An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations (Version 2.0

Mr. Friedman should run for president! he's already assembled a superb cabinet. Everyone should read this book and then put these words into action -FAST. Awesome read, could not put it down the second time.

He made the world flat again in the world of real-time information and 3D vision. A perspective that is too obsessive for those trying to contribute and make a dent in this world, Friedman's easy telling makes the road appealing and desirable.

Where too many are distracted by the pace of change, taking a break, being late to grab a book, have a thought, building a thought concept is sometimes all we need to build another cathedral.

Great analysis of the forces shaping the disorienting world we live in today, especially technology. Didn't convince me that global warming isn't the master strategy of liberals to sell the notion of the need for bigger government, more intrusion in our lives and relinquishing personal liberties. By ahout the 30th page on Minnesota as an example I bailed.

Very personal reflections and some overly technical sections on the digital world. Book could have used much better editing and a clarification on how the overly long first portion and the rest of this really fit together. Disappointing

It is one amazing book. If you don't have much time and you need to understand what is going on that has gotten people worried about the future, then this is the book to read, Though I know about many things he writes about, I still got a lot out of reading this book.

I think only Friedman could have written a book like this since he has the right kind of experience, knowledge, and insight. It took him three years of research and it shows. He has squeezed a lot in this outstanding book.

I highly recommend this book. I will probably re-read it again.

This is one of the most important books a thoughtful person can absorb and I recommend one starts it as soon as possible. I cannot overstate the extent to which Friedman's organization and examples clarify the complexities of our modern world. He contrasts the benefits and drawbacks of the impact our almost constant innovation and gadgets have on us as individuals, including consistent, instant communication, and fascination with events beyond our direct influence. He puts this tidal wave of creativity and access in perspective. It's my current favorite book and I recommend it to everyone.

Friedman is one of the most forward thinkers of our age. Brilliant insights, and reading his stuff shakes my "traditionalist" views down to the bone. But, the good thing is that he does just that ... we ain't going back to the 50's, or at least I don't think we are, unless you live in Alabama which has never left the 19th century.

Social change is accelerating to light-speed. I only wish my mother had lived to read Tom Friedman's book. She remembered the first airplane and car she ever saw, and lived to see men walk on the moon.

A must read in this day and age for any professional, family member, parent with children coming up. . . . . . .. essentially everyone out there! Not only does Tom clearly establish that it takes a village, he show how it will take the entire community, together to successfully navigate the storm coming!! We, all of us, have to work together for a greater good, as opposed to the divide and conquer mentality of our current leaders. The supernova is coming, if it isn't already here! The exponetial speed of the world in which we live has only increased and will continue to increase. Tom as clearly and masterfully made his case. It is for you to accept or deny!

Every human on this earth needs to read this book. Absolutely the best, definitive description of the world we live in today and how quickly it is changing. His humor will make you laugh out loud. It is thought provoking, daunting information that we all need to go forward in our world today. Mr. Friedman has a way of reporting "just the facts" from sources all over the world so he is not "finger pointing" or "blaming". He just drags some of us into the "future that is here TODAY!" If you read no other book this year, read this one!

It is hard to find someone in today's world who is knowledgeable about today's problems but who can muster some optimism for the future and present some positive ideas about how to get there.
If you have connections to Minnesota, you will doubly enjoy this book.
The author can be forgiven for occasionally delving into too much detail or for getting lost a bit in nostalgia from time to time.

If you only read one book this or next year, Thank you for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations would be my choice. Think of this book as a mentor and guide regardless of your political or philosophical compass. We all have a choice of where we want our community and our personal lives to go to. Only we, as a community can really make this choice. If we leave it to the politicians and so-called blind leaders to make those choices for us, we'll all fail. Only by moving together as a community, with trust in each other, will we be able to survive the future. Want to guess what the alternative is?

I was both inspired and depressed by Mr. Friedman's well constructed analysis of the stressors on the world today. Inspired because they make sense and indicate that there is a way to resolve a lot of conflict in the world, but depressed because it appears that political, like the old Maine-iac joke: "You can't get there from here."

It is even more depressing because the current US political environment seems to have just turned the wrong direction to address the new problems in the world because the current crop of polarized and partisan politicians on both sides of the aisle don't quite get it.

I found Friedman's book on target vis a vis what the focus needs to be in the worlds current state of development. I would characterize his ideas as "The Friedman Paradigm." It is a much more realistic map of whats going on in the world than the Republican's late 19th century Social Darwinian/free marked paradigm or the Democrats 20th century New Deal/Great Society paradigm. This is the 21st century with new challenges and the need for ideas that meet those challenges. Friedman's book points in the right direction.

Most mindset changing book I have read since leaving the academic world of occupational psychology. Friedman has written his best book yet. Implications for everyone regardless of generation or global environment. Even the anecdotal and statistical material add to a very readable style. Buy it and have your children and grandchildren discuss Friedman's post-2007 analysis of the non-linear forces that rapidly mold the universe we live in. And enjoy being late. AMDG.

A thoroughly researched look at accelerating changes happening concurrently in technology, globalization, and the physical planet. This book explains myriad shifts and dislocations going on in today's world by presenting a big picture view that unifies the elements. It clarifies far more than any number of opinion pieces that zoom in on a single factor, like technology. And it culminates in a realistic examination of communities and up close human factors that determine whether individuals thrive or flounder. I enjoyed this book from start to finish and feel enriched by the window it provides into the shifts, dislocations, and complexities that exemplify today's global era.

SUPERB! Obviously Mr. Friedman is a skillful writer. And, the content is thought provoking and insightful. You will think differently about a lot of things after reading this book, technology, climate change, and remembering what really matters and what shaped your thinking for life.

Brilliant man, amazing writer, left-liberal with a "trust me or you're an idiot" attitude, but I learned a lot about a great many things including the real meaning of life from this book. At my age, that's something. Double check any fact you find, he's guilty (as are most good writers) of sins of omission - retelling tales of events that I was actually a part of in a way that makes them seem quite different from what really happened back then - he does so to make a point, it does make for better entertainment reading, just don't take his statements as facts without first confirming them. (Microsoft did NOT invent DOS, Seattle Computing did, Microsoft was catapulted into hugeness by selling it to IBM (my employer in the day) at $12 per license versus the leading OS of the day for 8086 microprocessors (the IBM PC used an 8088 - 16 bit thinking with 8 bit in/out channels), Digital Research's Control Process / Monitor (CP/M). Digital Research wanted $225 per license - simple decision for PC inventor IBM's Philip Donald Estridge). Real facts from someone that was really there, not a spun retelling of a retelling. Microsoft hurt a lot of brilliant startups in its early years. Computing would have been different, perhaps much better due to true diversity in the marketplace (one of Friedman's soapboxes) if MS hadn't received the windfall gift from IBM. Enjoy the reading, draw your own conclusions, but a book worth the price and your time.

A must-read for everyone intertwined on this decisive era of endless debates around different sides on this spectrum. Overall nice reflections on events that happened during the past a couple of decades and I really like the fact that at the end of the way it still requires the citizens to find a way to strengthen themselves instead of relying on issues of bombardments of instructions or principles.

Thomas Friedman takes on an ambitious agenda in this book. He tries to come up with solutions to complex problems with what seems like only a superficial understanding of the problems. He comes across as preachy and boring. There are much better books that you can read if you want to understand the accelerants (Moore's Law, Climate Change and Globalization) that this book talks about.

I heard Friedman on Charlie Rose and found him very interesting and articulate. So I got the book and looked forward to the read. I'm bored with the book. I feel like I'm reading a college text book. Very disappointing.

An interesting read especially the first half. The second have is repetitive in places and the entire book could have been shortened by a hundred pages. However, it was dynamic and interesting and worthwhile.

The two final chapters on my hometown St. Louis Park, Minnesota brought on waves of nostalgia and even a few tears. An optimistic book written at the end of the Obama era, with hardly an inkling of what was to come.

One of the most fascinating and thought provoking books I've read this year. If you, like me are feeling like the world is speeding up around you - you are correct. This book lays out how fast the world has shifted and continues to shift around us.

I really liked the beginning of the book. I was kind of wondering where the author was going. I guess it was nowhere very fast. I just think he tried to do too much. I did not care much for the personal connections/history mentioned in various chapters. All the comments about home and where he grew up...., stop it.

Tom Friedman has written a fine analysis of today's world and the multiple challenges the U. S. and other nations face in an era of accelerating technological changes, a warming and rapidly changing environment, and unprecedented population displacement due to crop failures and competing claims for dwindling resources. He draws on his own life experience growing up in a modest Minneapolis suburb that faced similar challenges on a smaller scale to illustrate how with good will and determination such challenges can be met and overcome. His optimism is infectious, and I certainly hope he's right!

