Peter H. Diamandis - Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth, and Impact the World

Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright 2015 by PHD Ventures

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition February 2015

SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.

Jacket design by Hinterland

Jacket photographs by Getty Images and Shutterstock

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

ISBN 978-1-4767-0956-7

ISBN 978-1-4767-0960-4 (ebook)

PETERS DEDICATION

I dedicate this book to my parents, Harry P. Diamandis, MD and Tula Diamandis, whose bold journey from the Greek island of Lesvos to the United States, and their success in medicine and family inspired me to go big, create wealth, and impact the world.

STEVENS DEDICATION

This one is for Jamie Wheal, my great friend and partner in the Flow Genome Project, without whom this journey would be a lot less interesting and make a lot less sense.

Go back some 66 million years, and life on Earth was a little different. These were the waning days of the Cretaceous Period, hot and humid, when much of the worlds current land mass was still submerged under massive oceans. Back then, angiosperms, our technical name for flowering plants, were the latest innovation in the world of flora. Similarly, our first maples, oaks, and beeches were just starting to emerge. On the fauna side, the Earth was still dinosaur dominated, but this is not surprising. When it comes to staying power, the 100 million years that these megareptiles lorded over our planets terra firma is the longest such stretch in historythe ultimate example of terrestrial dominance.

But their reign was not to last.

The Cretaceous Period ended with a very big bang. An asteroid some ten kilometers in diameteror slightly smaller than San Franciscosmashed into the Yucatn Peninsula in Mexico. The collision literally rocked the world, releasing 420 zettajoules of energy, or two million times more muscle than the largest nuclear bomb ever exploded. The resulting crater was 110 miles wide. The resulting impact was, as the saying goes, a planetary killer.

Megatsunamis, massive earthquakes, global firestorms, and a deadly cascade of volcanic eruptions swallowed the Earth. The sun disappeared behind a huge dust cloudand didnt emerge for a decade. The changes to the global environment were so rapid and so extreme that the dinosaursthe uberdominant form of life at the timewere unable to adapt. Instead, they went extinct.

For our species, this was very good news. While the dinosaurs were large, lumbering, and inflexible, those early small, furry mammalsour ancestorswere far more nimble and resilient. They took opportunistic advantage of the radical changes sweeping the globe, adapted to their new environment, and never looked back. Within an evolutionary eye blink, the dinosaurs were gone and mammals became kings of the world. And one thing is most certainhistory has a funny way of repeating itself.

In fact, this tale of colossal impact, radical transformation, and spectacular rebirth has exceptional relevance todayespecially for business. Right now, there is another asteroid striking our world, already extinguishing the large and lumbering, already clearing a giant path for the quick and nimble. Our name for this asteroid is exponential technology, and even if this name is unfamiliar, its impact is not.

Well get into far greater detail later, but whats important here is that exponential technology refers to any technology accelerating on an exponential growth curvethat is, doubling in power on a regular basis (semiannually, annually, etc.)with computing being the most familiar example. When a woman in Outer Mongolia answers her smartphone, shes using a device a million times cheaper and a thousand times more powerful than a supercomputer from the 1970s. Thats what exponential change looks like in the real world.

And today, this kind of change is everywhere we look. Exponential progress is now showing up in dozens of arenas: networks, sensors, robotics, artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, genomics, digital medicine, nanotechnologyto name only a few.of dinosaurthose large and innovation-resistant companies that have done it the same way for decades, and will continue to do it the same way, until, well, they are out of business.

Yet, in stark contrast, there is a new breed of small, furry mammal starting to emerge. These mammals are todays entrepreneursthe ones using radically accelerating technology to transform products, services, and industries. These nimble and resilient innovators are learning how to wield exponential technologies; they are becoming exponential entrepreneurs . And these exponential entrepreneurs are paving the way for a new world of abundance.

In 2012, I joined with Steven Kotler to write Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think. My inspiration for this book came from my work with both the XPRIZE Foundation and Singularity University. What I witnessed from the helm of those organizations was a world where the basic necessities of life were becoming cheaper and globally accessible. Steven brought to Abundance his considerable expertise mapping the intersection of ultimate human performance and exponential technology. Both of us had come to believe the world was radically changing and that, for the first time in history, humanity had the potential to significantly and permanently raise global standards of living.

In Abundance , Steven and I explored how four potent emerging forcesexponential technologies, the DIY innovator, technophilanthropists, and the rising billiongive us the ability to solve many of the worlds grandest challenges over the next two to three decades. That is, we will soon have the power to meet and exceed the basic needs of every man, woman, and child on the planet.

When the book was released in February 2012, we had little idea how it would be received. I was lucky enough to open the TED conference with a talk on Abundance and even luckier to get a standing and has been translated into more than twenty languages. For all of this, we are both incredibly grateful.

Whats also been deeply gratifying is that concrete, well-documented evidence for abundance continues to mount. As a result, in the 2014 paperback edition of Abundance , we proudly presented a new reference section that contains some sixty additional charts, in areas such as reduction of violence and increases in learning, health, and wealth. Taken together, the implications of this data are truly mind-blowing.

But we have also come to feel that painting a picture of our vibrant future is insufficient. While we truly believe that creating a world of abundance is possible, it is by no means guaranteed. And it is for that reason we wrote Bold .

Thousands of years ago, it was only kings, pharaohs, and emperors who had the ability to solve large-scale problems. Hundreds of years ago, this power expanded to the industrialists who built our transportation systems and financial institutions. But today, the ability to solve such problems has been thoroughly democratized. Right now, and for the first time ever, a passionate and committed individual has access to the technology, minds, and capital required to take on any challenge. Even better, that individual has good reason to take on such challenges. As we will soon see, the worlds biggest problems are now the worlds biggest business opportunities. This means, for exponential entrepreneurs, finding a significant challenge is a meaningful road to wealth. Ultimately, as I teach at Singularity University (much more on this later), the best way to become a billionaire is to solve a billion-person problem.