21 Technologies for the 21st Century (Part 3: The Future Is Knocking)

Chapter 1. The Future Is Knocking

Don’t assume that the industries of the future will be built in Silicon Valley. Those at the pinnacle of every technological revolution think they will sit atop the peak forever, but as Omar Khayyam advised centuries ago, “the moving finger writes, and having writ, moves on.” Buffalo was once the “city of light,” the epicenter of the electrification revolution, Detroit “the Motor City,” where “what’s good for General Motors is good for America,” the north of England the heartland of the first Industrial Revolution.

Rarely does the next great innovation come out of the same industry and geography that led the previous one. And today’s Silicon Valley reminds us why. It has become a consumer-focused industry dominated by a few enormous companies that choke off the opportunity that startups once explored, while venture capitalists too often fund, at best, new features to be acquired by those giants. Look elsewhere.

It is the world’s great challenges that demand innovation: climate change mitigation and adaptation, bringing the rest of the world’s billions into prosperity without accelerating the climate crisis or spiraling into war, resettling refugees, adjusting to vast demographic inversions in developed countries, pushing back at the ravages of aging and disease.

To be sure, innovations in these areas will rely on the skills developed during the consumer internet and consumer electronics revolution, but the entrepreneurs who build the most influential ...