Monster. Paul Roehrig

system, not just to neutralize the bug. The current (and accelerating) transmission speed of people, viruses, news, opinion, and capital is unsustainable. Tech is the engine of that transmission. Brakes are needed before we crash and burn.

      We may seem critical, sometimes even harsh, about where we are today, but we take this tone not because we come to bury tech but to praise it.

      We want to save tech, help it mature, help it help us, keep it On, not Off. Our path ahead is not to slay the Monster but rather to tame it, to leverage its power, to reorient technology as a tool for good.

      Easy? No. An unfolding path ahead? Yes!

      The Fourth Industrial Revolution isn’t simply for the folks on top of the Davos mountains. It’s for everyone. This is our revolution. This is our monster to tame. Our future. Let’s make it what we want it to be.

Notes

      1 1. Gartner. (2019). Gartner says global IT spending to reach $3.8 trillion in 2019 (January 28). https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2019-01-28-gartner-says-global-it-spending-to-reach--3-8-trillio.

      2 2. The average non-fiction book runs around 65,000 or 70,000 words. We kept this to about half that by spending days, nights, and weekends over the past several years grinding the ideas down as far as we could, inspired by the old adage, “If I’d had more time, I would have written you a shorter letter.” You’ll no doubt conclude that every chapter in our short book could be its own long book, but we’ve tried to take out all the extra stuffing and clichés, so you can read it in a couple of hours. (You’re welcome!)