Whiplash: How to Survive Our Faster Future

by Joichi Ito

The technology of film had been created, but not the medium. When we watch these early films, we see pictures that move, but not a movie.

you can no longer assume that costs and benefits will be proportional to size.

Today, the biggest threats to the status quo come from the smallest of places, from start-ups and rogues, breakaways and indie labs.

daunting enough, we are having to deal with this swirl ...

The quantity, or level, of complexity is influenced by four inputs: heterogeneity, a network, interdependency, and adaptation.

putting learning over education.

Learning, we argue, is something you do for yourself. Education is something done to you.

Emergent systems presume that every individual within that system possesses unique intelligence that would benefit the group. This information is shared when people make choices about what ideas or projects to support, or, crucially, take that information and use it to innovate.

All of these advances are creating a de facto system in which people worldwide are empowered to learn, design, develop, and participate in acts of creative disobedience. Unlike authoritarian systems, which enable only incremental change, emergent systems foster the kind of nonlinear innovation that can react quickly to the kind of rapid changes that characterize the network age.

The most likely successor to the integrated circuit, Knight decided, would be the living cell.

“cellular computing,”

“There’s an idea pretty common to our field that biology in general, and biotechnology in particular, is too important to be left up to the experts.”

The blockchain is, in our estimation, likely to change the very relationship between individuals and institutions, a revolution in the nature of authority.

Instead of rules or even strategy, the key to success is culture. Whether we are talking about our moral compass, our world view, or our sensibility and taste, the way that we set these compasses is through the culture that we create and how we communicate that culture through events, e-mail, meetings, blog posts, the rules that we make, and even the music that we play. It is more of a system of mythologies than some sort of mission statement or slogan.

the principle of risk over safety may sound irresponsible, but it is essential for unlocking the full potential of the modern, low-cost innovation that enables it. It has long been an integral part of the software and Internet industries, and helped shape the landscape of venture capital.

Implementing risk over safety does not mean blinding yourself to risk. It simply means understanding that as the cost of innovation declines, the nature of risk changes.

The “buy low, sell high” version of higher education is to try to find emerging fields where you have an unfair advantage and a passion. It might be risky, but you’re much more likely to find yourself at the top of an emerging field with less competition, and in the worst case, you still end up doing something you enjoy.

“If you have the right person on the right project, and they are absolutely dedicated to finding a solution—leave them alone. Tolerate their initiative and trust them.”