This is a chatty survey of profound changes in technology that we have been and are experiencing. While it does offer some interesting material (cases), I dissent from the rave reviews given by so many (uncritical) readers. In a sense, Friedman's approach is inductive: present lots and lots of cases - citing high-flying technies and "big thinkers" - stir in heavy doses of "optimism," and call it a book. Too bad; anecdotes plus optimism do not yield a solid analysis of the broader society.

It is Friedman's right to be optimistic. but as a critical reader (and social scientist) it is my right to say that he does not make the case for where we are heading and that it will be glorious. Nor are techies and their fans (including investors making $$$$$ off tech) the best judges of what they are doing to the broader society.

If you are a regular reader of Friedman's op-ed columns in the New York Times, this book offers little that is new.

This book is really great and worth reading. Friedman shares the interesting insight into the accelerating world pertaining to technology, globalization, and environment. How they are interconnected and how they are shaping our world. However, I would like to deduct 1 score because some parts of the book, in my view, are too abstract and too specific, which could not apply to other circumstances especially the Minnesota chapter. Overall of this book is great.

This book needs to be published in a 101 form so more people will read it, call it "Thanks for Being Late 101." For starters, it should be required reading for all members of Congress, their staff and all lobbyists. In this day and age of hopelessness and disenfranchment, we all need a road out of the Armageddon we are in whether global, national, state, local or personal. This book offers a good and inspiring start.

An outstanding look at the shape of technology as it increasingly defines the state of societies across the globe. Addressing accelerations of digital technologies, population growth and environmental impacts, Friedman provides the reader with plenty to think about.

The basic idea that globalization, technology and climate change are accelerating at exponential rates while humans adapt much more slowly is interesting and probably correct. Throughout the book there are interesting examples of people who are thinking about and in these trends.
While much of the book may leave one feeling hopeless, Friedman remains an optimist. His solution, a return to the times when Friedman grew up in an age of "Minnesota nice" , reads like an old man's nostalgia.
The book would have been better as a series of 3 -5 NYTs editorials.

Well written.

He is so well traveled that his side bar stories are of note as well as the material.

I think he places too much emphasis on climate when the reality he avoids is accelerating population growth. Stress in Africa is more
than climate it is exploding population. No one wants to deal with birth control and population issues.

But a good book and as a country we are not going in his optimistic direction.

I believe Thomas Friedman may be one of those rare great intellects of our time.

His book was very timely, I had to do a lecture on weather forecasting in the 21st Century. I was able to use and integrate some
of his concepts seamlessly into the lecture. I also compared his Moore's law data to real data and CPU growth. Fun exercise in the simulation phase and easy in eXcel. One gets that half the chess board effect at about 2^28 to 2^32.

So in weather forecasting the curves are clearly in that part of the curve. Nice to simulate and nice to see.
H

Thomas Friedman can definitely edit a lot of this book, but I'm giving it 5 stars for one of the key points that he makes: EDUCATION and the need to revamp it and make it affordable. People (no matter what age) need to be lifelong learners. Government, Universities and the communities must make it virtually cost free in the age of ARTIFICIAL Intelligence. The World Citizen needs to compete and feel like he/she matter.

Fascinating, illuminating, otherwise difficult to find information gathered and well organized. Intimidating facts presented in a non intimidating manner. Worth reading twice. Knowledge an intelligent aware person should have in today's World.

Really disappointed. Am a huge Friedman fan and have read all of his books. Thank you for being late needed an editor - in a world of accelerations, having this meandering book chew uo so much time was a disappointment. The last 100 or so pages labored on and on about Minnesota and how awesome his home town is. I get it. It's an example that worked and continues to work despite monster challenges - but it could have been summarized in a few pages. Friedman is a rock star. A big thinker and has great insights. Love his books usually but am disappointed in the current one

did not enjoy this book. i have read 3 or 4 of his books, and this is the worst.
some interesting facts but mainly a very boring autobiography with many irrevelant details. whole pages on his school teachers and other minor detalis. just filling pages

I liked how mr Friedman walks through each of the elements that are redefining our world. Whie the technology components were interesting, It was his description of political chaos I appreciated the most.

great book and the optimism comes out in last two chapters!! as a kid growing up in another part of tundra (milwaukee) I identify as one of the frozen chosen and how unique our experiences were. And one of must friends went to school with Tommy (as she calls him) as well as Coen brothers and other cited by Friedman.

Friedman is not considered a futurist, but in Thank You For Being Late, he provides a compelling view into the present and future of business. For me, the most intriguing chapter is called Turning AI into IA. Extremely provocative and completely applicable.

This new book from Friedman is worth the wait. Informative, educational, challenging yet inspiring. Every serious business person should read this and understand the growing world of accelerated change. Builds hope we all need to navigate this world

My first book by Thomas Friedman and probably my last. I started this book trying to find a clear purpose. The best I could come up with is a virtually incoherent data dump of modern electronic technology. He tries and fails to include concepts of ecology and evolution and fails because he does not understand either. I only finished this book because it was a book club read. A waste.of my time.

I have loved all of this author's books that I have read so far. His experience, insight and rational descriptions of what is going on in the world seems to me to be far superior to any scholarly tombs available today.

I have been a Tom Friedman fan for many years. This book is a masterful blend of his knowledge and wisdom. He takes on 3 huge topics and blends them together in a superb and seamless manner. His optimism is clearly there. I am not sure I am as optimistic as Mr. Friedman, but his breadth of knowledge and personal testimony are very inspiring. I recommend this great book without reservation.

Too many words. Very lobg.

Basically, there is no new idea intorduced in the book but long chapters explaining how computers, data, cloud, and AI were developed in the payst decades. I guess everybody is familar with the story behind many thecnologies or their impact on life nowadays.
Rest of the book could hve been summarized in half a pge article in NYTimes.

The author understands what is happening today.
When I saw Friedman was the author, I had to read this latest book. This is why people become specialized in there fields.
Progress, but it is going very fast.

Friedman describes with horrific clarity the accelerating impact of Moore's Law on earth's climate, ecosystems, and human social-economic structures. In this "Optimist's Guide" he goes on to dismiss all this, making light of growing inequality with a thoroughly elitist slant: To be successful in the emerging world, he says, simply be better than everyone else. No coherent message message beyond this. Strongly suggest reading Robert Reich's "Saving Capitalism, For The Many Not The Few."

A distorted and absurdly simplistic take on the value of technology, which ignores the reality of the current human condition. This was a really disappointing book, and my expectations were that there would be cause for optimism. Mr. Friedman has lost objectivity, and needs to get out in the world more, and see first hand that things have not changed much at all except in the electronic world. The current chaotic state of government, the polarization of political thinking, the rise of ignorance and " alternate facts" show that Friedman's idolatry of technology, particularly social media, represents a blindness to reality. This book can be summed up as a boring fantasy.

This book takes a hard look at some very scary things in our world. Many of us are afraid to look positively toward the future because we don't understand what's happening now.
Mr.Friedman has taken the time and given us benefit of his research and experiences to present us with a clear vision of how things are today and how they can be in the future.
Should be required reading for all politicians,especially our new President .

In a wide-ranging and sweeping commentary on multiple factors that are reframing socio-economic-political conversations, Friedman provides a fairly comprehensive account of how these issues evolved and where the current equilibrium exists. That narration is, however, torturous and more often than not relies on others' insights than the author's. That gives a reader familiar with the core themes nothing new to reflect on. It is compounded by the rather uninspired editing that seems to have focused on word count than clarity of message.

Perhaps, one of the best 'insights' is the supernova concept and the retrospective analysis of the importance of 2007 - significant technological breakthroughs and service model innovations sprang up in the same year - Friedman makes a very interesting argument of the driving forces that enabled these innovations to come to fruition in the same timeframe and offers some predictions on where it may lead us. Friendman is at its worst when he meanders into how will Nature design a political policy (a very US-centric narrative) and a not-so-veiled attack at the center-right political constituencies. His penchant for verbosity is evident in a mammoth chapter (along with mathematically nonsensical charts only a consultant can produce) that can be summed as "jobs will not be stable, one has to keep adapting".

Despite these drawbacks, Friedman's account provides a good opportunity to reflect on how far the technological advances have taken us in less than a decade, and the factors that contributed to it. A reader is mostly on his/her own to try to plot the next few dots in this uncharted territory. A good read. 3.5*

Do NOT read any of the reviews of this book! Just buy it and then try to figure out what YOU are going to do to make things better. And now, more than ever, we REALLY need to work to make things better.

This is a book that is perfect for one who is really into technology, and the intricate details of previous and future uses for the extraordinary discoveries of the last several decades. If you're just a history buff this book could be a difficult read, like trying to have interest but failing. Three stars only because I wasn't into it, but 5 stars for a tech person.

