From data breaches to disinformation, a look at the digital revolution’s collateral damage with “practical solutions to a wide-range of tech-related woes” (TechCrunch). In this book, a Silicon Valley veteran travels around the world and interviews important decision-makers to paint a picture of how tech has changed our lives—for better and for worse—and what steps we might take, as societies and individuals, to make the future something we can once again look forward to. “A truly important book and the most significant work so far in an emerging body of literature in which technology’s smartest thinkers are raising alarm bells about the state of the Internet, and laying groundwork for how to fix it.”?Fortune “After years of giddiness about the wonders of technology, a new realization is dawning: the future is broken. Andrew Keen was among the first and most insightful to see it. The combination of the digital revolution, global hyperconnectivity, and economic dysfunction has led to a populist backlash and destruction of civil discourse. In this bracing book, Keen offers tools for righting our societies and principles to guide us in the future.”?Walter Isaacson, New York Times-bestselling author of Steve Jobs and Leonardo Da Vinci “Comparing our current situation to the Industrial Revolution, he stresses the importance of keeping humanity at the center of technology.”?Booklist “Valuable insights on preserving our humanity in a digital world.”?Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

Internet entrepreneur Andrew Keen was among the earliest to write about the dangers that the Internet poses to our culture and society. His 2007 book The Cult of the Amateur was critical in helping advance the conversation around the Internet, which has now morphed from a tool providing efficiencies and opportunities for consumers and business to a force that is profoundly reshaping our societies and our world. In his new book, How to Fix the Future, Keen focuses on what we can do about this seemingly intractable situation. Looking to the past to learn how we might change our future, he describes how societies tamed the excesses of the Industrial Revolution, which, like its digital counterpart, demolished long-standing models of living, ruined harmonious environments and altered the business world beyond recognition. Travelling across the globe, from India to Estonia, Germany to Singapore, he investigates the best (and worst) practices in five key areas - regulation, innovation, social responsibility, consumer choice and education - and concludes by examining whether we are seeing the beginning of the end of the America-centric digital world. Powerful, urgent and deeply engaging, How to Fix the Future vividly depicts what we must do if we are to try to preserve human values in an increasingly digital world and what steps we might take as societies and individuals to make the future something we can again look forward to.

Bill Gates's Five Books for Summer Reading 2019 From world-renowned economist Paul Collier, a candid diagnosis of the failures of capitalism and a pragmatic and realistic vision for how we can repair it. Deep new rifts are tearing apart the fabric of the United States and other Western societies: thriving cities versus rural counties, the highly skilled elite versus the less educated, wealthy versus developing countries. As these divides deepen, we have lost the sense of ethical obligation to others that was crucial to the rise of post-war social democracy. So far these rifts have been answered only by the revivalist ideologies of populism and socialism, leading to the seismic upheavals of Trump, Brexit, and the return of the far-right in Germany. We have heard many critiques of capitalism but no one has laid out a realistic way to fix it, until now. In a passionate and polemical book, celebrated economist Paul Collier outlines brilliantly original and ethical ways of healing these rifts—economic, social and cultural—with the cool head of pragmatism, rather than the fervor of ideological revivalism. He reveals how he has personally lived across these three divides, moving from working-class Sheffield to hyper-competitive Oxford, and working between Britain and Africa, and acknowledges some of the failings of his profession. Drawing on his own solutions as well as ideas from some of the world’s most distinguished social scientists, he shows us how to save capitalism from itself—and free ourselves from the intellectual baggage of the twentieth century.

From the acclaimed authors of Capitalism without Capital, radical ideas for restoring prosperity in today’s intangible economy The past two decades have witnessed sluggish economic growth, mounting inequality, dysfunctional competition, and a host of other ills that have left people wondering what has happened to the future they were promised. Restarting the Future reveals how these problems arise from a failure to develop the institutions demanded by an economy now reliant on intangible capital such as ideas, relationships, brands, and knowledge. In this groundbreaking and provocative book, Jonathan Haskel and Stian Westlake argue that the great economic disappointment of the century is the result of an incomplete transition from an economy based on physical capital, and show how the vital institutions that underpin our economy remain geared to an outmoded way of doing business. The growth of intangible investment has slowed significantly in recent years, making the world poorer, less fair, and more vulnerable to existential threats. Haskel and Westlake present exciting new ideas to help us catch up with the intangible revolution, offering a road map for how to finance businesses, improve our cities, fund more science and research, reform monetary policy, and reshape intellectual property rules for the better. Drawing on Haskel and Westlake’s experience at the forefront of finance and economic policymaking, Restarting the Future sets out a host of radical but practical solutions that can lead us into the future.

Highly recommended by bestselling author Marshall Goldsmith The secret to giving better feedback isn’t what we say – it’s what others hear. Too often, people hear about a past they can’t control, not a future they can. That changes with “feedforward” – a radical approach to sharing feedback that unleashes the performance and potential of everyone around us. From managers and coaches trying to energize their teams, to teachers hoping to motivate their students, to parents looking to empower their children, people from all walks of life want others to hear what they have to say. Through a lively blend of stories and studies, The Feedback Fix shows them how by presenting a six-part REPAIR plan that spreads feedforward across boardrooms, classrooms, and even dining rooms. Even with drastic changes in how we work and live, the experiences we create for others – joy or fear, growth or decline, success or failure – still hang on the feedback we share. The Feedback Fix makes a compelling argument for getting what we want by giving others what they need – all while rebuilding the way we lead, learn, and live.

This book provides a clear roadmap for the roles workers and leaders in business, labor, education, and government must play in building a new social contract for all to prosper. It is a call to action for a collaborative effort to develop both high-quality jobs and strong, successful businesses while simultaneously overcoming the deep social and economic divisions that are all too apparent in society today. Written by two leading and trusted experts in the field of employment and work from MIT and Cornell University, this book is a practical, action-oriented guide. Readers will feel empowered to take actions needed to shape a better future of work for themselves, their employees, their co-workers, and others they may represent. It emphasizes the need to fix America's broken social contract and reimagine a new one. The most important message of this book is that we have the ability to shape the work of the future by harnessing the power of new technologies. The book is essential reading for business executives, labor leaders and workforce advocates, government policy makers, politicians, and anyone who is interested in using emerging knowledge and technologies to drive innovation, creating high-quality jobs, and shaping a more broadly shared prosperity.

From the cofounder of Kickstarter comes a vision for building a society that looks beyond money and toward maximizing the values that make life worth living. Hopeful but firmly grounded, full of concrete solutions and bursting with creativity, this work brilliantly dissects the world we live in and shows us a road map to the world we are capable of making.