of the company, or at least 30 - 40 percent. It’s also the case that what the CEO says is gospel. Period, no debate. There is no minority or dissenting opinion.  When the CEO says “March,” the company asks, “which way?”                        

When Kai Fu started Sinnovation (his $1B+ venture fund), there were few active angel investors. Today, China has a rich ecosystem of angel, venture capital and government-funded innovation parks.

As venture capital in China has evolved, so too has the mindset of the entrepreneur.

Kai Fu recalled an early investment he made in which, after an unfortunate streak, the entrepreneur came to him, almost in tears, apologizing for losing his money and promising he would earn it back for him in another way. Kai Fu comforted the entrepreneur and said there was no such need.

Only a few years later, the situation was vastly different. An entrepreneur who was going through a similar unfortunate streak came to Kai Fu and told him he only had $2 million left of his initial $12 million investment. He informed him he saw no value in returning the money, and instead was going to take the last $2 million and use it as a final push to see if the company could succeed. He then promised Kai Fu if he failed, he would remember what Kai Fu did for him, and as such, possibly give Sinnovation an opportunity to invest in him with his next company.

2. Chinese Companies Are No Longer Just “Copycats”

During dinner, Kai Fu lamented that 10 years ago, it would be fair to call Chinese companies copycats of American companies. Five years ago, the claim would be controversial. Today, however, Kai Fu is clear that claim is entirely false.

While smart Chinese startups will still look at what American companies are doing, and build on trends, today it’s now becoming a wise business practice for American tech giants to analyze Chinese companies. If you look at many new features of Facebook’s Messenger, it seems to very closely mirror TenCent’s WeChat.

Interestingly, tight government controls in China have actually spurred innovation.  Take TV, for example, a highly regulated industry. Because of this regulation, most entertainment in China is consumed on the Internet or by phone. Game shows, reality shows, and more will be entirely centered online.

Kai Fu told us about one of his investments in a company that helps create Chinese singing sensations. They take girls in from a young age, school them and, regardless of talent, help build their presence and brand as singers. Once ready, these singers are pushed across all the available platforms, and superstars are born. The company recognizes their role in this superstar status, though, which is why it takes a 50 percent cut of all earnings.

This company is just one example of how Chinese entrepreneurs take advantage of China’s unique position, market and culture.

3. China’s Artificial Intelligence Play

Kai Fu wrapped up his talk with a brief introduction into the expansive AI industry in China. I previously discussed Face++, a Sinnovation investment, which is creating radically efficient facial recognition technology. Face++ is light years ahead of anyone else globally at recognition in live videos. However, Face++ is just one of the incredible advances in AI coming out of China.

Baidu, one of China’s most valuable tech companies, started out as just a search company. However, they now run one of the country’s leading self-driving car programs.

Baidu’s goal is to create a software suite atop existing hardware that will control all self-driving aspects of a vehicle, but also be able to provide additional services such as HD mapping and more.

Another interesting application came from another of Sinnovation’s investments, Smart Finance Group (SFG). Given most payments are mobile (through WeChat or Alipay), only ~20 percent of the population in China have a credit history. This makes it very difficult for individuals in China to acquire a loan.

SFG’s mobile application takes in user data (as much as the user allows), and based on the information provided, uses an AI agent to create a financial profile with the power to offer an instant loan. This loan can be deposited directly into their WeChat or Alipay account, and is typically approved in minutes. Unlike American loan companies, they avoid default and long-term debt by only providing a one-month loan with 10% interest. Borrow $200, and you pay back $220 by the following month.

Artificial intelligence is exploding in China, and Kai Fu believes it will touch every single industry.

The only constant is change, and the rate of change is constantly increasing.

In the next 10 years, we’ll see tremendous changes on the geopolitical front and the global entrepreneurial scene caused by technological empowerment.

China is an entrepreneurial hotbed that cannot be ignored. I’m monitoring it closely. Are you?

Join Me

1. A360 Executive Mastermind: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive Mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective, for 360 abundance and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $10B companies). If you’d like to be considered,

apply here

.

Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

2. Abundance-Digital Online Community: I’ve also created a Digital/Online community of bold, abundance-minded entrepreneurs called Abundance-Digital.

Recently I interviewed my friend Ray Kurzweil at the Googleplex for a 90-minute (live) webinar on disruptive and dangerous ideas, a prelude to my fireside chat with Ray at Abundance 360 this January. (Watch the replay here.)

Ray is my friend and the Co-founder and Chancellor of Singularity University.  He is also an XPRIZE Trustee, the Director of Engineering at Google, and one of the best predictors of our exponential future.

It’s my pleasure to share with you 3 compelling ideas that came from our conversation.

1. The Nation-State Will Soon Be Irrelevant

Historically, we humans don’t like change. We like waking up in the morning and knowing that that the world is the same as the night before.

That’s one reason why government institutions exist: to stabilize society.

But how will this change in 20 or 30 years? What role will stabilizing institutions play in a world of continuous, accelerating change?

“Institutions stick around, but they change their role in our lives,” Ray explained. “They already have. The nation-state is not as profound as it was. Religion used to direct every aspect of your life, minute to minute. It’s still important in some ways, but it's much less important, much less pervasive. [It] plays a much smaller role in most people's lives than it did, and the same is true for governments.”

Ray continues: “We are fantastically interconnected already. Nation-states are not islands anymore. So we're already much more of a global community. The generation growing up today really feels like world citizens much more than ever before, because they're talking to people all over the world and it's not a novelty.”

I’ve previously shared my belief that national borders have become extremely porous, with ideas, people, capital and technology rapidly flowing between nations. In decades past, your cultural identity was tied to your birthplace. In the decades ahead, your identify is more a function of many other external factors. If you love space, you’ll be connected with fellow space-cadets around the globe more than you’ll be tied to someone born next door.

2. We’ll hit longevity escape velocity before we realize we’ve hit it.

Ray and I share a passion for extending the healthy human lifespan.

I frequently discuss Ray’s concept of “longevity escape velocity” — the point at which, for every year that you’re alive, science is able to extend your life for more than a year.

Scientists are continually extending the human lifespan, helping us cure heart disease, cancer, and eventually neurodegenerative disease. This will keep accelerating as technology improves.

During my discussion with Ray, I asked him when he expects we’ll reach “escape velocity...”

His answer? “I predict it’s likely just another 10 to 12 years before the general public will hit longevity escape velocity.”

“At that point, biotechnology is going to have taken over medicine,” Ray added. “The next decade is going to be a profound revolution.”

From there, Ray predicts that nanorobots will “basically finish the job of the immune system,” with the ability to seek and destroy cancerous cells and repair damaged organs.

As we head into this sci-fi-like future, your most important job for the next 15 years is to stay alive. “Wear your seatbelt until we get the self-driving cars going,” Ray jokes.

The implications to society will be profound.  While the scarcity-minded in government will react saying, “Social Security will be destroyed,” the more abundance-minded will realize that extending a person’s productive earning lifespace from 65 to 75 or 85 years old would be a massive boom to the GDP.

3. Technology will help us define and actualize human freedoms.

The third dangerous idea from my conversation with Ray is about how technology will enhance our humanity, not detract from it.

You may have heard critics complain that technology is making us less human, and increasingly disconnected.

Ray and I share a slightly different viewpoint: that technology enables us to tap into the very essence of what it means to be human.

“I don’t think humans even have to be biological,” explained Ray. “I think humans are the species that changes who we are.”

Ray argues that this began when humans developed the earliest technologies -- fire and stone tools. These tools gave people new capabilities, and became extensions of our physical bodies.

At its base level, technology is the means by which we change our environment, and change ourselves. This will continue, even as the technologies themselves evolve.

“People say, ‘Well, do I really want to become part machine?’ You're not even going to notice it,” says Ray, “because it's going to be a sensible thing to do at each point.”

Today, we take medicine to fight disease and maintain good health, and would likely consider it irresponsible if someone refused to take a proven, life-saving medicine.

In the future, this will still happen -- except the medicine might have nanobots that can target disease, or will also improve your memory so you can recall things more easily.

And because this new medicine works so well for so many, public perception will change. Eventually, it will become the norm… as ubiquitous as penicillin and ibuprofen are today.

In this way, ingesting nanorobots, uploading your brain to the cloud, and using devices like smart contact lenses can help humans become, well, better at being human.

Ray sums it up: “We are the species that changes who we are to become smarter and more profound, more beautiful, more creative, more musical, funnier, sexier.”