I loved the book because it clearly stated where we are and what we have to do to assure we create a world in which our children can grow and prosper. It was fascinating what drove Tom to write the book from the encounter with the parking lot attendant to visiting his hometown. He is a valued asset to our world.
Fred Stern
Los Angeles

I just arrived at page 92, and the light bulb went off - in a big way! How does Friedman's insights affect me? Answer - big time! Yes, it is nice to gain insights on the world, politics, major technologies, etc., but being able to positively impact one's personal life is a big thing. Thanks, Tom.

I have read a number of Friedman books and enjoyed them all for their perspectives and ideas. Not so much this one. Friedman spends a great deal of time describing how the pace of change is accelerating. Nothing new. Chapter after chapter goes on and on with anecdotal examples to prove his point but comes off as way for Friedman to display his own self importance by dropping name after name of important people in government and science. There is a couple of pages of solutions. Then the last portion of the book is a nostalgia tour of MN and his hometown of St. Louis Park with more name dropping. Friedman ends the book by telling us that we just need to change the way we learn, trust each other more and live by the golden rule. Not up to his usual high standards.

This is essentially an autobiography wherein the author tells of all his travels and the many people he has met all over the world and down through the years, describing the complexity of the issues and in the end, doesn’t want to go back home anymore because he sees the same problems he met overseas have come to his old home town. What answers he provides are not of immediate use but of longer term dreams. Planting trees in a barren land? Providing chickens for every home? Ignoring the basic cultural fissures which mean religious divisions of centuries? Building American style education in foreign countries? How? How much? With whose permission? Our missionaries have been at work for generations trying to make progress and much of their work lies in ruins. How much foreign aid has lined the pockets of politicians and never reached those in need? How do you provide decent government when there is none? The internet is both wonderful (it speeds communication) and not so good (false information and moving bits does not move the goods on the ground and Tom still has to type each word, each letter) Tom decides to return to his safe retreat in New York and write a book on his life and adventures.

Some interesting points but I'm just annoyed that six pages in this book were blank. It's not even worth returning a book over six pages but just annoyed by the quality control in this process. Ironically, the booked it focused on the advancement of tech and intelligence in the world and has a glaring mistake in it of the simplest kind. If we're so much smarter, then why the glaring error?

I really was disappointed with this book. The author breathlessly describes a lot of things that are obvious about technological change. This is all old news and little in the way of insightful commentary. Other than
'everything is changing'. When it's really not so. Skip it.

Started off strong but quickly became a weak autobiography and liberal manifesto. It was like Friedman did not have anything left to write so he added 100 plus pages of an op ed. The first part about the "Age of Acceleration" was well analyzed and written. Not sure why he decided to switch gears. He began campaigning in one of the chapters... very strange.

I had one of those nights where too many ideas prevented me to sleep. I had pre-ordered Friedman's new book and it was now available, so I started in. I have not endorsed all of his books, but two profoundly impacted me. Lexus and the Olive Tree and World is Flat are seminal. After racing through the beginning, I can tell this one will be as well.

Started off slow, I thought I would give it a chance and keep reading, but then I heard the author bashing our president and being disrespectful, so I put it away. Unfortunately it was too late to return the book, it will be in my next donation box.

To thrive now and in the future, Friedman says, we must keep up with the recent exponential growth in our capability to transmit data. We must all be "a maker, a starter-upper, an inventor, or an innovator" and find a way to "leverage" the "supernova" (Friedman calls the Cloud the supernova, for dramatic flair). (p. 10 in the paperback)
We all need, he says, "to reimagine the whole conveyor belt from primary education to work to life-long learning" (p.217) in order to adapt, indeed conform, to innovations in high tech. So long as each community "leverages" its "local assets" and strives for "inclusive growth" (p. 394), it'll all be fair and no one need concern him or herself with the why or how of the "conveyor belt," or with the "leveraging" of their home mortgage or of how many times they roll over in bed. The beauty of now, Friedman says, is that "complexity became fast, free, easy for you, and invisible." (p.99) We now live in an "on-demand world" (p. 219) and "the future will belong to those who have the self-motivation to take advantage of all the free and cheap tools." (p. 220)
Despite chapters on climate change and political destabilization, Friedman never questions the human value of the achievements of the many good buddies he consults at the pinnacles of the corporate world or whether big data is really "free" and "easy." Instead, technocrats are by definition heroes for contributing to growth: the bigger your contribution to economic growth, the more you deserve, "and with big data we will get better and better at measuring just exactly what your contribution is." (ibid.) He fails to consider the corollary of this: a disabled person, a subsistence farmer, an unpaid activist, a nun, a thrifty stay-at-home parent, and everyone who gets a low wage all, by this definition, contribute little or nothing and deserve poverty.
Ignoring the cost of data servers and consumption, planned obsolescence, and discarded hardware, and, despite his title, the cost of time spent in adaptation, he fails to consider the possibility that to turn every economic game into flows of data may leave us in the plight of King Midas, surrounded by gold, with nothing to eat.
The book interestingly describes recent technological innovations and lays out part of the problem, but illustrates the danger we stand in, including our present political impasse, in a very different way than Friedman intends.

This is a must read for adults especially those of you who might be educators, The title belies its contents as it discusses the exponential progress of climate change, technology and globalization. Many prominent scientists and tech experts are contributors. This is a thought provoking book that should be required reading for those of us who are active participants in our communities.

Thomas Friedman is one of my favorite authors and columnists. He lives up to my expectations in his most recent book THANK YOU FOR BEING LATE. As a reporter and columnist, Friedman is well informed and fully aware of the current three largest forces on the planet. Technology, globalization and climate change are all accelerating at once that, according to Friedman, most people cannot absorb all those changes; our social structures are failing to keep pace with the rate of change. Friedman with three Pulitzer Prizes is one of today’s best writers and thinkers. He is blessed with the gift of foresight which makes him wise.

No one breaks down complex and timely global issues like Thomas Friedman does. He knows American interests, its values and its diversified cultures and traditions. THANK YOU FOR BEING LATE is a timely book with substance about where we are today, and in the near future, as a country and individuals. This book is definitely a captive, informative, educational and enlightening read! This book should be on everyone's reading list.

"In 1904, the literary figure Henry Adams diagnosed the existence of a “law of acceleration,” fundamental to the workings
of social development, in order to make sense of the rapidly changing spatial and temporal contours of human activity. Modern society could only be properly understood if the seemingly irrepressible acceleration of basic technological and social processes was given a central place in social and historical analysis (Adams 1931 [1904])." Adams, Henry, 1931, The Education of Henry Adams, New York: Modern Library. retrieved from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy under "Globalization" first published June 21, 2002.
Friedman is not substantiating anything beyond a hook, line and sinker baited with some highly ornamental language and catch phrases to express opinion that sells confirmation bias to the choir. His absolute best work was From Beirut to Jerusalem which I can not praise enough,
but nothing has compared to that success. It has been market repuutation (Washington Bureau NY Times) with prolific glossy output after that work, but it should be said that the 'law of acceleration' matches his marketed publications ever since that original serious work. His "opinions" are interesting reading, easy chair reading; but do not rise above many magazine articles in contemporary media that expose and reveal critical journalistic discoveries. As an "insider" in the establishment, Friedman is not giving us the real politik of social forces at work as he surely must kniow it.

Friedman writes a usually excellent New York Times column about foreign affairs. However, when he moves into areas such as economics (eg. supporting globalization - despite the obvious detrimental impact on the U.S.), technology, and sometimes politics, the quality drops considerably. Unfortunately, this book is mostly about issues other than foreign affairs, though that is not to say he has nothing worthwhile to say. However, his basic message - 'That it is going to be O.K.' remains to be seen.

It is definitely true that today's pace and extent of change is far faster and broader than it was hundreds of years ago (glacial, at best), or even 50 years ago. Others have pointed this out, most notably Ray Kurzweil. A major underlying factor - Moore's Law, well expounded upon elsewhere. DNA research, along with research in general (eg. data analytics) is also now accelerating - at a rate faster than Moore's Law, while electronics in general have gone through many revisions. Another has been the recognition of the need for clean power - solar power is also improving at a rate faster than Moore's Law. Now even the future of work itself is being threatened.

Not all these changes have helped Main Street - the most obvious example being globalization. Another is financialization's now also hollowing out America. And some important segments continue to resist/avoid change - U.S. healthcare (world's most expensive, despite being non-universal and often of relatively low quality), our public schools (again, the world's most expensive - except Luxembourg, while only middling in achievement), and the world's production of CO2. And, productivity hasn't participated in these rapid improvements, nor is it likely to - unless robot growth soon escalates, bringing another set of major societal problems.

