Trampled by Unicorns

CHAPTER 1Making the World a Better Place

When I first began working for OZON, I fell instantly in love. What drew me was the ability for us to make seemingly minor changes that had tremendous real-world impact. Here we were, in the vastness of Russia, building a business that would soon deliver books to millions of people, some in places with hardly a road to speak of. We could make it possible, in these places at the ends of the Earth, for people to choose among hundreds of thousands of books. And, eventually, the same service would deliver equipment for their homes, toys for their children, parts for their cars—all shipped straight to their door.

This astonishing aspect of the work was what I found so exciting: what we did within the digital realm could so quickly alter the possibilities of the physical one. At massive scale and incredible speed. That is what I fell in love with. The benefits felt boundless. In many ways, they still do.

TECH AS DRIVER OF ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL PROGRESS

If we look more specifically at some of the key indicators of economic and social progress (GDP, poverty, life expectancy, literacy), the positive impact of digital technologies is evident across the board.

While there are debates on how to measure the impact of the digital economy on GDP due to the amount of free digital products created by the industry and the lack of clear definition of what the “digital economy” covers exactly, the OECD¹ assessed that in 2015 the information and communication ...