Speaking of sexuality and beauty, Ray also sees technology expanding these concepts. “In virtual reality, you can be someone else. Right now, actually changing your gender in real reality is a pretty significant, profound process, but you could do it in virtual reality much more easily and you can be someone else. A couple could become each other and discover their relationship from the other's perspective.”

In the 2030s, when Ray predicts sensor-laden nano robots will be able to go inside the nervous system, virtual or augmented reality will become exceptionally realistic, enabling us to “be someone else and have other kinds of experiences.”

Why Dangerous Ideas Matter

Why is it so important to discuss dangerous ideas?

I often say that the day before something is a breakthrough, it’s a crazy idea.

By consuming and considering a steady diet of “crazy ideas,” you train yourself to think bigger and bolder… a critical requirement for making impact.

As humans, we are linear and scarcity-minded.

As entrepreneurs, we must think exponentially and abundantly.

At the end of the day, the formula for a true breakthrough is equal to “having a crazy idea” you believe in, plus the passion to pursue that idea against all naysayers and obstacles.

Join Me

1. A360 Executive Mastermind: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive Mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective, for 360 abundance and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $10B companies). If you’d like to be considered,

apply here

.

Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

2. Abundance-Digital Online Community: I’ve also created a Digital/Online community of bold, abundance-minded entrepreneurs called Abundance-Digital.

This week, Bill Gates announced his plan to invest almost $1.7 billion into reforming U.S. public education over the next five years.   Of that sum, he allocated 25 percent to “big bets — innovations with the potential to change the trajectory of public education over the next 10 to 15 years.” I’ve been thinking a lot about the future of education -- both for my two 6-year-old boys and the employees of my companies. This is a topic I’ll cover in depth at Abundance 360 in January in Beverly Hills. My guest presenters are Sebastian Thrun, co-founder of Udacity; Max Ventilla, CEO of AltSchool; and Carin Watson, EVP of Learning & Education at Singularity University.   Earlier this year, I wrote a whitepaper on how I would reinvent K-12 education for an exponential world. You can read my thoughts below – or download it here: http://www.diamandis.com/education-white-paper

I started asking myself, given the fact that most elementary schools haven’t changed in decades (maybe longer), what do I want my kids to learn? How would I reinvent elementary school during an exponential era?

This blog covers five subjects related to elementary school education:

Five Issues with Today’s Elementary Schools

Five Guiding Principles for Future Education

An Elementary School Curriculum for the Future

Exponential Technologies in our Classroom

Mindsets for the 21st Century

Excuse the length, but if you have kids, the details might be meaningful. If you don’t, then next week’s blog will return to normal length and another fun subject. Let’s dive in…

Five Issues with Today’s Elementary Schools

There’s probably lots of issues with today’s traditional elementary schools, but I’ll just choose a few that bother me most.

1. Grading: In the traditional education system, you start at an “A,” and every time you get something wrong, your score gets lower and lower. At best it’s demotivating, and at worst it has nothing to do with the world you occupy as an adult. In the gaming world (e.g. Angry Birds), it’s just the opposite. You start with zero and every time you come up with something right, your score gets higher and higher.

2. Sage on the Stage: Most classrooms have a teacher up in front of class lecturing to a classroom of students, half of whom are bored and half of whom are lost. The one-teacher-fits-all model comes from an era of scarcity where great teachers and schools were rare.

3. Relevance: When I think back to elementary and secondary school, I realize how much of what I learned was never actually useful later in life, and how many of my critical lessons for success I had to pick up on my own. (I don’t know about you, but I haven’t ever actually had to factor a polynomial in my adult life.)

4. Imagination - Coloring inside the Lines: Probably of greatest concern to me is the factory-worker, industrial-era origin of today’s schools -- programs so structured with rote memorization that it squashes the originality from most children. I’m reminded that “the day before something is truly a breakthrough, it’s a crazy idea.” Where do we pursue crazy ideas in our schools? Where do we foster imagination?

5. Boring: If learning in school is a chore, boring or emotionless, then the most important driver of human learning, passion, is disengaged. Having our children memorize facts and figures, sit passively in class and take mundane standardized tests completely defeats the purpose.

An average of 7,200 students drop out of high school each day, totaling 1.3 million each year. This means only 69% of students who start high school finish four years later. And over 50% of these high school dropouts name boredom as the No. 1 reason they left.

Five Guiding Principles for Future Education:

I imagine a relatively near-term future in which robotics and artificial intelligence will allow any of us, from ages 8 to 108, to easily and quickly find answers, create products or accomplish tasks, all simply by expressing our desires.

From ‘mind to manufactured in moments.’ In short, we’ll be able to do and create almost whatever we want.

In this future, what attributes will be most critical for our children to learn to become successful in their adult life? What’s most important for educating our children today?

For me it’s about passion, curiosity, imagination, critical thinking and grit.

1. Passion: You’d be amazed at how many people don’t have a mission in life… A calling… something to jolt them out of bed every morning. The most valuable resource for humanity is the persistent and passionate human mind, so creating a future of passionate kids is so very important.

For my 5-year-old boys, I want to support them in finding their passion or purpose… something that is uniquely theirs. In the same way that the Apollo program and Star Trek drove my early love for all things space, and that passion drove me to learn and do.

2. Curiosity: Curiosity is something innate in kids, yet something lost by most adults during the course of their life. Why?

In a world of Google, robots and AI, raising a kid that is constantly asking questions and running “what if” experiments can be extremely valuable. In an age of machine learning, massive data and a trillion sensors, it will be the quality of your questions that will be most important.

3. Imagination: Entrepreneurs and visionaries imagine the world (and the future) they want to live in, and then they create it. Kids happen to be some of the most imaginative humans around… it’s critical that they know how important and liberating imagination can be.

4. Critical Thinking: In a world flooded with often-conflicting ideas, baseless claims, misleading headlines, negative news and misinformation, learning the skill of critical thinking helps find the signal in the noise. This principle is perhaps the most difficult to teach kids.

5. Grit/Persistence: Grit is defined as “passion and perseverance in pursuit of long-term goals,” and it has recently been widely acknowledged as one of the most important predictors of and contributors to success.

Teaching your kids not to give up, to keep trying, and to keep trying new ideas for something that they are truly passionate about achieving is extremely critical. Much of my personal success has come from such stubbornness. I joke that both XPRIZE and the Zero Gravity Corporation were “overnight successes after 10 years of hard work.”

So given those five basic principles, what would an elementary curriculum look like? Let’s take a look…

An Elementary School Curriculum for the Future

Over the last 30 years, I’ve had the pleasure of starting two universities, International Space University (1987) and Singularity University (2007). My favorite part of cofounding both institutions was designing and implementing the curriculum. Along those lines, the following is my first shot at the type of curriculum I’d love my own boys to be learning.

I’d love your thoughts I’ll be looking for them here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DDRWZ8R

For the purpose of illustration, I’ll speak about ‘courses’ or ‘modules,’ but in reality these are just elements that would ultimately be woven together throughout the course of K-6 education.

Module 1: Storytelling/Communications

When I think about the skill that has served me best in life, it’s been my ability to present my ideas in the most compelling fashion possible, to get others onboard, and support birth and growth in an innovative direction. In my adult life, as an entrepreneur and a CEO, it’s been my ability to communicate clearly and tell compelling stories that has allowed me to create the future. I don’t think this lesson can start too early in life. So imagine a module, year after year, where our kids learn the art and practice of formulating and pitching their ideas. The best of oration and storytelling. Perhaps children in this class would watch TED presentations, or maybe they’d put together their own TEDx for kids. Ultimately, it’s about practice and getting comfortable with putting yourself and your ideas out there and overcoming any fears of public speaking.

Module 2: Passions

A modern school should help our children find and explore their passion(s). Passion is the greatest gift of self-discovery. It is a source of interest and excitement, and is unique to each child.

The key to finding passion is exposure. Allowing kids to experience as many adventures, careers and passionate adults as possible. Historically, this was limited by the reality of geography and cost, implemented by having local moms and dads presenting in class about their careers. “Hi, I’m Alan, Billy’s dad, and I’m an accountant. Accountants are people who…”

But in a world of YouTube and virtual reality, the ability for our children to explore 500 different possible careers or passions during their K-6 education becomes not only possible but compelling. I imagine a module where children share their newest passion each month, sharing videos (or VR experiences) and explaining what they love and what they’ve learned.

