Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

by Thomas L. Friedman

During the fifty years after World War II, if the world had a dial on it, that dial was set to the left, and the closer you were to the Soviet Union the more leftward the dial pointed. And what it pointed to was a sign that said “You live in a world of defined benefits: just do your job every day, show up, be average, and here are the benefits you will get.” Since the emergence of the supernova, that dial has whipped sharply to the right, and the sign it points to today says “You live in a world of defined contributions—your wages and benefits will now be more and more directly correlated to your exact contribution, and with big data we will get better and better at measuring just exactly what your contribution is.” It’s a 401(k) world now. To paraphrase an old World War II poster, Uncle Sam wants—to put more on—you.