Knopf is an amazing publisher, and it is easy to see where its reputation comes from. Its leader, Sonny Mehta, encouraged us to be bold, think big and write something that would look forward. Jonathan Segal more than lived up to his reputation, helping us take the manuscript in directions that made it much stronger. His creativity and vision as an editor were critical to making the book possible. Our thanks to Paul Bogaards, Maria Massey and Erinn Hartman, consumate professionals all.
Our agent, Mel Parker, ensured that we found a publisher who shared our vision in tackling these difficult issues. We would also like to thank the many people at Google who offered their important insights at various stages in the writing process. Google’s cofounders Larry Page (also CEO) and Sergey Brin are a constant source of inspiration for both of us. Justin Kosslyn, a product manager at Google Ideas and a product visionary, helped us shape several of our future predictions. Justin is undoubtedly going to be someone to watch in the future. Lucas Dixon, an associate on the Google Ideas team and a brilliant engineer, helped us work through some of the more technical aspects of the book. We also benefited from conversations with many current and former Googlers: CJ Adams, Larry Alder, Nikesh Arora, Jieun Baek, Brendan Ballou, Andy Berndt, Eric Brewer, Shona Brown, Scott Carpenter, Christine Chen, DJ Collins, Yasmin Dolatabadi, Marc Ellenbogen, Eric Gross, Jill Hazelbaker, Shane Huntley, Minnie Ingersoll, Amy Lambert, Ann Lavin, Erez Levin, Damian Menscher, Misty Muscatel, David Pressoto, Scott Rubin, Nigel Snoad, Alfred Spector, Matthew Stepka, Astro Teller, Sebastian Thrun, Lorraine Twohill, Rachel Whetstone, Mike Wiacek, Susan Wojcicki and Emily Wodd.
There are a number of people at Google who helped orchestrate many of the logistics and trips that helped make this book possible: Jennifer Barths, Kimberly Birdsall, Gavin Bishop, Kimberly Cooper, Daniela Crocco, Dominique Cunningham, Danielle “Mr. D” Feher, Ann Hiatt, Dan Keyserling, Marty Lev, Pam Shore, Manuel Temez and Brian Thompson.
Our gratitude to all our friends and colleagues whose ideas and thoughts we’ve benefited from: Elliott Abrams, Ruzwana Bashir, Michael Bloomberg, Richard Branson, Chris Brose, Jordan Brown, James Bryer, Mike Cline, Steve Coll, Peter Diamandis, Larry Diamond, Jack Dorsey, Mohamed El-Erian, James Fallows, Summer Felix, Richard Fontaine, Dov Fox, Tom Freston, Malcolm Gladwell, James Glassman, Jack Goldsmith, David Gordon, Sheena Greitens, Craig Hatkoff, Michael Hayden, Chris Hughes, Walter Isaacson, Dean Kamen, David Kennedy, Erik Kerr, Parag Khanna, Joseph Konzelmann, Stephen Krasner, Ray Kurzweil, Eric Lander, Jason Liebman, Claudia Mendoza, Evgeny Morozov, Dambisa Moyo, Elon Musk, Meghan O’Sullivan, Farah Pandith, Barry Pavel, Steven Pinker, Joe Polish, Alex Pollen, Jason Rakowski, Lisa Randall, Condoleezza Rice, Jane Rosenthal, Nouriel Roubini, Kori Schake, Vance Serchuk, Michael Spence, Stephen Stedman, Dan Twining, Decker Walker, Matthew Waxman, Tim Wu, Jillian York, Juan Zarate, Jonathan Zittrain and Ethan Zuckerman.
We also want to thank the guys from Peak Performance, particularly Joe Dowdell and Jose and Emilio Gomez, for keeping us healthy during the final stages of writing.
And to our families: From Jared, a very special thank-you to Rebecca Cohen, who during our writing process went from being a long-distance girlfriend to a wife. Throughout, she has been an intellectual partner, and served as one of our most helpful advisors. Her expertise and knowledge of the legal system brought up a number of provocative questions that ended up becoming defining features of several chapters. Also a special thanks to Dee and Donald Cohen, Emily and Jeff Nestler, Annette and Paul Shapiro, Audrey Bear, and Aaron and Rachel Zubaty for being such a supportive family. There is also a special debt of gratitude owed to Alan Mirken, who is a veteran of the publishing industry and in addition to being a great uncle (pun intended), is always insightful in his advice and guidance.
From Eric, a lifetime of thank-yous to Wendy Schmidt, who brought a sense of humanity and purpose to a dry technology executive. She bridges the human and technological worlds flawlessly.
—E.S., J.C., January 2013
NOTES
Introduction
The Internet is among the few things: This quote is adapted from part of Eric Schmidt’s speech at the April 1997 JavaOne Conference in San Francisco. The original quote is “The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn’t understand, the largest experiment in anarchy that we have ever had.” We have adapted the quote to our current view, which is that it is not the first thing, but instead “among the few,” with others including nuclear weapons, steam power, and electricity.
it is the first that will make it possible: The printing press, the landline, the radio, the television, and the fax machine all represent technological revolutions, but all required intermediaries.
50 million: See figures for year 2000 in “Estimated Internet Users (World) and Percentage Growth,” ITU World Telecommunication Indicators (2001), referred to by Claudia Sarrocco and Dr. Tim Kelly, Improving IP Connectivity in the Least Developed Countries, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Strategy and Policy Unit, 9, accessed October 23, 2012, http://www.itu.int/osg/spu/ni/ipdc/study/Improving%20IP%20Connectivity%20in%20the%20Least%20Developed%20Countries1.pdf.
more than 2 billion: See figures for year 2010 in “Global Numbers of Individuals Using the Internet, Total and Per 100 Inhabitants, 2001–2011,” International Telecommunication Union (ITU), ICT Data and Statistics (IDS), accessed October 8, 2012, http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/.
from 750 million to well over 5 billion: See sums for years 2000 and 2010 in “Mobile-Cellular Telephone Subscriptions,” International Telecommunication Union (ITU), ICT Data and Statistics (IDS), accessed October 8, 2012, http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/.
projected eight billion: See total for both sexes’ population in “World Midyear Population by Age and Sex for 2025,” U.S. Census Bureau, International Data Base, accessed October 8, 2012, http://www.census.gov/population/international/data/idb/worldpop.php.
many old institutions … reallocate the concentration of power: This concept was something we had discussed for a while, but it wasn’t until a conversation with our good friend Alec Ross that we were able to capture it in this way. He deserves shared credit for this concept. See Alec Ross, “How Connective Tech Boosts Political Change,” CNN, June, 20, 2012, http://www.cnn.com/2012/06/20/opinion/opinion-alec-ross-tech-politics/index.html.
banned the use of mobile phones: “Better than Freedom? Why Iraqis Cherish Their Mobile Phones,” Economist, November 12, 2009, http://www.economist.com/node/14870118.
unreliable access to food, water and electricity: “Iraq: Key Facts and Figures,” BBC, September, 7, 2010, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-11095920.
garbage hadn’t been collected in years: Zaineb Naji and Dawood Salman, “Baghdad’s Trash Piles Up,” Environmental News Service, July 6, 2010, http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/jul2010/2010-07-06-01.html.
CHAPTER 1
OUR FUTURE SELVES
five billion more people: The World in 2011: ICT Facts and Figures, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), accessed October 10, 2012, http://www.itu.int/ITUD/ict/facts/2011/material/ICTFactsFigures2011.pdf. The above source shows that as of 2011 35 percent of the world’s population is online. We factored in population increase projections to estimate five billion set to join the virtual world.