Module 3: Curiosity & Experimentation

Einstein famously said, “I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” Curiosity is innate in children, and many times lost later in life. Arguably, it can be said that curiosity is responsible for all major scientific and technological advances -- the desire of an individual to know the truth.

Coupled with curiosity is the process of experimentation and discovery. The process of asking questions, creating and testing a hypothesis, and repeated experimentation until the truth is found. As I’ve studied the most successful entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial companies, from Google and Amazon to Uber, their success is significantly due to their relentless use of experimentation to define their products and services.

Here I imagine a module which instills in children the importance of curiosity and gives them permission to say, “I don’t know, let’s find out.”

Further, a monthly module that teaches children how to design and execute valid and meaningful experiments. Imagine children who learn the skill of asking a question, proposing a hypothesis, designing an experiment, gathering the data and then reaching a conclusion.

Module 4: Persistence/Grit

Doing anything big, bold and significant in life is hard work. You can’t just give up when the going gets rough. The mindset of persistence, of grit, is a learned behavior and I believe can be taught at an early age, especially when it’s tied to pursuing a child’s passion.

I imagine a curriculum that, each week, studies the career of a great entrepreneur and highlights their story of persistence. It would highlight the individuals and companies that stuck with it, iterated and ultimately succeeded.

Further, I imagine a module that combines persistence and experimentation in gameplay such as that found in Dean Kamen’s FIRST LEGO league, where 4th graders (and up) research a real-world problem such as food safety, recycling, energy and so on, and are challenged to develop a solution. They also must design, build and program a robot using LEGO MINDSTORMS®, then compete on a tabletop playing field.

Module 5: Technology Exposure

In a world of rapidly accelerating technology, understanding how technologies work, what they do and their potential for benefiting society is, in my humble opinion, critical to a child’s future. Technology and coding (more on this below) are the new “lingua franca” of tomorrow.

In this module, I imagine teaching (age appropriate) kids through play and demonstration. Giving them an overview of exponential technologies such as computation, sensors, networks, artificial intelligence, digital manufacturing, genetic engineering, augmented/virtual reality and robotics, to name a few. This module is not about making a child an expert in any technology, it’s more about giving them the language of these new tools, and conceptually an overview of how they might use such a technology in the future. The goal here is to get them excited, give them demonstrations that make the concepts stick, and then to let their imaginations run.

Module 6: Empathy

Empathy, defined as “the ability to understand and share the feelings of another,” has been recognized as one of the most critical skills for our children today. And while there has been much written, and great practices for instilling this at home and in school, today’s new tools accelerate this.

Virtual reality isn’t just about video games anymore. Artists, activists and journalists now see the technology’s potential to be an empathy engine, one that can shine spotlights on everything from the Ebola epidemic to what it’s like to live in Gaza. And Jeremy Bailenson has been at the vanguard of investigating VR’s power for good.

For more than a decade, Bailenson's lab at Stanford has been studying how VR can make us better people. Through the power of VR, volunteers at the lab have felt what it is like to be Superman (to see if it makes them more helpful), a cow (to reduce meat consumption) and even a coral (to learn about ocean acidification).

Silly as they might seem, these sorts of VR scenarios could be more effective than the traditional public service ad at making people behave. Afterwards, they waste less paper. They save more money for retirement. They’re nicer to the people around them. And this could have consequences in terms of how we teach and train everyone from cliquey teenagers to high court judges

Module 7: Ethics/Moral Dilemmas

Related to empathy, and equally important, is the goal of Infusing kids with a moral compass. Recently I toured a special school created by Elon Musk (the Ad Astra school) for his five boys (age 8 to 13). One element that is persistent in that small school of 31 kids is the conversation about ethics and morals, a conversation manifested by debating real-world scenarios that our kids may one day face.

Here's an example of the sort of gameplay/roleplay that I heard about at Ad Astra, that might be implemented in a module on morals and ethics. Imagine a small town on a lake, in which the majority of the town is employed by a single factory. But that factory has been polluting the lake and killing all the life. What do you do? It’s posed that shutting down the factory would mean that everyone loses their jobs. On the other hand, keeping the factory open means the lake is destroyed and the lake dies. This kind of regular and routine conversation/gameplay allows the children to see the world in a critically important fashion.

Module 8: The 3R Basics (Reading, wRiting & aRithmetic)

There’s no question that young children entering kindergarten need the basics of reading, writing and math. The only question is what’s the best way for them to get it? We all grew up in the classic mode of a teacher at the chalkboard, books and homework at night. But I would argue that such teaching approaches are long outdated, now replaced with apps, gameplay and the concept of the flip classroom.

Pioneered by high school teachers Jonathan Bergman and Aaron Sams in 2007, the flipped classroom reverses the sequence of events from that of the traditional classroom.

Students view lecture materials, usually in the form of video lectures, as homework prior to coming to class. In-class time is reserved for activities such as interactive discussions or collaborative work -- all performed under the guidance of the teacher.

The benefits are clear:

Students can consume lectures at their own pace, viewing the video again and again until they get the concept, or fast-forwarding if the information is obvious.

The teacher is present while students apply new knowledge. Doing the homework into class time gives teachers insight into which concepts, if any, that their students are struggling with and helps them adjust the class accordingly.

The flipped classroom produces tangible results: 71% of teachers who flipped their classes noticed improved grades, and 80% reported improved student attitudes as a result.

Module 9: Creative Expression & Improvisation

Every single one of us is creative. It’s human nature to be creative… the thing is that we each might have different ways of expressing our creativity.

We must encourage kids to discover and to develop their creative outlets early. In this module, imagine showing kids the many different ways creativity is expressed -- from art to engineering to music to math -- and then guiding them as they choose the area (or areas) they are most interested in. Critically, teachers (or parents) can then develop unique lessons for each child based on their interests, thanks to open education resources like YouTube and the Khan Academy. If my child is interested in painting and robots, a teacher or AI could scour the Web and put together a custom lesson set from videos/articles where the best painters and roboticists in the world share their skills.

Adapting to change is critical for success, especially in our constantly changing world today. Improvisation is a skill that can be learned, and we need to be teaching it early.

In most collegiate “improv” classes, the core of great improvisation is the “Yes, And…” mindset. When acting out a scene, one actor might introduce a new character or idea, completely changing the context of the scene. It’s critical that the other actors in the scene say “Yes, and…” accept the new reality, then add something new of their own.

Imagine playing similar role-play games in elementary schools, where a teacher gives the students a scene/context and constantly changes variables, forcing them to adapt and play.

Module 10: Coding

Computer science opens more doors for students than any other discipline in today’s world. Learning even the basics will help students in virtually any career, from architecture to zoology.

Coding is an important tool for computer science, in the way that arithmetic is a tool for doing mathematics and words are a tool for English. Coding creates software, but computer science is a broad field encompassing deep concepts that go well beyond coding.

Every 21st century student should also have a chance to learn about algorithms, how to make an app or how the Internet works. Computational thinking allows preschoolers to grasp concepts like algorithms, recursion and heuristics -- even if they don’t understand the terms, they’ll learn the basic concepts.

There are more than 500,000 open jobs in computing right now, representing the No. 1 source of new wages in the United States, and these jobs are projected to grow at twice the rate of all other jobs.

Coding is fun! Beyond the practical reasons for learning how to code, there’s the fact that creating a game or animation can be really fun for kids.

Module 11: Entrepreneurship & Sales

At its core, entrepreneurship is about identifying a problem (an opportunity), developing a vision on how to solve it, and working with a team to turn that vision into reality. I mentioned Elon’s school, Ad Astra: here, again, entrepreneurship is a core discipline where students create and actually sell products and services to each other and the school community.

You could recreate this basic exercise with a group of kids in lots of fun ways to teach them the basic lessons of entrepreneurship.

Related to entrepreneurship is sales. In my opinion, we need to be teaching sales to every child at an early age. Being able to “sell” an idea (again related to storytelling) has been a critical skill in my career, and it is a competency that many people simply never learned.

The lemonade stand has been a classic, though somewhat meager, lesson in sales from past generations, where a child sits on a street corner and tries to sell homemade lemonade for $0.50 to people passing by. I’d suggest we step the game up and take a more active approach in gamifying sales, and maybe having the classroom create a Kickstarter, Indiegogo or GoFundMe campaign. The experience of creating a product or service and successfully selling it will create an indelible memory and give students the tools to change the world.

