Earlier this year I finally read Carlota Perez's Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital. It had been on my shelf for over a decade. It's a masterpiece. It's super academic, but so insightful. I understand why people are obsessed with her work and underlined nearly half the book. (Here's a book summary if you have not read it.)

While reading it I kept asking myself, "Where are we in the Information Age?" and "What comes next?" The Information Age is weird. We've experienced multiple crashes and frenzies, software and computers have come so far and changed so much of our lives, yet software is still eating the world. In some ways it feels like we are approaching the end of the Information Age (I think this is mainly because so much mainstream and visible innovation in software these days feels boring and on the margin), but it also feels like we are just at the beginning. We have yet to see what AI and crypto will do to the society, and those are just the obvious contenders for the next stages of this epoch. Ben Thompson wrote a nice piece about this, and Perez herself has shared her opinions, too.

https://twitter.com/CarlotaPrzPerez/status/1112397085729533958?s=20&t=E4UUoMaH5SEfe02diPsVOw

As to the question of what comes next, obvious contenders are Climate/Energy - the implications of limitless energy by unlocking nuclear fission and fusion are vast - and Life Sciences - genetic engineering will change the world and humanity many times over. Both of these areas seem nascent, but are on the precipice of boundless innovation because cataclysmic events accelerate the pace of progress. The climate crisis is catalyzing investment in clean tech and energy creation and distribution, and the global pandemic has shown the world the importance of mRNA and all of the biological science that goes along with it.

A final thought I had was how the Exponential Age impacts Perez's theories of technological revolutions. It seemed intuitive to me that because technological innovation is rapidly accelerating then the time periods for Perez's technological revolutions to take place would shrink, but that has not been the case. In fact, it feels as if it may have the opposite effect. The Information Age is still going and showing no signs of coming to an end. Perhaps because technological change compounds and creates the conditions for even more innovation - and we haven't even seen the impact AI will have on this cycle. Perhaps the Exponential Age won't lead to an acceleration of individual technological revolutions, but simultaneously overlapping ones. It's not inconceivable that we see an overlap of the Information Age, Energy Age, and Life Science Age within this century. The technologies that propel each of these revolutions are all interconnected. Needless to say, if you look at things a certain way then future is always exciting.

One of the values we had at Fundera was "Be An Open Book." I used to tell people during new hire orientation that I loved this value because I am a lazy person. As a company, the spirit of being an open book is giving people access to vital information about how the business is performing. It's important to do this for a variety of reason: employees want it, it provides context as to how the company is doing, and with that context people can begin to make independent and well-informed decisions about how to help us grow. If more people are making better decisions, then leaders get to make less of them (especially the smaller ones). Hence, I can continue being lazy.

The value manifests in a variety of ways. We would share company financials during Town Halls (our monthly company All Hands). We would circulate sanitized board presentations after every board meeting (sanitized because there are some discretional and personal things that not everyone needs to know). We'd discuss our unit economics in depth. Sharing details was embedded in the culture. Everyone inside the company had access to the nitty gritty as to how the company was doing. And if for some reason they didn't have it at their fingertips, they could always ask.

I have found that people who join early stage ventures oftentimes do so to learn as much as possible. A great way to accelerate learning is to share information on what's important to the company so people can track it and see how inputs effect outputs. They also want to have some sense of autonomy and feel like they can contribute beyond being told what to do or the confines of a specific role. Being an open book helps steepen the learning curve while improving the way people can contribute.

Being an open book also helps people make critical career decisions. They know when things are good and can get excited about growth trajectory. They also know when things are bad and they can either buckle down and dig through the muck (this is why it's important to hire people who believe in your mission) or they can jump ship and find a more stable environment. Shitty surprises suck for employees. It's a huge disappointment to wake up one morning and be told your company burned through all its cash and now has to shut down. It's an even bigger disappointment to be caught totally off guard by this, or to learn about it from the press. Don't create environments where this can happen to the people that bet a chunk of their career on you.

One of the most exciting things I read recently was Walter Isaacson's The Code Breaker. I knew very little about the life sciences and gene editing and I thought the book was an excellent primer on the topic. As the S-curve of the proliferation of the Information Age begins to flatten we will enter a new era driven by innovation in the life sciences. This is because we now have the ability to eradicate genetic diseases from the human race. Permanently. The implications are vast, but the biggest takeaway is that life as we know it is about to change forever. We can now determine what genes we have. It's the stuff of science fiction. A generational breakthrough in human ingenuity with the potential to be both liberating and cataclysmic.

One of the things I loved about the book was the prevailing sentiment amongst scientists, especially Jennifer Doudna, that curiosity is a good in and of itself: "When you do curiosity-driven research, you never know what it may someday lead to...something that's basic can later have wide consequences." It's remarkably similar to software in the sense that some of the most important innovations came to fruition simply because somebody was curious about something. And those inventions become accidental building blocks for some new previously unfathomable innovation. The scientists in the book are not motivated by money, or even glory (although they are fiercely competitive when it comes to acknowledgement for their contributions), but "the chance to unlock the mysteries of nature and use those discoveries to make the world a better place."

