The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies

by Erik Brynjolfsson

he found it takes an average five to seven years before full productivity benefits of computers are visible in the productivity of the firms making the investments. This reflects the time and effort required to make the other complementary investments that bring a computerization effort success. In fact, for every dollar of investment in computer hardware, companies need to invest up to another nine dollars in software, training, and business process redesign.16

Production in the second machine age depends less on physical equipment and structures and more on the four categories of intangible assets: intellectual property, organizational capital,

the average American white woman without a high school diploma had a life expectancy of 73.5 years in 2008, compared to 78.5 years in 1990. Life expectancy for white men without a high school education fell by three years during this period.

businesses rarely get significant performance gains from simply “paving the cowpaths” as opposed to rethinking how the business can be redesigned to take advantage of new technologies.24

Jeff Solomon - "Paving the cow paths"

As futurist Kevin Kelly put it “You’ll be paid in the future based on how well you work with robots.”