Module 12: Language

I just returned from a week in China meeting with parents whose focus on kids’ education is extraordinary. One of the areas I found fascinating is how some of the most advanced parents are teaching their kids new languages: through games. On the tablet, the kids are allowed to play games, but only in French. A child’s desire to win fully engages them and drives their learning rapidly.

Beyond games, there’s virtual reality. We know that full immersion is what it takes to become fluent (at least later in life). A semester abroad in France or Italy, and you’ve got a great handle on the language and the culture. But what about for an 8-year-old?

Imagine a module where for an hour each day, the children spend their time walking around Italy in a VR world, hanging out with AI-driven game characters who teach them, engage them, and share the culture and the language in the most personalized and compelling fashion possible.

Exponential Technologies for Our Classrooms

If you’ve attended Abundance 360 or Singularity University, or followed my blogs, you’ll probably agree with me that the way our children will learn is going to fundamentally transform over the next decade.

Here’s an overview of the top five technologies that will reshape the future of education:

Tech 1: Virtual Reality (VR) can make learning truly immersive. Research has shown that we remember 20% of what we hear, 30% of what we see, and up to 90% of what we do or simulate. Virtual reality yields the latter scenario impeccably. VR enables students to simulate flying through the bloodstream while learning about different cells they encounter, or travel to Mars to inspect the surface for life. To make this a reality, Google Cardboard just launched its Pioneer Expeditions product. Under this program, thousands of schools around the world have gotten a kit containing everything a teacher needs to take his or her class on a virtual trip. While data on VR use in K-12 schools and colleges have yet to be gathered, the steady growth of the market is reflected in the surge of companies (including zSpace, Alchemy VR and Immersive VR Education) solely dedicated to providing schools with packaged education curriculum and content.

Add to VR a related technology called augmented reality (AR), and experiential education really comes alive. Imagine wearing an AR headset that is able to superimpose educational lessons on top of real-world experiences. Interested in botany? As you walk through a garden, the AR headset superimposes the name and details of every plant you see.

Tech 2: 3D Printing is allowing students to bring their ideas to life. Never mind the computer on every desktop (or a tablet for every student), that’s a given. In the near future, teachers and students will want or have a 3D printer on the desk to help them learn core science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) principles. Bre Pettis, of MakerBot Industries, in a grand but practical vision, sees a 3D printer on every school desk in America. “Imagine if you had a 3D printer instead of a LEGO set when you were a kid; what would life be like now?” asks Mr. Pettis. You could print your own mini-figures, your own blocks, and you could iterate on new designs as quickly as your imagination would allow. MakerBots are now in over 5,000 K-12 schools across the United States.

Taking this one step further, you could imagine having a 3D file for most entries in Wikipedia, allowing you to print out and study an object you can only read about or visualize in VR.

Tech 3: Sensors & Networks. An explosion of sensors and networks are going to connect everyone at gigabit speeds, making access to rich video available at all times. At the same time, sensors continue to miniaturize and reduce in power, becoming embedded in everything. One benefit will be the connection of sensor data with machine learning and AI (below), such that knowledge of a child’s attention drifting, or confusion, can be easily measured and communicated. The result would be a representation of the information through an alternate modality or at a different speed.

Tech 4: Machine Learning is making learning adaptive and personalized. No two students are identical — they have different modes of learning (by reading, seeing, hearing, doing), come from different educational backgrounds, and have different intellectual capabilities and attention spans. Advances in machine learning and the surging adaptive learning movement are seeking to solve this problem. Companies like Knewton and Dreambox have over 15 million students on their respective adaptive learning platforms. Soon, every education application will be adaptive, learning how to personalize the lesson for a specific student. There will be adaptive quizzing apps, flashcard apps, textbook apps, simulation apps and many more.

Tech 5: Artificial Intelligence or “An AI Teaching Companion.”

Neil Stephenson's book "The Diamond Age" presents a fascinating piece of educational technology called "A Young Lady's Illustrated Primer."

As described by Beat Schwendimann, “The primer is an interactive book that can answer a learner's questions (spoken in natural language), teach through allegories that incorporate elements of the learner's environment, and presents contextual just-in-time information.

“The primer includes sensors that monitor the learner's actions and provide feedback. The learner is in a cognitive apprenticeship with the book: The primer models a certain skill (through allegorical fairy tale characters), which the learner then imitates in real life.

“The primer follows a learning progression with increasingly more complex tasks. The educational goals of the primer are humanist: To support the learner to become a strong and independently thinking person.”

The primer, an individualized AI teaching companion is the result of technological convergence and is beautifully described by YouTuber CGP Grey in his video: Digital Aristotle: Thoughts on the Future of Education.

Your AI companion will have unlimited access to information on the cloud and will deliver it at the optimal speed to each student in an engaging, fun way. This AI will demonetize and democratize education, be available to everyone for free (just like Google), and offering the best education to the wealthiest and poorest children on the planet equally.

This AI companion is not a tutor who spouts facts, figures and answers, but a player on the side of the student, there to help him or her learn, and in so doing, learn how to learn better. The AI is always alert, watching for signs of frustration and boredom that may precede quitting, for signs of curiosity or interest that tend to indicate active exploration, and for signs of enjoyment and mastery, which might indicate a successful learning experience.

Ultimately, we’re heading towards a vastly more educated world. We are truly living during the most exciting time to be alive.

(NOTE: At this very moment, the XPRIZE Foundation is operating a $15M Global Learning XPRIZE in which >100 teams are building Android-based software designed to take an illiterate student in the middle of Tanzania and get them to basic reading, writing and numeracy in 18 months.)

Mindsets for the 21st Century

Finally, it’s important for me to discuss mindsets. How we think about the future colors how we learn and what we do. I’ve written extensively about the importance of an abundance and exponential mindset for entrepreneurs and CEOs. I also think that attention to mindset in our elementary schools, when a child is shaping the mental “operating system” for the rest of their life, is even more important.

As such, I would recommend that a school adopt a set of principles that teach and promote a number of mindsets in the fabric of their programs.

Many “mindsets” are important to promote. Here are a couple to consider:

Nurturing Optimism & An Abundance Mindset:

We live in a competitive world, and kids experience a significant amount of pressure to perform. When they fall short, they feel deflated. We all fail at times -- that’s part of life. If we want to raise “can-do” kids who can work through failure and come out stronger for it, it’s wise to nurture optimism. Optimistic kids are more willing to take healthy risks, are better problem-solvers and experience positive relationships. You can nurture optimism in your school by starting each day by focusing on gratitude (what each child is grateful for), or a “positive focus” in which each student takes 30 seconds to talk about what they are most excited about, or what recent event was positively impactful to them. (NOTE: I start every meeting inside my PHD Ventures team with a positive focus.)

Finally, helping students understand (through data and graphs) that the world is in fact getting better (see my first book: Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think) will help them counter the continuous flow of negative news flowing through our news media.

When kids feel confident in their abilities and excited about the world, they are willing to work harder and be more creative.

Tolerance for Failure:

Tolerating failure is a difficult lesson to learn and a difficult lesson to teach. But it is critically important to succeeding in life.

Astro Teller, who runs Google’s innovation branch “X,” talks a lot about encouraging failure. At X, they regularly try to “kill” their ideas. If they are successful in killing an idea, and thus “failing,” they save lots of time, money and resources. The ideas they can’t kill survive and develop into billion-dollar businesses. The key is that each time an idea is killed, Astro rewards the team -- literally, with cash bonuses. Their failure is celebrated and they become a hero.

This should be reproduced in the classroom: kids should try to be critical of their best ideas (learn critical thinking), then they should be celebrated for ‘successfully failing’ -- perhaps with cake, balloons, confetti and lots of Silly String.

Join Me

Your mindset matters — now more than ever.

We are in the midst of a drug epidemic. The drug? Negative news. The drug pushers? The media. As I wrote in Abundance: The Future is Better Than You Think, we pay 10x more attention to negative news than positive news. We are being barraged with negative news on every device. This constant onslaught distorts your perspective on the future, and inhibits your ability to make a positive impact. In this blog, I’ll share new “evidence for abundance” -- charts and data that show the world is getting better. I’ll also share positive news and technological breakthroughs, all of which occurred in 2017 so far. Note: This isn’t about ignoring or minimizing the major issues we still face around the world. It’s about countering our romanticized views of the world in centuries past with data. My hope is that you’re able to see the world as it is — a world that is still getting better. My goal here is to help you protect your abundance mindset despite this barrage of negative news. If you have a negative-minded person in your life, forward this blog to them so they can look at the actual data. Let’s dive in...