Meanwhile, America has gone from being the world's greatest creditor nation to its largest debtor nation while accumulating a $13 trillion merchandise trade deficit since 1980. Byproducts include lessened/lost opportunities for today's students when they enter the world of work, a hollowing out of our manufacturing and research capabilities - and concomitant greater reliance on other nations to maintain our standard of living, enormous unfunded health care and pension liabilities, an adult population ranking relatively low skill-wise vs. other nations, and a political system paralyzed and dominated by rancor, ideology, childish militarism/nationalism/bullying, falsehoods, and half-truths by both sides. Our military is far too large to financially support, vastly diminished in power by asymmetric warfare too lethal to challenge anyone and everyone, and enemies far too numerous (including Middle Eastern terrorists) for us to continue to act like we run the world.

Meanwhile, we continue pandering to Israel, making little effort to conserve oil, trying to manage China, Russia, Iran, and most every other locale. Eventually, these problems will blow up in our face - Friedman should focus on addressing them.

While this book started out with some interesting stories, it rapidly became a rambling recount of one anecdote after another to illustrate the initial idea that technology is moving fast (according to Moore's Law...and please forgive the author for confusing ML as the underlying system rather than a interesting descriptor (of chip functional growth}). Friedman tries to link all the things going on in the world from climate change to the rise of weakened states to the loss of trust between human social groups and does a miserable job of it. I continued reading this hodge podge with the hope that the solutions he must surely be getting to would be enlightening. Don't fall into the same trap as I did. He has none. This book seems to serve only the author's brand. I am jealous of the exposure he gets to truly fascinating projects, men/women, in industry, education, and government. Too bad he does a really bad job of sharing those ideas.

This is Thomas Friedman’s seventh book. The author also mentioned in the beginning of this book that it could be his last one. I have read the hardcover version of this book, borrowed from a library. Before that, I have gifted this book to quite a few colleagues of mine. The popularity of the author played a significant role in influencing my gifting decision. For me this has been the fourth book of this author I read.

Thomas Friedman is a terrific narrator of the world the way it unfolds in front of him. In this book, he picked up the technological advancements and tried to gather a worldview through that lens. The author showcased the year 2007 as the cusp of the impact full breakthrough of this decade. While the technologist in me argues that technological advancement is a continuous phenomenon where every year happens to be a collection of pathbreaking advancements, I quite liked the way 2007 has been compiled in this book. The author described the events through a variety of graphs that would certainly help all kind of readers to easily comprehend and continue reading.

The most fascinating section in the first half of the book is the rediscovery of Moore’s law. Those who are into the business of computer hardware and software should know this law pretty well. This is the law that Gordon Moore of Intel posulated some 50 years back, and the law still holds good as the technological advancements have been gaining accceleration. The author derived quite a few corollaries from the basic law and applied its relevance to other parts of the world as well. The author correlated this with the market, the machine, and the Mother Nature to help us understand how everything is moving too fast.

The second part of the book delved much more into that, and towards the end the author shifted direction to his home town in Minnesota. The author tried to emphasise the importance of building thriving and tolerant communities. The author tried to emphasise the importance of education and strong school system in the society. The author tried to emphasise the need for a strong political leadership that can visualise and work for long term. However, this is the area where I found the book is dragging its text too much. I read the hardcover version, after page 358, that is section 12 onwards the book has become too long. The remaining 100 pages could have been condensed to half its size.

Having said that, the author started the book quite nicely with the annecdote of being late. In the world of fast moving everything, it is important to slow down and let the mind do some serious fast moving work - thinking and reflecting. While the visitors were getting late, the author used to get some extra time to think freely and observer the surrounding quietly. That ignited this book idea in the author’s mind. I think it is true for every human being - thinking free with a reflecting mind helps gaining some terrific insights about the world and related affairs. The author finished the book in the same tone - it’s ok to be a bit late as long as an individual sticks to the values and tolerant culture that’s called home.

Like the other three books of this author, I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. This is a book that I would recommend others to read as well.

Based upon Thomas Friedman's previous books, I pr-ordered Thanks for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations from the store. The book itself wasn't late and arrived right on time today. I am very much looking forward to reading it, and I will update my review after having read it. However, right away I notice something missing from this book that I was looking forward to----mention of other seminal works on accelerating change that have come before it.

I frequently notice that programs and projects don't often like to mention the successes of similar programs and projects that preceded them, and in fact sometimes upon which they are based. Similarly, authors frequently fail to mention the contributions of other works on the same subject that preceded theirs. This is a shame since, to the reader, this would provide a deeper context for the reader and would help the reader make sense out of everything----especially on the subject of accelerating change.

Regarding Thank You for Being Late, I think Mr. Friedman should have included mention of Alvin Toffler's seminal works Future Shock and The Third Wave. Also, John Naisbitt's Megatrends: Ten New Directions Transforming Our Lives. Recently, Steve Case's The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur's Vision of the Future. Scanning the Table of Contents and Index of Thank You for Being Late, I see no reference to any of these best sellers. In a 486-page book, it seems it would have been worth it to add 10 more pages to link this book to the works of Toffler, Naisbitt, Case, and perhaps others. I think it would have been helpful to the reader. Perhaps in the next edition. Perhaps during conversations Mr. Friedman no doubt will be having about his book on many cable news shows. I will be watching.

Thank you, Mr. Friedman, for the gift you left at my front door this morning.

John Lewis

Since there are hundreds of reviews of this book, I will not attempt to summarize it since that has been done amply in other reviews. I will say, however, that the long presentations on Moore's Law, the Supernova, the Market, and Mother Nature are provocative and enlightening. They give much to think about and help us to understand how we got to the point we are at today. And that point is . . . extreme individualism undermining community and the common good, loss of low-skill jobs in some communities bringing the residents to the brink of poverty or worse while in other localities there is a great shortage of skilled workers to do these available jobs, and indifference to what most now recognize as world-changing global warming. This discussion is a book in itself.

Friedman makes many good points about the importance of good leadership which promotes community and the common good. There is much to think about here too. Community (or communio) and promoting the common good are central principles of Catholic social teaching. They are ignored by most Catholics just as they are by society in general, but they are an important part of the solution. All considered, this is a very provocative book.

However--and this is why I gave the book just 4 stars--where were the editors to tell Friedman that the book is too long?!? We do not need to read every thought and hear about every meeting Friedman had when thinking about the topics in the book. (This was his problem, too, in "From Beirut to Jerusalem.") The whole book could be reduced to 350 pages or at most 400 pages. I'm willing to bet that Friedman lost many readers along the way. If I weren't so compulsive, I would have quit the book before the halfway point. And I needed to read it for a book club. Still, I found the analysis fascinating and compelling. This kept me going long after the book became drudgery.

Regarding our discussion of this book in our Catholic parish book club, we generally found it a positive experience, especially those most interested in technology. Also, the chapters on the Minnesota experience generated positive comments and much discussion. A common complaint was that the book is too long and could easily be two books.

Summary: Three increasingly fast movements are unsettling the world. Friedman, without minimizing the danger, gives an optimistic account of how we can survive and thrive.

I am broadly a fan of Thomas Friedman's general worldview. He is a progressive (by the definition of Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind's understanding). He is a globalist (in a non-pejorative sense.) He is fascinated with technology, and while not universally trusting in it, he thinks that technology is the way that many of the problems of our world have been and will be solved. He also thinks that government has a role is cushioning the problems of the global markets and regulating those markets for the benefit average person. He does not easily fit into a left/right dichotomy on issues of economics, social safety net, foreign policy or many other issues.

But it has been a few years since I have read one of his books and I am not a regular reader of the New York Times or his columns. Friedman is a bit of an outsider at this point. He falls into the general charge of technocrat and the problems with that label. He is deeply knowledgeable about world politics and for more immigration and more international cooperation, which again, is unfashionable. And Friedman is generally writing as an optimist with wonder about the world in an age that is more cynical and pessimistic.

Thank You for Being Late is broadly about the increasing (and Friedman uses the term exponential often) growth of three area, computing (especially the movement toward big data), global market forces (and this is broad to include trade, immigration and migration and ideas) and climate change. Friedman is not shy about the fact that the world is scary. We know more about the world know than at any other time and we cannot and should not hide from that knowledge. But we also have limited capacity to absorb and process and change.

The title is from a phrase that Friedman frequently tells people that he interviews. "Thank you for being late". He frequently meets people for early breakfasts to interview them. And because of traffic or bad planning or other reasons, it is not infrequent that his guests are late. He has started to say thank you because it is only in those unplanned free times that he can think and process. The quote from this section (and I listened to this on audiobook, so I believe this is accurate, but transcribed.)

