About the Nerd Safari

This is overdue. I started writing without much in the way of describing the organizing theme behind it and throughline between topics.

At it’s core, this about uncovering the trends and connecting the dots between them.

Have you noticed how it feels like the world is changing faster and faster?  

This isn’t just a feeling.  This is reality.  And this is just the beginning.

As a consequence, I believe we face a number of interconnected crises (and opportunities) that are already creating economic uncertainty with severe impacts on our physical and mental health. 

On the upside, I believe that some of us alive today will live forever.  AI has the potential to make our lives unrecognizably better.  

But it will also crush many.  

Left unchecked wealth will continue concentrating in the hands of a few, at least as we define wealth today.

In the near term, remote work will do to white collar workers what it has done to blue collar workers over the last 50 years. But it will do it in 10. 

It’s already happening. 

And because we are more connected than ever, geography will matter less and less.  Nation-states may even drift into irrelevance.  But paradoxically, geography will also matter more, just in different ways.

Bitcoin will replace gold, cryptocurrencies will replace fiat, and smart contracts will upend how we deal with each other.  But I have deep concerns about how that transition will occur without upheaval. 

We don’t yet grasp the consequences of population decline, or of climate change.   And like crypto, I believe that our collective procrastination on these issues will soon exceed our cognitive capacities to cope.  

Most importantly, I believe most people are not developing the critical skills required to navigate these trends.  In turn, these trends will overwhelm and crush them.

How to Win the Future?

Those who can keep up will have opportunities beyond their dreams. The rest will fall by the roadside.  

To navigate these trends, we need two things: Predict and adapt.

This is what I want to do with you, to explore these themes and collectively understand how we can prepare for them. 

If all else fails, writing helps clarify my own thinking. That’s enough for me to run this experiment.

What Should You Expect as a Subscriber?

Some articles and posts will be about monitoring and understanding the trends that determine the future so we can predict, prepare, and act on what happens next.

They will touch themes such as AI, aging and longevity, climate change and climate tech, and emerging business models.

Others will be about the questions we face, the decisions that need to be made, and the skills we need to develop to prepare for that future.   For example, mental models to simplify complexity, tools for learning (and unlearning faster), persuasion, mental toughness, and building resilience.

These articles should help you understand the news in a way that you didn’t before. Even better, they will help you think critically, sift through the noise and focus on the few things that matter.