1. Global Economy

The first area to explore is our global economy. Over the last 200 years, the world’s GDP has *skyrocketed* 100-fold. Humankind has never been more prosperous and productive.

World GDP Over the Last Two Millennia

The graph above depicts the economic output per person around the world over the last 2,000 years. Here we see exponential growth independent of war, famine or disease.

Technology drove much of this economic growth, and there’s no signs of slowing. Banking the Unbanked: One especially promising area of economic growth involves empowering the “unbanked” — the 2 billion people worldwide who lack access to a bank account or financial institution via a digital device. In September 2017, the government of Finland announced a partnership with MONI to create a digital money system for refugees.

The system effectively eliminates some of the logistical barriers to financial transactions, enabling displaced people to participate in the economy and rebuild their lives.

Refugees will be able to loan money to friends, receive paychecks and access funds using prepaid debit cards linked to digital identities on the blockchain -- without a bank.

Blockchain & Government: Governments are investing aggressively in digitization themselves. The small country of Estonia, for example, already has an e-Residency program. The digital citizenship lets residents get government services and even start companies in the EU without ever traveling or living there. In late August 2017, Kaspar Korjus, who heads up that e-Residency program, revealed the Estonian government’s exploration of creating an initial coin offering (ICO) and issuing crypto tokens to citizens to raise government funds. That same month, the Chinese government announced its intent to use blockchain technology for collecting taxes and issuing invoices. This builds on previous experiments China’s central bank is conducting with its own cryptocurrency.

2. Health

No matter where in the world you are, mortality rates have dropped precipitously over the last 300 years.

The following chart shows life expectancy at birth in various countries. Just 100 years ago, a child born in India or South Korea was only expected to live to 23. Fast forward to today, and India’s life expectancy has tripled. South Korea’s life expectancy has quadrupled, and now is higher than in the U.K.

Global Life Expectancy

Plummeting Teen Births: Another measure of a nation’s health is how it responds to preventable public health issues. Here in the U.S., teen births are down an impressive 51 percent over the last decade, going from from 41.5 births per 1,000 teenage girls in 2007 to 20.3 births per 1,000 teenage girls in 2016. I share the following graph because, by the numbers, teen girls who have babies will have a harder life than their peers who delay motherhood. As the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services notes, they’re more likely to drop out of high school, rely on public assistance, and have children with “poorer educational, behavioral and health outcomes over the course of their life than kids born to older parents.”

Since these statistics were first compiled in 1991, teen births have dropped 67 percent.

U.S. Birth Rates, by Age Group (1991 - 2015)

As exponential technologies continue to advance, we’ll see even more healthcare breakthroughs. Here’s a sampling from this year: Exponential Tech Impact on Health: Most exciting these days is the tremendous impact that exponential technologies are having on Health.

Robotics: Last month, a robot dentist in China successfully implanted 3D-printed teeth into a female patient’s mouth with “high precision.” The only human medical staff involvement was to conduct light setup and a pre-test. Imagine when such robots are in every healthcare facility on the planet, delivering service for the cost of electricity.

Virtual Reality: VR is also entering the operating room. In July 2017, University of Minnesota doctors used VR to prepare for a challenging non-routine surgery -- separating a pair of twins conjoined at the heart. Not only was the life-saving surgery a success, the VR prep gave doctors unforeseen insights that prompted them to accelerate the surgery by several months. It won’t be long until we refuse to have surgery completed by any human who hasn’t prepared in virtual reality using a personalized 3D model.

CRISPR/Gene Editing: Finally, in August 2017, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the first-ever treatment that uses gene editing to transform a patient’s own cells into a “living drug.” Kymriah, a one-time treatment made by Novartis, was approved to treat B-cell acute lymphoblastic leukemia -- an aggressive form of leukemia that the FDA calls “devastating and deadly.” The FDA is currently considering over 550 additional experimental gene therapies. What happens to our healthy human lifespan as these life-saving treatments demonetize and become universally accessible?

3. Environment

Thirty years ago, the world signed the Montreal Protocol to prevent the depletion of the Ozone Layer. Today, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) credits that agreement with preventing an estimated 280 million additional cases of skin cancer, 45 million cataracts, and 1.5 million skin cancer deaths between its signing in 1987 and the year 2050. Without the Montreal Protocol, the planet would have been about 4 degrees warmer by 2050 (...resulting in more extreme weather events like droughts, floods and hurricanes). As the graph below clearly depicts, the global annual death rate from natural disasters has plummeted over the past century.

Global Annual Death Rate From Natural Disasters

Why has this happened?  It’s the impact of exponential technologies (satellites, sensors, networks, machine learning), which enable humans to better image, predict and model disasters. These models provide early warning systems, enabling citizens to flee to safety and for first responders to send supplies and food to remote areas in time. Drones & the Environment: Previously, animals were counted manually by researchers who had to spot them from helicopter or prepositioned camera footage. Now, a drone captures footage, the machine learning system counts different types of animals, and human volunteers help train the algorithm by verifying detections. Faster, cheaper, easier, and more accurate. And in Bengaluru, researchers at the Indian Institute of Science are fighting deforestation with camera-equipped drones that drop seeds in areas they otherwise wouldn’t be able to explore. Their goal is to seed 10,000 acres in the region. What becomes possible when thousands of teams — not simply individuals and a handful of research teams — leverage these tools to protect the environment?

4. Energy

A key measure of economic growth, living standards and poverty alleviation is access to electricity. This graph uses data from the World Bank and the International Energy Agency’s definition of electricity access, which is delivery and use of at least 250 kilowatt-hours per year in rural households and 500 kilowatt-hours per year in rural households. Simply put, more people around the world have access to electricity than ever, and the absolute number of those without access to electricity is dropping (despite population growth). Take a look at the chart below to see how various regions of the world are meeting their energy needs.

Share of the Population With Access to Electricity

As you see above, India has gone from 45 percent access to electricity in 1990 to nearly 80 percent in 2014.

Afghanistan has seen an even more dramatic improvement, going from 0.16 percent of the population in 2000 to 89.5 percent of the population in 2014.

As renewable energy sources become cheaper and more accessible, we’ll reach total electrification.

Here too, we’re making great progress. In 2016, solar power grew faster than any other fuel source for the first time ever. Around the world, solar prices are still dropping. The latest forecast from GTM Research reports prices of $2.07 per watt in Japan to $.65 per watt in India, with prices dropping across hard and soft costs.

Historical and Forecasted Utility PV System Pricing, 2013 - 2022E

In 2017 alone, we saw wind power become cheaper than nuclear in the U.K., with the cost of subsidies slashed in half since 2015. As the BBC reports, during the U.K.’s 2015 subsidy auction, “offshore wind farm projects won subsidies between £114 and £120 per megawatt hour.” Just two years later, two firms committed to a guaranteed price of £57.50 per megawatt hour. Looking stateside, the U.S. Department of Energy announced in September 2017 that utility-scale solar has officially hit its 2020 cost targets three years early — with generation costs of $1 per watt and energy consumption costs of $0.06 per kilowatt-hour.

US Commercial & Residential Solar Costs

5. Food

Despite the headlines, we’re making steady progress in the realm of food scarcity and hunger. This graph features World Bank data on the percentage of the population that has an inadequate caloric intake. Globally, 18.6 percent of the population was undernourished in 1991; by 2015, it dropped to 10.8 percent.

Prevalence of Undernourishment in Developing Countries

Time and again, technology is making scarce resources abundant. I’ve written about bioprinted meat, genetically engineered crops, vertical farming, and agriculture robots and drones. Two more examples from 2017 so far:

Human-Free Farms: In a 1.5-acre remote farm in the U.K., Harper Adams University and Precision Decisions recently harvested their first crop of barley. The twist? The farm is run autonomously. Instead of human farm workers, Hands Free Hectare uses autonomous vehicles, machine learning algorithms and drones to plant, tend and harvest.  

Food From Electricity: Another big idea in the fight against food scarcity and undernourishment comes out of Finland, where researchers are creating food from electricity. The team, formed of researchers from the Lappeenranta University of Technology (LUT) and the VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland, have created a machine that runs on renewable energy to produce nutritious, single-cell proteins. The system is deployable in a variety of environments hostile to traditional agriculture, and future iterations will be able to produce food anywhere, from famine-stricken deserts to space.

Looking at the data, we truly live in the most exciting time to be alive.

And if your mindset enables you to see problems as opportunities, the future is even more exciting than the present.