"The ancients believed there is wisdom in patience, and that wisdom comes from patience. Patience wasn't just the absence of speed, it was the space for reflection and thought. We are generating more knowledge than ever before...but knowledge is only good if you can reflect on it."
I like Friedman's writing style, but he can tend to overwhelm the reader with examples and stories to make his point. So there is far too many fascinating stories and examples that prove his point to really mention. But starting in about 2007, there has been an exponential growth in the ability of technology to collect and harness data. Part of this is felt in the always connected worker. But it is also felt in the slightly too targeted ads that feel like someone is always watching you, and they are.

The use of big data, and the continued shrinking of tech so that iPhones and small sensors and drones can do things that were not really even imagined just a few years ago has cooperated with increasing global markets to make the world seem very, very fast and not particularly friendly to the average small business or worker. Jobs are being gained on the whole, but many of those that are being lost are being replaced by automation or lower wage replacement workers (either locally or somewhere else.) The markets have not been friendly to the working class and/or lower skilled worker, especially in some particular parts of the economy.

Add to that the real effects to the climate that are being felt around the world and you have the perfect storm. (The US has felt some effects of climate change, but there are many areas where climate change is very real. The description of the refugee migration in Africa as a result of the mix of climate change, war and poverty was eerily similar to Parable of the Sower. Friedman was a middle east correspondent for 20 years and spent some time talking about how climate change influenced, but did not solely cause, the current Syrian war.)

So for the first 2/3 of the book I alternated between wonder and terror. Innovation and technology can be amazing. But the implications of innovation and technology can be terrifying. Globalization can and has driven many people from the lowest part of world poverty, but also is knocking many previously middle class people back into poverty. And climate change is almost solely terrifying.

Friedman suggests that history is driven by contacts with those around them. The innovative adapt and incorporate, and the more brittle resistant cultures resist and reject the other. Part of the implication of this is that they learn less from others and lose the ability to contribute new ideas to the mix that come about because of adaptations and innovations. Friedman does not explicitly draw on Haidt's Moral Foundations Theory. But it is hard not to see the problem with inherently conservative values of loyalty (to the local group and culture) and purity (against innovative and outside views) being a weakness to globalization, technological change and climate change.

Looking within the US, many rural, or to a lessor extent the White working class that is non-rural, are reacting against innovation, globalization and pluralism with both the election of Donald Trump and the rise of Bernie Sanders. Those conservative values are positive according to Haidt's theory (because that loyalty and purity and other conservative values have positive aspects as well as negative.) But according to Friedman's theory of globalization, there is an inherent negative aspect to it. With the exponential growth of computers (requiring continuous education and retraining) and the exponential growth of globalization (requiring cultural pluralism) these conservative principles have a real negative impact on job growth and wealth creation. And many in the US still deny that climate change even exists as a real problem.

Approximately the last 1/3 of the book is Friedman's own reflections on his life, his community and how he has experienced change. Friedman is 63 years old. When he started as a journalist, he was typing with manual typewriters. He described how his job as a foreign journalist changed over the years, continually dealing with new technology and changing expectations for the job. And he has a long section about the suburban Minneapolis community of St Louis Park, where he grew up. That community was one of the few suburban areas open to Jewish residents and in a small period of time generated a remarkable number of world famous people. Friedman posits that it was the forced pluralism and integration of ideas that helped to generate people as widely known as the Coen Brothers, Senator Al Franken, Marc Trestman (NFL) and more.

Friedman walks through that long autobiographical and community section to suggest that if we create good pluralistic environments (not just on acceptance of the other, but a pluralism based on trust and respect of the other), we value strong, continuous education, local innovation in government and industry, we do the hard things, just not the expedient or easy things, we work on including the whole population, not just those that want to be included, etc, then we can come out of this perfect storm as a storm of opportunity and not disaster.

The weakness of the book is that it does not seriously address the problems of the parts of the world that are resistant to change or actually against increasing change. Friedman views resistance to change as not only a weakness, but a rejection of reality. He isn't dismissing the pain of change or the unequalness of who is forced to change. But this is already a long book and I do not think that Friedman has the psychological or sociological chops to really deal with that weakness.

The positive of the book is that it really is an optimists guide to subjects that are actually pretty scary.

I should have known that “Thank You for Being Late” is not for me, and not just because I’m not an optimist when it comes to our “Age of Accelerations”. The book has an interesting premise in that idea (the need for a “Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations”), and borrows perhaps its strongest metaphor for it from a Brandi Carlile song, The Eye: “You can dance in a hurricane / But only if you're standing in the eye.” However, the fundamental flaw in the book is not its sheer ambition (“A field guide to the twenty-first century, written by one of its most celebrated observers”, something that could be admired had it been successful) but the ego behind that ambition (apparent in that blurb) which eventually trips it, as is often the case.

The book attempts to achieve a universal appeal from a very personal point of you. But in order to stand a chance of doing that, a writer has to be able to get over his ego enough to make the ideas and experiences relatable to a global audience. And unfortunately, Friedman is so full of himself that he simply cannot do that. For all its talk of humanity and globalism, the book is way too American in its point of view and focus. That paradox is made clear in a quote towards the end of the book:

“I could put my core values on a bumper sticker, but I would need your whole bumper: I am a socially liberal, deeply patriotic, pluralism-loving, community-oriented, fiscally moderate, free-trade-inclined, innovation-obsessed environmentalist capitalist. I believe that America at its best--and we're not always at our best--can deliver a life of decency, security, opportunity, and freedom for its own people, and can also be a bulwark of stability and a beacon of liberty and justice for people the world over. How did l come to this worldview? As I said, not by reading any particular philosophers.”

Friedman knows that his core values are not only deeply personal but contradictory, too. Hey, whose aren’t, right? The thing is, though, most of us that are aware of that (and have normal size egoes) don’t claim to have written a “field guide to the twenty-first century” nor bill ourselves as “its most celebrated observers”. (If you’re looking for something closer to that, check out instead “Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow” by Yuval Noah Harari.) And most who do, would not dismiss philosophers so blithely. However, Friedman is somehow not bothered by the inconsistencies in his thought brought about by the idiosyncrasies of biography. Instead of trying to address them, learn from them and transcend them (something that would have been laudable, perhaps even valuable), he instead tries to force them together into an grotesquely incoherent mishmash of platitudes held together only by that formidable ego. He obtusely tries to throw these incoherencies upon humanity, not caring much how well they may fit, let alone stick. Not only does he borrow metaphors left and right (from folk rock song lyrics and systolic and diastolic blood pressure, to Hollywood movies and studies on NPR about dance coordination), but he then squeezes them beyond their endurance, resulting in a text that would be funny had it not been so pretentious.

Friedman’s focus is even narrower than simply American, it’s Jewish-American. And this so-called deep patriotism and religious tribalism seem to blind him to the hypocrisies of his book, the gaping chasm between the globalist humanism he’s advocating and his narrow tribal allegiances (primarily to the US, secondarily to Israel). Any critique of these allegiances remains at surface level (lip service) at best, while he smears the stereotypes unsparingly, thick and heavy, upon the rivals of this American-Israeli axis: we’re not just talking about Palestinians and Syrians here, but he extends it of course to Iran, Russia and China. (Again, for an infinitely better example on moving beyond one’s accidents of birth to reach for a truly transcendent humanism, see Harari’s “Homo Deus”--an Israeli, for what it’s worth.)

Friedman divides the World not into the politically correct “Developed” and “Developing”, but rather the inanely rebranded Worlds of “Control” and “Kaos”--yes, complete with the obnoxious arcane spelling. (And this is actually not the most obnoxious rebranding in the book: he tries so squirm-inducingly hard to make his inane rebranding of the cloud as “supernova” happen. Dude, it ain’t gonna!). Like many apologists for the “Developed World”, Friedman would like to pretend that it has nothing to do with sowing the chaos in that “other” part of the world:
“Syrians forgot how to be human in Syria. That is true of a lot of people in Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Yemen, the Congo, Rwanda, Ukraine, and Bosnia as well—way too many of them reached a point where they hated each other more than they loved their own children.”

This smacks of Golda Meir’s abhorrent quote:
“We can forgive the Arabs for killing our children. We cannot forgive them for forcing us to kill their children. We will only have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”

And then he has the temerity to wax poetic about transforming the “other” to a more inclusive “all”. We--the other chaotic Arabs that do not adhere to American-Israeli dictum--have a saying for that: “He killed him and walked in his funeral procession” and “If you have no shame then do whatever you want.” They’re meant as warnings, not challenges. But we live in a shameless world.

While I don't agree with everything he says, the overarching message of this book is spot on. I thought his comparison of the problems in the Middle East with the distrust and gridlock in our politics and national discourse here in the USA makes a very good point. It's as if we are losing our way at the top levels of government and we need to reground ourselves and revisit our roots, not with the haze of nostalgia clouding our sight, but with a clear and analytical examination of why where we came from and what we believe made us such a great nation. Time is always running out, for all of us, in one way or another. But it seems we are running out the clock without realizing that we have fallen behind. We can't just keep passing the ball around (or the Buck). We need to get back in the game and face the reality that winning takes work, especially teamwork.