Earlier this year I finally read Carlota Perez's Technological Revolutions and Financial Capital. It had been on my shelf for over a decade. It's a masterpiece. It's super academic, but so insightful. I understand why people are obsessed with her work and underlined nearly half the book. (Here's a book summary if you have not read it.)

While reading it I kept asking myself, "Where are we in the Information Age?" and "What comes next?" The Information Age is weird. We've experienced multiple crashes and frenzies, software and computers have come so far and changed so much of our lives, yet software is still eating the world. In some ways it feels like we are approaching the end of the Information Age (I think this is mainly because so much mainstream and visible innovation in software these days feels boring and on the margin), but it also feels like we are just at the beginning. We have yet to see what AI and crypto will do to the society, and those are just the obvious contenders for the next stages of this epoch. Ben Thompson wrote a nice piece about this, and Perez herself has shared her opinions, too.

https://twitter.com/CarlotaPrzPerez/status/1112397085729533958?s=20&t=E4UUoMaH5SEfe02diPsVOw

As to the question of what comes next, obvious contenders are Climate/Energy - the implications of limitless energy by unlocking nuclear fission and fusion are vast - and Life Sciences - genetic engineering will change the world and humanity many times over. Both of these areas seem nascent, but are on the precipice of boundless innovation because cataclysmic events accelerate the pace of progress. The climate crisis is catalyzing investment in clean tech and energy creation and distribution, and the global pandemic has shown the world the importance of mRNA and all of the biological science that goes along with it.

A final thought I had was how the Exponential Age impacts Perez's theories of technological revolutions. It seemed intuitive to me that because technological innovation is rapidly accelerating then the time periods for Perez's technological revolutions to take place would shrink, but that has not been the case. In fact, it feels as if it may have the opposite effect. The Information Age is still going and showing no signs of coming to an end. Perhaps because technological change compounds and creates the conditions for even more innovation - and we haven't even seen the impact AI will have on this cycle. Perhaps the Exponential Age won't lead to an acceleration of individual technological revolutions, but simultaneously overlapping ones. It's not inconceivable that we see an overlap of the Information Age, Energy Age, and Life Science Age within this century. The technologies that propel each of these revolutions are all interconnected. Needless to say, if you look at things a certain way then future is always exciting.

One of the values we had at Fundera was "Be An Open Book." I used to tell people during new hire orientation that I loved this value because I am a lazy person. As a company, the spirit of being an open book is giving people access to vital information about how the business is performing. It's important to do this for a variety of reason: employees want it, it provides context as to how the company is doing, and with that context people can begin to make independent and well-informed decisions about how to help us grow. If more people are making better decisions, then leaders get to make less of them (especially the smaller ones). Hence, I can continue being lazy.

The value manifests in a variety of ways. We would share company financials during Town Halls (our monthly company All Hands). We would circulate sanitized board presentations after every board meeting (sanitized because there are some discretional and personal things that not everyone needs to know). We'd discuss our unit economics in depth. Sharing details was embedded in the culture. Everyone inside the company had access to the nitty gritty as to how the company was doing. And if for some reason they didn't have it at their fingertips, they could always ask.

I have found that people who join early stage ventures oftentimes do so to learn as much as possible. A great way to accelerate learning is to share information on what's important to the company so people can track it and see how inputs effect outputs. They also want to have some sense of autonomy and feel like they can contribute beyond being told what to do or the confines of a specific role. Being an open book helps steepen the learning curve while improving the way people can contribute.

Being an open book also helps people make critical career decisions. They know when things are good and can get excited about growth trajectory. They also know when things are bad and they can either buckle down and dig through the muck (this is why it's important to hire people who believe in your mission) or they can jump ship and find a more stable environment. Shitty surprises suck for employees. It's a huge disappointment to wake up one morning and be told your company burned through all its cash and now has to shut down. It's an even bigger disappointment to be caught totally off guard by this, or to learn about it from the press. Don't create environments where this can happen to the people that bet a chunk of their career on you.

One of the most exciting things I read recently was Walter Isaacson's The Code Breaker. I knew very little about the life sciences and gene editing and I thought the book was an excellent primer on the topic. As the S-curve of the proliferation of the Information Age begins to flatten we will enter a new era driven by innovation in the life sciences. This is because we now have the ability to eradicate genetic diseases from the human race. Permanently. The implications are vast, but the biggest takeaway is that life as we know it is about to change forever. We can now determine what genes we have. It's the stuff of science fiction. A generational breakthrough in human ingenuity with the potential to be both liberating and cataclysmic.

One of the things I loved about the book was the prevailing sentiment amongst scientists, especially Jennifer Doudna, that curiosity is a good in and of itself: "When you do curiosity-driven research, you never know what it may someday lead to...something that's basic can later have wide consequences." It's remarkably similar to software in the sense that some of the most important innovations came to fruition simply because somebody was curious about something. And those inventions become accidental building blocks for some new previously unfathomable innovation. The scientists in the book are not motivated by money, or even glory (although they are fiercely competitive when it comes to acknowledgement for their contributions), but "the chance to unlock the mysteries of nature and use those discoveries to make the world a better place."