Anticipating the Unexpected

One more category of events signals the further acceleration of the pace of change. Peter refers to these sudden shock moments as “Asteroid Impact events.” Asteroid Impacts are massive disruptions that cause a sudden shift in the environment. Organizations that are slow and lumbering, unable to rapidly adapt (e.g., the dinosaurs), will rapidly go extinct. Companies that are nimble (e.g., furry little mammals), evolve rapidly, and fill open opportunities will initiate a Cambrian explosion of innovation.

Beyond its more obvious impacts, the COVID-19 pandemic has acted as an Asteroid Impact accelerator to an already rapid rate of change. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the development of multiple COVID vaccines and their production in billions of doses in record time. Even the “experts” predicted that this accomplishment might take years. In actuality, it took less than a year, enabled by new mRNA vaccine technology and by a series of actors and organizations that resembled more than anything else a collection of Exponential Organizations.

At the same time, the pandemic acted as an accelerant to cultural changes that were already underway. Pundits had spoken for decades about the phenomenon of working “virtually” from locations other than the traditional office. But the process had gone so slowly that it had become the accepted view that it might take another decade or more to become dominant in the world of work.

Needless to say, the global lockdown forced by the pandemic accelerated the adoption of virtual work from the predicted decades to mere days. Workers on every continent went home for months (and yet were still expected to be productive). Supporting that social shift was teleconferencing—the ubiquitous Zoom call—leading millions to quickly adopt and adapt to a technological vision that Bell Labs had imagined nearly 70 years earlier. (1) 

COVID, we now see, was not a monolithic event but rather one that created numerous ancillary disruptions—many of them quite beneficial, despite their dangerous origins. The societies, enterprises, and individuals who responded best to those disruptions succeeded the most. Those that failed to respond risked being left in the dustbin of history.

Similar Asteroid Impact events are waiting in the wings—or are already in motion. The most notable of these is climate change, which is already profoundly impacting the world economy and creating vast misery. It will take prodigious human innovation and effort to survive its corollary effects, such as drought, famine, and disease. 

It is a frightening prospect. But there is a ray of light in this gathering darkness. It is that our tools to meet and solve these challenges are also increasing in number and improving at exponential rates. In this arms race, they are giving us an increasingly powerful ability to address emerging problems. 

Technology has always been a major driver of human progress. Indeed, Ray Kurzweil contends that it might be the only major driver of that progress. Now that we have a dozen technologies riding on top of the exponentially growing power of computation, there is indeed cause for optimism. As Peter likes to say, “The world’s biggest problems are the world’s biggest business opportunities,” and “If you want to become a billionaire, help a billion people.”

(1)  The History and Evolution of Video Conferencing