Review of Friedman's "Thank you for being late" by Paul F. Ross

Journalists and historians observe events, report them, and seek to understand the forces that produced the observed outcomes. They may, as Friedman does in this work, imagine how to modify the "carried forward" results of these forces. On the way to success as journalist, Friedman has developed communication skills that are outstanding. This work is worth reading and pondering.

Friedman sees four forces accelerating as they impact our times ... the rapid advance of technology under the influence of Moore's Law, the online store of information growing as "the cloud" which Friedman renames the "supernova," the globalization of the flow of goods and information which he calls the market, and the rapid climate change stimulated by human activities releasing carbon dioxide in the 250 years since the invention of the steam engine marking the start of the industrial revolution. These changes
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Friedman, Thomas L. "Thank you for being late: An optimist's guide to thriving in the age of accelerations" 2016, Farar, Strauss, and Giroux, New York NY, vii + 486 pages
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are occurring at an exponential rate of change (p 166-167), a rate grandly under-acknowledged by human expectations. Friedman's description of the change in technology for typing and filing a story during his lifetime (p 188-193) is a jewel. To avoid almost unimaginable damage, Friedman says correctly that human societies need to adapt, changing our 20th and 21st century means for managing ourselves. According to Friedman, we should adopt, among other things, a 17-point list of changes (p 328-336) that Mother Nature would make if she had a political party leading human governments' actions. Even this is not sufficient in Friedman's view for we must also change humankind's moral direction ... such as by adopting the Golden Rule. This reader is reminded of his own parents' lifetimes' devotion to selling the Golden Rule as Methodist clergyman and wife, they standing in a 2,000 year effort representing just the Christian part of the world's multiple religions seeking to shape the moral fabric of society. Happily, their efforts have not gone without reward as recorded as a change in behavior by behavioral scientist Pinker (2011). Friedman points in the right directions ... urging that his directions are neither "left" nor "right" although they appear to be directions that many would label as liberal.

Friedman's method is to tell stories, stories upon stories upon stories, about half coming from his career as journalist and an equal number coming from the reportage of others. The separation in method between journalist and scientist is stark. The journalist tells story after story that make the same point thus underlining the truth at the core of the stories. The scientist understands the journalist's method is not trustworthy since stories can be selected to repeat each other, overlooking contrary evidence. The scientist, instead, observes case after case of randomly chosen "stories," following each plot to its outcomes, then counting the rate at which the guessed "cause" leads to the hypothesized outcome. This work by Friedman suffers the errors of the journalist's and historian's methods, overlooking some crucially important scientific knowledge.

Friedman properly sees the importance of managing human capital. For example, he rails against the practice by employers requiring that job applicants for certain jobs be college graduates when as few as twenty percent of current incumbents on that job, performing admirably, are college graduates ... the non-graduate doing very well, thank you. Employers deserve Friedman's criticisms. This reader and behavioral scientist knows that psychological science has been demonstrating for a century that collecting a spectrum of information about a job applicant's training and other lifetime experience can be summarized, by algorithm applied by computer, to guide decisions-to-hire that lead to much higher on-the-job performance for those hired than do current hiring practices ... yet this reader also knows that few employers know of these methods and use them. Graduates of the world's best universities and business schools, leading today's most admired organizations, emerge not knowing of this potential contribution from the behavioral sciences (along with a good many other potential contributions to daily practice from those sciences). Employment practices today are almost as devoid of the influence of science as they were in 1900 before the scientific knowledge had been developed. Friedman properly understands and advocates that today's careers require lifelong learning ... but Friedman himself has failed to learn that science knows important remedies for the practices against which Friedman properly rails. Journalists can do hundreds of interviews, read hundreds of books, but unless the journalist happens to interview or read someone informed on the core topic, the self-guided method for gleaning knowledge from others fails to uncover current knowledge.

Two opportunities to improve the human future, derived from psychology and unrecognized by Friedman, merit description since their use could produce enormous benefits. (1) Friedman reports that humans are "hard wired" as tribal creatures. "Hard wired" is a favorite idea coming from the biological sciences. "Inherited characteristics," it is claimed, determine most of what is important in an individual's behavior for a lifetime. This notion overlooks the massive evidence that many aspects of personality and behavioral direction are learned by the individual human in the first ten or fifteen years of life and remain stable into old age. Providing health-nurturing nuclear family life and further nurturing through schooling are ways to grandly reduce the "disturbed" and "cruelly aggressive" direction that some human life trajectories follow. Schooling at every level around the world fails to teach parenting and nurturing basics. Virtually our only instruction in nurturing infant lives is the infancy we ourselves experienced with our parents, our caretakers. Do you believe that the one-month old you happen to see in its parents' arms is "hard wired" to become a criminal? I don't ... and no scientifically credible data known to me suggest that such "character hard wiring" is true. I do know that inherited characteristics have very important influence on life's trajectories – if you wish to be a four-minute miler, it is better to have inherited long legs; if you wish to be a famous scientist, it is better to have had intelligent parents. I also know that the nurture received in early life is all but overlooked in society's thoughts and practices. (2) Psychology knows both that rewarded behavior is likely to be repeated and that capable fellow workers can report accurately the kinds of job performance that I as an individual produce on a day-in, day-out basis. Yet 21st century practice in organizations of every kind fails to collect this knowledge about job performance and reward high performers for their performance, assigning them new responsibilities based on their demonstrated past performance. It is nearly universal practice to "ask the boss" for the only view sought about job performance and collect/record that view using a single number ... somewhere between 5 and 1. Even this information is overlooked as individuals are asked to undertake new responsibilities. The executive-leader, according to cultural norms, has the right and privilege of choosing the "team" with which s/he will work. We all know of the unfairness and injustice in current decision processes yet remain resolutely unwilling to adopt repairs available from psychology. Friedman's extraordinary sensitivity to the need for new knowledge and career-long learning, the continuing adaptation of today's societies to new modes of operation, have not introduced him to these basics from the behavioral sciences.

So, insightful as is the work of this outstanding journalist and viewer of our world, thoughtful and correct as are many of his diagnoses and understandings of needed future direction for the world's societies, his work too needs to be read with an active and skeptical mind. This reader hopes that this work by Friedman, along with this review of Friedman's work, are widely read.

Bellevue, Washington
1 June 2017

Copyright © 2017 by Paul F. Ross All rights reserved.

References

Friedman, Thomas L. Thank you for being late: An optimist's guide to thriving in the age of accelerations 2016, Farar, Strauss, and Giroux, New York NY

Pinker, Steven The better angels of our nature: Why violence has declined 2011, Viking, New York NY

In this book, Tom Friedman discusses some daunting problems that face humanity and offers solutions to them. While the subject matter is extremely important, his treatment of it is uneven. In my opinion, he does not define the problems coherently while his solutions are very general and not actionable. The book suffers from not having an integrated final summary and a well-thought-out conclusion. Nevertheless, the book contains the results of a large number of interviews and much useful evidence. It is well worth reading but I recommend arriving at your own conclusions.

Mr. Friedman calls the problems we face “accelerations”, meaning that their rate of change is increasing. Under this heading, he includes digital technologies with all the business and social developments associated with them, human overpopulation of the globe and its consequences (including climate change), and the collapse of governments and societies in many parts of the world.

Some five chapters are spent on the growth and significance of the internet and of Big Data, including Moore’s Law and the Cloud (which Mr. Friedman renames the Supernova). This discussion is accompanied by many examples backed up with data and details. I think it unlikely that anyone would dispute his conclusion that the pace of change is unprecedented in human experience.

Where I differ from Mr. Friedman’s account of internet-associated technologies (the first five chapters of the book) is that his treatment is starry-eyed and uncritical. He spends a great deal of time on what he sees as the benefits, but he does little to question his own claims or to consider the downsides of these technologies. For example, Mr. Friedman emphasizes the magnitude of what he calls “the flow” across the global internet. However, he does not attempt to assess the value of the flow. Zeros and ones have no value in themselves, it is the informational or intellectual content that they carry that is important: A million photos a day of people’s dinners is not going to improve the human condition and it is not difficult to make the case that a lot of the content in the flow is inane, profane, untrue, or ephemeral. Even more troubling is that Real GDP growth in the United States has shown no improvement over the past twenty years; in fact, the average growth since 1990 is 2.4% compared to 3.6% for the period 1960 to 1990 and 3.2% for the seventy years since 1947. If the technology changes are as revolutionary as Mr. Friedman and others claim, if they have made us so much more efficient and better informed, if they have enabled so much innovation, why have we not seen a step increase in GDP growth, instead of the decrease that has actually occurred? Mr. Friedman dismisses the question as a “transition” problem. But Moore’s Law was conceived in 1965, making this an unrealistically long transition. Consider also Big Data. Much of the data being mined is our personal data that is stored, sold, and analyzed, without our permission, by those we deal with – Facebook, Google, the store, our banks, our cell phone and internet service providers, and large data companies we have never heard of. So far, data mining appears to have been clumsy and ineffective. However, we should assume that it will soon become much more accurate and effective. When that happens, our every move, wherever we go, whatever we buy, our personal communications, our tastes, and perhaps even the conversations in our homes will be compiled, stored, and available for access by any company (perhaps any individual) who wishes to pay for them. The government will also have access to all this data. We will have no privacy. This is a high price to pay. A further down-side of the internet is its potential as a tool for criminals, terrorists, and hostile states. Others lie in the socially negative aspects of social media, which range from global-scale dissemination of false information to anonymous personal attacks on individuals. Mr. Friedman does not discuss these issues.