Join Me

1. A360 Executive Mastermind: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive Mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective, for 360 abundance and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $10B companies). If you’d like to be considered, apply here.

Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

2. Abundance-Digital Online Community: I’ve also created a Digital/Online community of bold, abundance-minded entrepreneurs called Abundance-Digital. Abundance-Digital is my ‘onramp’ for exponential entrepreneurs – those who want to get involved and play at a higher level. Click here to learn more.

Resources

U.S.: More wealthy people, fewer poor people. (Axiom)

Economic output per person around the world over the last 2,000 years (Our World in Data)

Finland: Digital money system for refugees (Medium)

China to experiment with collecting taxes via blockchain (MIT Technology Review)

Estonia considers ICO (Medium)

Mortality inequality by nation (inequality of life expectancy) drops (Sam Peltzman)

Teen births down 51% over last 10 years (Vox)

Vital Statistics - Teen Births, 2016 (CDC)

Teen pregnancy and childbearing (U.S. Department of Health & Human Services)

First robot dental surgery (Engadget)

FDA-Approved Gene Altering Treatment (NYTimes)

Doctors use VR in life-saving treatment for conjoined twins (Washington Post)

The Montreal Protocol is working (National Geographic)

Impact of the Montreal Protocol (EPA)

Annual number of deaths from natural disasters (Our World in Data)

Wildlife - Drones used to track wild animal populations (MIT Technology Review)

Reforestation - Bengaluru: Using Drones to plant forests (Your Story)

Share of the population with access to electricity (Our World in Data)

UK: Wind power cheaper than nuclear (BBC)

US: Solar costs beat government goals by three years (Quartz)

Solar costs are hitting jaw-dropping lows in every region of the world (Green Tech Media)

Prevalence of undernourishment in developing countries (Our World in Data)

Scientists make food from electricity (Futurism)

Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are predicted to be the two wealthiest people on the planet given the dramatic rise of SpaceX, Tesla and Amazon, as well as their large ownership in their respective companies.

As a space cadet (since the age of 9), this is incredibly exciting news given that both men have committed their wealth to opening up the space frontier.

This past Friday, Elon announced a new rocket ship, codenamed “BFR,” capable of taking 100 people to Mars

New York to Shanghai in 37 Minutes

The same vehicle, traveling at 18,000 miles per hour, can take 100+ commuters from New York to Shanghai in roughly 37 minutes. The idea of point to point “suborbital” travel has been discussed for the past 20+ years... this is the first time I’ve personally seen a concept that I believe is feasible. Check out this video to learn more.

Between autonomous Teslas, the Hyperloop concept and now suborbital rocket travel, Elon is revolutionizing travel both on and off the Earth.

Why? What is Elon’s MTP?

What’s driving Elon’s Massively Transformative Purpose (MTP)? It’s the same notion we’ve been discussing in our Abundance Community.

“Fundamentally, the future is vastly more exciting and interesting if we are a spacefaring civilization and a multiplanet species versus not,” said Elon, speaking to the global aerospace community at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC).

“You want to be inspired by things, to wake up in the morning and think that the future is going to be great. And that’s what being a spacefaring civilization is all about.”

Taking the BFR to the Moon & Mars

The BFR is a two-stage vehicle capable of accommodating 100 passengers in 40 cabins to Mars or the Moon.

The vehicle is powered by 31 Raptor Engines (burning Methane and Oxygen).

Elon’s entire BFR architecture is based on refueling in Earth orbit — which, by the way, is the primary purpose that Planetary Resources has been created, to obtain oxidizer (LOX) from asteroids.

Regarding the Moon, with a single refueling in Earth orbit, the BFR can take passengers and cargo all the way to the Moon’s surface and the back to the surface of the Earth in a fashion that would enable the construction of Moon Base Alpha.

As Elon said, “It’s 2017, we should have a Lunar Base by now! What the hell is going on?”

How about Mars?

The Earth-Mars orbital synchronization occurs every two years, so there are opportunities every two years – in the near term, in 2022 and 2024.

At the IAC, Elon announced the goal of two cargo missions to the Martian surface by 2022, with a crewed mission of four BFR’s in 2024. He announced that the tooling for the BFR is already under construction, and construction of the BFR begins in Q1 2018.

The first mission would be to find water, and the second mission would be to build the propellant tank (mining and refining water and extracting the CO2 out of the atmosphere to create methane for the Raptor engines).

What does this mean? What do you think?

How insane does this sound to you?

Can you appreciate that we’re alive during an age where individuals (Elon or Jeff) are pulling off what was once only possible by the greatest nations?

We’re living during a time when astonishing surprises are materializing at an ever-increasing rate.

When seemingly insane or science fiction ideas are routinely becoming real and commonplace (at an ever-increasing rate).

Today, older, linear-thinking companies (think: the U.S. industrial-military complex) will become massively disrupted faster and faster.

Ultimately, we’re living during a time when an exponential entrepreneur, powered by their MTP, Moonshot and exponential technologies can change the world (or worlds).

Interested in Joining Me? (Two options)

1. A360 Executive Mastermind: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive Mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective, for 360 abundance and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $10B companies). If you’d like to be considered, apply here.

Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

Age is the single leading risk factor for virtually every significant disease including cancer, cardiovascular, respiratory, neurological and other degenerative diseases.

But what if you could add 30+ healthy years to your lifespan? Imagine having the cognition, esthetics and mobility at 100 years old that you had at 60.

How would that change your life? Your plans? How much impact you could create in the world?

In this blog, Iwant to give you an overview of three of the most exciting “longevity companies” I have found —three companies which I’ll be bringing to this year’s Abundance 360 summit.

Longevity-related technologies are a regular discussion topic at A360, backed with the latest data and research. In 2015, Human Longevity Inc. cofounders Craig Venter, Ph.D. and Robert Hariri, MD, Ph.D., joined me onstage to discuss the advancements we’re making in personalized genomics. In 2017, I featured stem cell treatments and the work of the Panama Stem Cell Institute.

Meet 3 Amazing Companies:

At the upcoming Abundance 360 Summit (January 21-23, 2018), I’m excited to bring you the CEO’s of three very exciting longevity-related companies. Each is exploring different mechanisms of longevity, and each is at a different stage of development and valuation.

Check these out...

ELEVIAN:  Elevian is a Harvard University spinout. We’ll hear from Mark Allen, MD, the CEO.  Elevian’s founders discovered and patented GDF11, a “young blood” factor that (when injected into aged animals) regenerates heart, brain, muscles, lung and kidneys.  They are developing therapeutics based on the GDF11 pathway that have the promise to treat and prevent many aging-related diseases and extend the healthy lifespan.

CELULARITY: Celularity is a company harnessing the power of the living cell with leading-edge technologies to amplify the body’s ability to fight disease, heal and regenerate itself, and extend the healthy human lifespan. We’ll hear from Bob Hariri, MD/PhD, the CEO of the company. Celularity is capitalizing on the transformational potential of Placental stem cells and immunotherapies. It has rolled-up assets from three companies and has numerous treatments in Phase-2 clinical trials.

SAMUMED: One of the primary signaling pathways that regulate the self-renewal and differentiation of adult stem cells is the Wnt pathway, a term that refers to a group of signal transduction pathways which play a crucial role in tissue health, ranging from formation to replenishment and regeneration of various tissues. We will hear from Samumed CEO, Osman Kibar, Ph.D. Samumed is now a private company with a $12+ billion valuation, developing therapeutics to address a wide range of degenerative diseases.

Today, the average life expectancy worldwide is ~72 years. Inside of the next two decades we are likely to reach what Ray Kurzweil (another 2018 A360 speaker) calls “longevity escape velocity” -- the point at which, for each calendar year you live, technological advances add more than a year to your lifespan.

For those who share an abundant mindset, this is exciting. It means more time to make the impact we desire. Another lifetime (or two) of memories and experiences.

I’m looking forward to how your mindset shifts after hearing our longevity researchers and experts at A360.

Interested in Joining Me? (Two options)

1. A360 Executive Mastermind: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive Mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective, for 360 abundance and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $10B companies). If you’d like to be considered, apply here.

Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

2. A360 Digital Mastermind: I’ve also created a Digital/Online community of bold, abundance-minded entrepreneurs called Abundance 360 Digital (A360D).

Humans are famously bad at predicting the future of technologies.

We tend to overestimate technology’s abilities in the near-term, and massively underestimate what it can do in the long term.

