The Year in Tech, 2026
by Harvard Business Review, Scott D. Anthony, Amy Webb, José Parra-Moyano, Christina Shim
Introduction
THE MESSY MIDDLE OF DISRUPTIVE CHANGE
by Scott D. Anthony
In his 1620 classic Novum Orangum, Sir Francis Bacon noted three technologies—the printing press, the compass, and gunpowder—that “changed the appearance and state of the whole world.” These inventions each created a line between before and after.
Additive manufacturing. Artificial intelligence. Autonomous vehicles. Cleantech. Cryptocurrencies. Drones. Lab-grown meat. Mixed reality. Robotics. Smart health. In the future we will likely look back and distinguish before and after each of these ongoing disruptions. Right now, however, things feel awfully messy.
That isn’t unusual. My book Epic Disruptions explores 11 historical disruptions. One chapter focuses on the Model ...
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