Nonetheless, while I believe that the problems associated with the internet are real, I do not see them as existential or different in kind from others we have experience in the past: The Industrial Revolution, air travel, television, and the civil rights movement have all caused huge adjustments, without breaking down our social and governmental structures. In contrast, I am much more concerned about the increasing pace of automation, robotics and Artificial Intelligence. These have already had substantial effects on our society and promise to be even more disruptive in the future. A current direct result is that we are suffering under the worst President in memory who was elected out of the anger and desperation of middle-class people who have seen their income and benefits plummet in the past two generations, due in large part to the loss of well-paying jobs to automation. Imagine the upheaval that will occur when trucks and cars no longer need drivers and, further down the road, when Artificial Intelligence can perform many other skilled and professional jobs such as hardware and software design. Mr. Friedman claims that this situation will increase the demand for even higher-level skills and that continuous on-line education and what he calls Intelligent Assistants will enable those displaced to satisfy the requirements for these more highly skilled jobs. He does not attempt to answer the question of whether the number of new openings will be sufficient to employ those displaced from traditional jobs. However, he gives an interesting example of a life-long training program established by AT&T for its employees. Significantly, AT&T says that this will lead to a smaller and smarter workforce. Smarter is good but what will happen to those displaced from AT&T’s employment? This issue of job losses to automation is one of the most critical that we face. It is not adequately recognized by either political party and it is not given serious treatment in this book. Instead, Mr. Friedman paints a cheerful picture of on-demand workers choosing when and where they want to work but assumes that there will be sufficient employment.

One of the accelerations discussed by Mr. Friedman is global over-population and its consequences: Climate change, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and depletion and pollution of the oceans. In my opinion, this is by far the biggest problem that we face. To make matters worse, the root cause, over-population, is absent from national and global political discussion. Mr. Friedman makes a brave attempt to raise and illustrate the importance of the issue. His “solutions” are similar to those offered previously by the relatively few experts who have studied the problem: Global education of women, a carbon tax, clean energy technologies, etc. Even if these solutions are adequate (which is unproven) how are they to be implemented? Perhaps because the problem is so intractable, Mr. Friedman, like most of us, does not spend as much time on the subject as it deserves.

Another acceleration discussed in the book is world disorder: The chaotic state of some of the smaller and weaker nations particularly in the Middle East and Africa. These are nations with unstable governments, terrorist groups, and large numbers of (mainly male) emigrants seeking work elsewhere. Mr. Friedman points out that these countries became dependent on foreign aid from both sides during the Cold War and are now suffering as that aid diminishes. This exacerbates the problems caused by loss of arable land from desertification and the pressures of an increasing population. The terrorism and anarchy that result are then compounded by internet communications and weapons technology that can be downloaded from the internet. Mr. Friedman’s solution that he calls amplify, deter, and degrade is essentially to keep on doing what we have been doing. This, according to a well-known aphorism, will mean that we will keep on getting what we have been getting; not a very encouraging prospect.

In the remainder of the book, Mr. Friedman first looks to Mother Nature for guidance. His interpretation of Mother Nature is certainly open to question but, worse, it is purely inspirational, such as we must “learn to adapt”, rather than actionable. He also lists political policies that he says Mother Nature would favor, such as a single-payer universal health care system. Even if he is correct about Mother Nature (which I question), this and his other policies have been on the table for decades; the issue is how do we implement them? In the closing chapters, he takes two nostalgic trips back to his hometown of St. Louis Park, Minnesota, first down memory lane to his childhood and then to see how it is today. From these trips, he concludes that one of the foundations of the future will be for each of us to feel that there is a community to which we belong. While this is certainly a fine goal, it is not clear how it will enable us to overcome rapidly increasing automation and global over-population.

Finally, I do not agree that the huge issues we face are due primarily to acceleration of change. In my opinion, they are caused by our refusal to admit that they exist, thus preventing us from acting to correct or mitigate them. The loss of jobs to automation is not new. For example, automobile production has been significantly automated for well over 30 years (the first industrial robot in the automotive industry dates to 1961) while evidence of overpopulation and climate change have been building up for 60 years. We have failed to recognize these immense problems and, as a nation, we refuse to recognize them now.

I am sorry to say that I do not share Mr. Friedman’s optimism. Nonetheless, I am grateful that this book has made me think more deeply about these crucial issues.

Globalization and technology can save the world or destroy it. Thomas Friedman has always leaned toward the “save” camp. But in his latest book, “Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations,” Mr. Friedman devotes considerable attention to the challenges facing the world in the coming decades. Many of these challenges are exacerbated by the same trends that he promotes. He does not deny this paradox. Instead, he uses it as a springboard to propose a wide range of policy solutions.

The biggest downfall of this book is the contradictory nature of these proposals. Mr. Friedman is in favor of a single-payer universal health care system and employment insurance, both of which would ease the pain of globalization in the West. Yet in the same chapter Mr. Friedman proposes eliminating the corporate income tax. He predicts this would unleash a wave of innovation that would pay for the expanded social safety net. It’s as if he learned nothing from the tax policies of the last 40 years.

At times “Thank You” feels more like a collection of columns than a book. It is filled with optimistic anecdotes that will sound familiar to Mr. Friedman’s regular readers. He has a tendency to oversimplify, such as when he splits the globe into “The World of Order” (the West) and “The World of Disorder” (the rest). The book is peppered with trite phrases that sound as if they were lifted from evangelical sermons (“...reshaping more things in more places in more ways on more days.”).

These faults should not deter anyone from reading this book. Mr. Friedman is an astute global observer. He is at his best when explaining the intersections of trends that are shaping our world. While his proposed solutions are questionable, all readers should recognize that the problems Mr. Friedman seeks to address are real. And they are multiplying--fast.

My heartfelt thanks to the author for this brilliant summary of what happened in the last decade after 2007 when all "heavens" broke loose with the advance of computing power and mobile technology. A little disappointment for the last few chapters which covered politics and environmental protection that turned out to be, pardon me, narrow and boring. Anyway, a great read. Highly recommended!

p.s. Below please find some favorite passages of mine for your reference.
Innovation is a cycle of experimenting, learning, applying knowledge, and then assessing success or failure. And when the outcome is failure, that’s just a reason to start the cycle over again. Pg35
One of X’s motto is “Fail fast. I don’t care how much progress you make this month. My job is to cause your rate of improvement to increase – how do we make the same mistake in half the time for half the money…..The time of static stability has passed us by….the new kind of stability has to be dynamic stability. There are some ways of being, like riding a bicycle. – Dr. Astro Teller, Google X Lab pg35
Everything that is analog is now being digitized, stored, analyzed by software on these more powerful computing systems, and all the learning is being immediately applied to make old things work better, to make new things possible, and to do old things in fundamentally new ways…..Quite often, the reason a problem is complex and therefore expensive to solve is that the information you need is not accessible or consumable, making it difficult to gather the relevant data and turn it into applicable knowledge. But when sensing, gathering, and storing data and beaming it to the supernova and analyzing it through software application becomes virtually free, a crucial breakthrough has occurred: now any system can be optimized for peak performance – with much less effort. Pg94
What was especially striking to me was how fast and inexpensively Walmart was able to make its mobile app – thanks in large part to what had happened in 2007. Hadoop enabled them to get scale on big data. GitHUb enabled them to benefit from all the retailing software invented by others, and APIs enabled them to partner with everyone. And the Moore’s law advances in storage, computing and telecom deep into the second half of the chessboard enabled them to be competitive overnight. - Jeremy King, CTO for Walmart eCommerce Pg113
The customer is looking for a frictionless experience. People are so impatient now. They will give up purchasing something over a half second delay…..Indeed Walmart has discovered that the consumer can actually tell a difference in milliseconds and when they hit a buy or send or search button they expect a response when purchasing online results in two or more percentage points in lost transactions over the millions it does every day. That’s real money. Pg114
The L of Listen = Look (fully at the person), Lift (your eyebrows), and Lean (forward). The I of Listen – Ignore everything else. S – suspend judgment. T- take notes. E- Empathize. N – No buts about it. Pg130-2
A real decision is demonstrated by the fact you’ve taken a new action. If you haven’t taken action, you haven’t truly made a decision. – Tony Robbins pg139
We are all in a race for relevance. – Journalist Eleanor Clift pg141
Do you know the number one prerequisite for change? A sense of urgency. – John Kotter pg142
At the moment of truth, there are either reasons or results. Pg146
Never stop questioning. – Albert Einstein pg151
Discipline is remembering what you want. Pg157
Action is the antidote to despair. – Joan Baez pg157
A year from now, you will wish you had started today. – Ruth Reed pg157
I always say don’t make plans; make options. – Jennifer Aniston pg158
You don’t have to be a genius or a visionary or even a college graduate to be successful. You just need a framework and a dream. – Michael Dell pg184