The shape of that curve has come to be known as the Gartner Hype Cycle, and the five stages of that curve are important for any entrepreneur or investor to understand.

Public excitement and anticipation of every technology, be it artificial intelligence, 3D printing, robotics, or blockchain, follow a similar path (see below).

Let's take a look at what’s going on...

Technology trigger --> Peak of inflated expectations: When entrepreneurs (scientists) first create a new technology, they get excited about the hypothetical applications, seeing all of the future potential with few of the downsides. At that moment, hype starts to build an unfounded excitement and inflated expectations. Entrepreneurs’ optimism and imagination outpace reality. Trough of disillusionment: When these inflated expectations begin to die down, and the entrepreneurs, media and financial markets begin to lose hope, we enter the trough of disillusionment. This is when people lose faith in the technology, even while the underlying technology continues its exponential growth. Slope of enlightenment: Here, the continuous march of exponential doubling finally catches up with and surpasses early anticipation and expectations. Now the product enters the slope of enlightenment, and we start to see rapid advancements that can surpass even our wildest expectations. Plateau of productivity: Finally, once the growth starts to slow down and mature, we enter the plateau of productivity. Here, abundant revenue is generated and we start to take the product for granted.

As you study the future of exponentially growing technology, it is vital for you to realize where you are in this hype cycle.

This ability to recognize points in a hype cycle is a key piece to reading an exponential roadmap, and will allow you to leverage these world-changing technologies to pursue your Moonshot. Interested in Joining Me? (Two options)

1. A360 Executive Mastermind: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive Mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective, for 360 abundance and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $10B companies). If you’d like to be considered, apply here.

Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

Ray Kurzweil has a documented 86% accuracy rate in his technological predictions.

"Of the 147 predictions that Kurzweil has made since the 1990's, fully 115 of them have turned out to be correct, and another 12 have turned out to be "essentially correct" (off by a year or two), giving his predictions a stunning 86% accuracy rate."

I’m very proud to be bringing Ray back to spend the day with us at Abundance 360 this year.  And whether you join me live at the Summit, or via the livecast through A360 Digital, I can guarantee you amazing insights.

Ray will be participating in two ways...

First, he will join me in a Convergence Catalyzer Session that will look at the intersections between Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI), Nanotechnology and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). How will these three fields will intersect and converge to completely re-organize everything? How will they touch and/or disrupt various industries during the next 10 – 20 years?

Second, Ray will join me in a fireside chat (as in previous years) on predicting the future. My goal is to deliver members unfair advantages and insights on new business models and opportunities.

As you may already know, Ray is a brilliant technologist, futurist, and director of engineering at Google (focused on artificial intelligence and language processing).  I’m also very proud that he is my Co-Founder and the Chancellor of Singularity University.

Here’s a few of Ray’s predictions we discussed two years ago at Abundance 360, and the conversation we’ll continue during our dialogue this coming January 21 – 23:

    Late 2010’s: Glasses will beam images directly onto the retina. 10 terabytes of computing power (roughly the same as the brain) will cost about $1,000.

    2020’s: Most diseases will go away as nanobots become smarter than current medical technology. Normal human eating can be replaced by nanosystems. The Turing test begins to be passable. Self-driving cars begin to take over the roads, and people won’t be allowed to drive on highways

    2030’s: Virtual reality will begin to feel 100% real. By the end of the decade, we will be able to upload our mind/consciousness.

    2040’s: Non-biological intelligence will be a billion times more capable than biological intelligence (aka us). Through nanotech foglets, we’ll be able to make food out of thin air and create any object in physical world at a whim.

    2045: We will multiply our intelligence a billionfold by linking wirelessly from our neocortex to synthetic neocortex in the cloud.

As you’ve heard me say, the only constant is change, and the rate of change is increasing.

Most people have no idea how quickly things are moving. I see my role as the curator of Abundance 360 and Exec. Chairman of Singularity University as providing an “over-the-horizon radar” for our members and our executives.

I’m looking forward to seeing what breakthroughs and Moonshots you create after hearing Ray and the other tech rockstars we’ve assembled (including Astro Teller, head of X; Sebastian Thrun, founder, Udacity; and top leaders in Blockchain, Longevity, Energy and much more).

We are truly living during the most exciting time ever to be alive.

Interested in Joining Me? (Two options)

1. A360 Executive Mastermind: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive Mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective, for 360 abundance and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $10B companies). If you’d like to be considered, apply here.

Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

2. A360 Digital Mastermind: I’ve also created a Digital/Online community of bold, abundance-minded entrepreneurs called Abundance 360 Digital (A360D).

In May 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced the seemingly impossible goal of putting a man on the Moon by the end of the decade.

Nobody knew how that would get done.

The technology wasn’t even remotely ready.

Yet this first “Moonshot” was achieved in eight years’ time.

My definition of an entrepreneurial or corporate Moonshot comes from my friend Astro Teller, who is the current head of X (formerly Google X).

He defines it as going 10X bigger, while the rest of the world is trying to grow 10%.

As Astro described it, most executive teams aim for 10% growth... they’ll work harder, buy new equipment, work nights or weekends, and try to eke out 10% growth.

A Moonshot (10x improvement), in contrast, can’t be achieved by working harder alone.

You have to start with a clean sheet of paper and be willing to try seemingly crazy ideas.

You have to keep writing down crazy ideas until you find one that doesn’t actually seem so crazy.

Don’t forget that “the day before something is truly a breakthrough, it’s a crazy idea.”

Moonshot entrepreneurs like the founders of Uber, Google, Facebook, and Tesla didn’t just wake up one morning with an idea to change the world.

They found a big, juicy, seemingly unsolvable problem and didn’t sleep until they came up with a solution.

But why do Moonshots matter?

As Astro described it, there are three principal reasons:

When you try and do something radically hard, you approach the problem differently than when you try to make something incrementally better.  The goal of 10x improvement forces you to throw out old problems and brainstorm something radically new.

When you attack a problem as if it were solvable, even if you don’t know how to solve it, you’ll be shocked with what you come up with.  Just giving yourself permission to say, “I have no idea what I’m going to do,” and, again, just forcing yourself to write down crazy ideas will allow you to ideate convergences and breakthroughs you wouldn’t have normally made. It unshackles you.

Aiming for something that is 10x better vs 10% better is 100 times more worth it… but never 100 times harder.

If learning about and experimenting with Moonshots is of interest to you, please check out this video from my Abundance 360 Digital program, where I discuss the importance and power of moonshots, and why we as entrepreneurs need to take them.

We can take Moonshots.

Nothing on this planet (or off this planet, for that matter) is out of reach.

Our world is shaped by a few people with crazy ideas.

Will you be one of them?

What’s your moonshot?

Interested in Joining Me? (Two options)

1.

A360 Executive Mastermind

: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive Mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective, for 360 abundance and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $10B companies). If you’d like to be considered, apply here.

Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

2. A360 Digital Mastermind: I’ve also created a Digital/Online community of bold, abundance-minded entrepreneurs called Abundance 360 Digital (A360D).

Our brains are composed of 100 billion neurons and 100 trillion synaptic connections.   Yet, despite that vast processing power, our brains are unable to process all the data entering through our senses. Because of that, our brain takes shortcuts. These shortcuts are called heuristics or cognitive biases, and sometimes they can lead us to incorrect conclusions. In my Abundance 360 Digital program, I walk through some of the most critical cognitive biases for entrepreneurs to avoid. Here’s an example: The bandwagon effect, also known as herd effect, is the tendency to believe things because many other people believe the same. People will change beliefs they are almost positive are true, simply because groups around them don't share those beliefs. Here’s another: We have a tendency to trust people who are better looking – or to trust people who look or dress in a similar fashion to ourselves. The Lake Wobegon effect is the tendency to report flattering beliefs about oneself and believe that one is above average. The illusion of control is the tendency for human beings to believe they can control or influence outcomes that they clearly cannot... One example is the sports fan who wears their favorite jersey to the game to increase the chance that their team wins. The overconfidence effect is the tendency to overestimate one’s own ability. But the most important cognitive bias, I believe, is the confirmation bias. The confirmation bias is the tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms your own preconceptions. This is the one that we, as entrepreneurs, must most carefully avoid. If you go out of your way to surround yourself only with those who compliment your work and never criticize it, you’ll rapidly get yourself into trouble. In my conversations with Elon Musk, he imparted some wisdom that I’ve never forgotten: “Your best friends are the ones who give you the most brutal criticism.” Your ability to recognize and not fall prey to a confirmation bias, the ability to really hear everybody’s thoughts (including the negativity), and then weigh and balance these beliefs, is vital to an entrepreneur. Question your core beliefs and surround yourself with people who think differently from you. Take a look at this video from my A360 Digital course:

Interested in Joining Me? (Two options)

1. A360 Executive Mastermind: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive Mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective, for 360 abundance and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $10B companies). If you’d like to be considered, apply here.

Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

2. A360 Digital Mastermind: I’ve also created a Digital/Online community of bold, abundance-minded entrepreneurs called Abundance 360 Digital (A360D).

I’m very proud that my closing speaker at Abundance 360 this year will be my friend Astro Teller, Captain of Moonshots at X (formerly Google X, Google’s R&D factory)…

In today’s exponentially changing world, our Moonshots are key to our success and the impact we create.

How do you build a Moonshot team? How do you effectively lead that team?  How do you enable an environment where “crazy ideas” become real?

Astro leads a team of world-class engineers, scientists, and creatives developing solutions to dozens (perhaps hundreds) of the world’s toughest problems. Some of their public projects include Google’s self-driving car project, the smart contact lens, and Project Loon.

I’ve interviewed Astro several times, and frequently write about his leadership and innovation strategies. Here are a few of my favorite takeaways from past blogs, and the reason I’ve invited him to lead a “Moonshot Workshop” at A360 this January:

What is Moonshot Thinking: A Moonshot is going 10X bigger, while the rest of the world is pursuing 10% bigger.  When you try to do 10% better, you’re putting yourself in a “smartness” competition with everyone else in the world -- a competition you’re unlikely to win. When you instead try to go 10x bigger, you’re forced to approach the problem in a radically different fashion. The result is 100x more worth it, but it’s never 100x harder.

Ideas Are Easy, Culture is Hard: Creating the ecosystem for rapidly evaluating and testing ideas is much harder than finding the idea. Filter weaker ideas early by running a “pre-mortem” -- predict in advance why an idea is likely to fail -- and celebrate and reward ideas that the team kills early.

Experiment, Experiment, Experiment: How can you encourage your team to experiment and pursue audacious goals? X has a “Get Weirder Award,” which rewards the best experiment the team runs based on a crazy idea. Instead of strictly incentivizing successful experiments, X focuses on progress, learning and asking the right questions.

If you join us live (or digitally), you’ll be able to participate in a lively discussion and “how-to” session with Astro... learning from him on what works, what fails, and how to pick your Moonshot in the first place. Over the last few months, many members of the A360 community have shared with me how they are selling (divesting) and/or acquiring companies (investing) to manage exponential change. I’m looking forward to seeing how our workshop with Astro helps us take bigger, better and more effective Moonshots in our companies and our lives. Best, Peter

Interested in Joining Me? (Two options)

1. A360 Executive Mastermind: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive Mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective, for 360 abundance and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $10B companies). If you’d like to be considered, apply here.

Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

2. A360 Digital Mastermind: I’ve also created a Digital/Online community of bold, abundance-minded entrepreneurs called Abundance 360 Digital (A360D).

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Countless corporate giants have crashed and burned... Sears Roebuck & Co., U.S. Steel, Eastman Kodak and Pan Am, to name a few.

But some big companies have “turned it around” – gone from stagnation to innovation.  

This blog is the first in a series about how those rising giants did it and what we can learn.

If you’re a startup entrepreneur, read this blog from the perspective of how you, your company or your technology can help a dying giant revitalize.

It you’re a big company executive, remember that every company must eventually disrupt itself or face stagnation and death.

Let’s begin with Disney.

Disney in Crisis

When Bob Iger became CEO in October 2005, Disney was in disarray.

The preceding five years had been marked by a hostile takeover attempt, a shareholder revolt, a board in conflict and stagnant stock price.

Disney’s animation department hadn’t had a hit in years, their brand had become somewhat tarnished and employees no longer believed in the company’s greatness.

One of Iger’s first tasks was to make peace with dissident shareholders Roy Disney and Stanley Gold and to convince them to drop their lawsuit challenging the choice of Eisner’s successor.

In the midst of this chaos, Iger set about transforming Disney, ultimately claiming back the culture of innovation it once had and driving a 320% increase in market cap over a 12-year period.

So how did he do it?

Significant change in a large organization needs to happen from the top down.

The CEO and the Board need to be in sync, be tolerant of risk and remain agile.

The CEO needs to take risks and the board needs to give the CEO top-cover.

Iger was able to turn Disney around because he set the tone... Here is his 3-part playbook for transforming “The Mouse”:

1. Create a Clear, Simple Vision (Your Corporate MTP).

When you look at Disney’s business, it seems very complicated.

They have multiple business lines: movie studios, TV brands, consumer goods (toys, clothing, accessories), retail stores and theme parks.

They also have a multitude of brands, including Disney itself, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars and ESPN.

That’s why it’s important for Disney to have a simple, clear and powerful vision that ties everything together – what I would call their Massively Transformative Purpose (MTP).

For Iger, the MTP was clear -- be the best storyteller, and then leverage those stories across all of Disney’s lines of business.

Telling stories is where Disney should be distinctive, and should be No. 1. Storytelling was core to Disney’s success since its founding in the 1920s.

From the stories, Disney creates iconic characters. Disney can then leverage the content and the characters across multiple lines of business, from consumer stores to theme parks.

2. Make long-term bets.

Iger believes in the value of persistence and thinking long-term. His favorite long-term bet example is Disneyland Shanghai, which opened in 2016 after a 17-year process. Seventeen years!

It is a $6 billion project that employs over 10,000 workers and has involved long, hard negotiations with the Chinese government.

There have been numerous setbacks along the way — every change in Chinese leadership over the past 17 years has meant new parties to the negotiation, and new demands.

There have been setbacks with the local population at the Disneyland Shanghai site; with local construction companies (manufacturing quality and materials), and with the local media. But Iger and Disney have remained incredibly persistent despite the adversity.

Iger explains that he and his team have been willing to be patient and persistent because they believe in the value of what they’re creating with Disneyland Shanghai for the Chinese people, and for Disney’s business.

3. Make fearless acquisitions on the edge.

Turning a large company around is hard, and it takes risky moves that can involve betting the company.

Iger knew he needed to reignite Disney’s magic, and set out on a fast track to acquire as many memorable characters and stories that could be integrated into the vast distribution platform that Disney had built.

This turned into three iconic acquisitions – Pixar, Marvel and Lucasfilms– the three of which are a big reason Disney’s stock price has more than quadrupled during Iger’s tenure as CEO.

When Bob Iger purchased Pixar for $7.4 billion, some in the industry thought he was crazy.

But with the Disney distribution platform, when Toy Story 3 hit the market in 2010, it raked in more than $1 billion at the box office worldwide, which is comfortably more than the previous two films in the animated series combined.

A few years later, Iger made another risky bet by purchasing Marvel Entertainment for $4 billion.

Iger then used the Pixar and Marvel purchases to convince George Lucas to sell them Lucasfilm (for about $4 billion) in 2012. That deal brought the Stars Wars and the Indiana Jones franchises within Disney’s fold.

Disney’s first foray into the Star Wars universe was The Force Awakens, which has exceeded $2 billion in box office revenue since its release. This is on top of an astounding $5+ billion in Star Wars merchandise sales within the first 12 months of the acquisition alone.

All of this looks brilliant in retrospect, but there is little doubt that it was all very risky up front.

By all measures, Iger is fearless. “I just was built with an innate ability to not let fear guide me in how I run my life,” he said in a recent interview.

In speaking about the risky acquisitions he made, Iger acknowledges, “Yes, you’re putting risk on a company. But from a reputational perspective, no one is taking more risk than the CEO.  And it’s a risk that is personal and firmly tethered to a CEO.”

And regarding the Disney Board, Iger remarked: “To the credit of the board, they did not throw me out of the room.”

Interested in Joining Me? (Two options)

1. A360 Executive Mastermind: This is the sort of conversation I explore at my Executive Mastermind group called Abundance 360. The program is highly selective, for 360 abundance and exponentially minded CEOs (running $10M to $10B companies). If you’d like to be considered, apply here.

Share this with your friends, especially if they are interested in any of the areas outlined above.

2. A360 Digital Mastermind: I’ve also created a Digital/Online community of bold, abundance-minded entrepreneurs called Abundance 360 Digital (A360D).