The Industries of the Future

by Alec J. Ross

The coming era of globalization will unleash a wave of technological, economic, and sociological change as consequential as the changes that shook my hometown in the 20th century and the changes brought on by the Internet and digitization as I was leaving college 20 years ago.

and a half million people in the United States make their living from driving trucks, taxis, or buses, and all of them are vulnerable to displacement by self-driving cars. It’s hard to wrap your head around all the changes this might mean.

obligatory work”) and robotnik (“serf”), to describe, in Čapek’s conception, a new class of “artificial people” that would be created to serve humans.

There will be fewer work-related injuries; fewer traffic accidents; safer, less invasive surgical procedures; and myriad new capabilities, from sick, homebound children being able to attend school to giving the power of speech to those who are deaf and mute. It is a net good for the world. The same can be said of globalization more broadly. It

The role of women in business and society was one of the most important and least-acknowledged drivers of the last stage of globalization, and their role will be even greater during the next stage.

companies. It is not a coincidence that Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Oracle, and countless other information-age companies were started by people in their twenties—and started in the United States.