In general, I liked "Thank You for Being Late" by Thomas Friedman. The Book jacket give a nice synopsis of the book. Parts are definitely top rate, but as some reviewers have mentioned, it gets a bit repetitive. Also, while I enjoyed most of the book, author Thomas Friedman's reflection on his formative years in Minnesota is quite 'rose-colored'. Maybe its completely accurate, but... As he admits, his childhood was quite homogenous (very few minorities). He grew up post WW II, as I did, and the good old 1950's, '60's, and early '70's weren't really as great as Friedman says (war, Jim Crow, segregation, nuclear arms race, "Red Scare", and so on).
I do admire Minnesota politicians of the last half of the twentieth century (Humphrey, Mondale, McCarthy, etc.). And Minnesota and Minneapolis have been noted for their progressivism. And finally, we can all stand a does of optimism and hope in this day and age. So if you like Friedman's writing, I can recommend "Thank You for Being Late".

dear me! if I had known that this author is the one who also wrote 'The World is Flat", I would never think about buying it, let alone actually bought. We know that the Internet is sometimes being an echo chamber voicing repeatedly something similar infinitely. I believe this is the strategy of the author here. Mr. Friedman built himself a chamber, scrapped some stories from here and there, put them into the chamber and repeated himself again and again and again, and again. He invented some concept which is by no means original and felt really comfortable with them, if not outright proud of himself by such 'GREAT' discovery. Say, information is explosive that people can get more information from more channels which is at the same time overwhelming and empowering. He borrowed 'Supernova', which is not a bad analog, from astrophysics. Then he uses it like Darwin would use 'Evolution' in the 'The Origin of Species'. You get what I mean. I gave one more star because there is some insight in a geopolitical part which are giving something I don't know and I actually could bear to read 3-5 pages without fast-forwarding.

Just like you have action packed movies – this is a ‘thought’ packed book. There is so much packed into this book - that at times, it becomes difficult to keep pace with the ideas / theories being propounded. Internationally acclaimed writer / NYT Op-ed Editor Thomas Friedman is a past master at writing on social / economic phenomena. Those who have read ‘The World is Flat’ and ‘Hot, Flat and crowded’ will vouch for it. This book is a distinguished companion to his previous outings.

Focus in this book is on Moore’s law (and the expansion of the memory chip theory into various other related areas in Software), the globalization of markets and market forces and the chances occurring due to climatic changes and changes in the bio-diversity profile.
That the world is changing is an old theory now. Friedman does a deep dive into the rate of change and speed of change….and discusses the opportunities that it brings about.

Friedman is well read, does phenomenal research, is widely networked and gets us multiple view points of thought leaders and game changers and yet has his year to the ground – so you have the opinions of the ordinary Joes also – like the parking lot valet. So what you get is a power packed book with diverse points of view, multiple data points nicely distilled and synthesized….which makes it very readable.

Some where in the end, the author strays into unfamiliar territory (from the book’s point of view) and harps on family values, being connected to the roots etc., etc., Interesting stuff but possibly does not belong to this book and with Friedman’s skill and scholarship – could have been another interesting book.

Go for it….reading this book will make you a wiser person. It will not only give you an insight into the changes happening in this wonderful world of ours but also equip you to cope, survive and succeed in this new world of tectonic changes. By far the most interesting book of Friedman that I have read.

This is truly one of the best non - fiction books I've read in some time. The overall premise is a simple one: the world is moving too fast. It is changing at a faster pace than we have ever experienced, primarily due to the simultaneous rise of three powerful forces: technology, climate change and globalization. The rapid acceleration of these 3 forces are often interconnected and each has surprising impact on the other. The book explains how the world is changing at a faster pace than we are accustomed to, and examines the perils we face if we do not learn to keep up with these changes. In painstaking detail, the book examines contemporary history to explain how we've gotten to where we are today, and what to do going forward societally, occupationally, and politically (domestic and global) to successfully combat these accelerations. We can no longer close our eyes and wish to return to simpler times - the lid is off the box, there is no putting it back on. We need to become more adaptive to these rapid changes, or be consumed by them. Friedman's suggestion: we should slow down and scrutinize the reasons behind these accelerations so we can successfully navigate our way through an increasingly challenging and complex world. The book serves as a reference guide to help us through the navigating. In that regard, the book is much more optimistic than gloom and doom.

And therein lies the crux of the book - it's optimism. We DO possess the ability to adapt and implement many of the ideas / changes presented in the book - however, there are extreme hurdles in the way I'm not sure we can (or even truly want to) overcome: politics domestically and globally have gone off the rails; echo chambers exist to confirm our own personal biases and lend credence to "alternative" facts; a lazy mainstream media that is more concerned with ratings than reporting substantive news, culminating in an ongoing battle between the far right vs. left - BOTH which are more passionate about throwing blame and juvenile insults back and forth in the blogosphere than attempting to actually resolve anything. A society abandoning reason for rhetoric and base emotion. These very real hurdles make it easy to write off Friedman's optimism as pie in the sky. However, the book provides such a plethora of interviews with top corporate CEO’s, renowned researchers, innovators and individuals fighting to overcome these hurdles, you can’t help but feel a sense of optimism.

This book deserves to be a blockbuster. It is philosophical and well researched. It may be the best book Thomas Friedman has written to date.

This is an important book for what's happening in our world right now. Friedman goes over extensively the technological developments that have occurred since 2007. I say this book is important because Friedman points out some what I think are some "scarey" things that us humans are doing to this home of ours...crossing the carbon dioxide safety threshold, causing the extinction of diverse life forms to name a few. Some of the facts are down-right alarming about our population growth. For full disclosure, I have not finished reading this book, but what I have read so far has been very informative.
I do have one tiny issue with it though....for the life of me, I cannot see myself having put this sentence in a book or any publication. This sentence appears in the Supernova chapter, the Start-Up from Batman section: "Among them is Yeni Medya, or New Media Inc., which exemplifies just how fast a small maker can get just how big from just how remote a place by leveraging the supernova." What??!!?! This sentence just doesn't make sense to me after the "which exemplifies" part. I would have worded it differently to get my point across.
So far, other than this small blunder, I still think that this book is a good read, important for our what's happening in our world now.

Welcome to the New Millennium. If after the first 16 years the changes--in pop culture, politics, technology, social relations and the natural world--have left you: 1. confused or 2. dissatisfied or 3. so downright cynical you'd be the first person to book a place on time-travel back to the 20th century, then Friedman's new book could be just what the doctor ordered--constructive therapy. Perhaps the digitalization of human experience--of music, photographs, communication, vacations, birthdays, work days, of time itself--left you wondering "where has the time gone?" and "why wasn't I along for the trip? " If so, Friedman has produced a work that is user-friendly and readily accessible yet profound. It's a book that offers a thorough, illuminating and persuasive social critique. But at the same time the author takes seriously the promise of his title: he will guide you to establishing a "foothold" in this fast-changing new world and assist you in reclaiming a firm sense personal identity.

If you're not aware of the difference between the "slow flow" of time in the previous analog century and the exponentially faster "fusillade" of digital "pieces" of time in the 21st century, Friedman's book could serve as an awakener, leading to a better understanding of human memory and its importance to the discovery of a more authentic and "stable" self (not to be confused with the thousands of "selfies" residing on a personal computer or smartphone).

In short, Friedman is not especially impressed by the continual "downloading" of digitized bits of accumulated information. He's more positive on the "uploading" of human experience, especially the moments of inspiration that afford a glimpse of life "as it is lived" and that promise to endure. Simply because technology can seem so overwhelming--from the streaming that has replaced "discs" to the invisible hacking that we're told is a serious threat to our national security--does not mean that any of us is obliged to surrender. Each of us can "own" the technology, which after all is supposed to "serve" us, making our lives better and easier Friedman shows how to use modern technology to locate "oases" that offer much-needed sanctuary for revaluation, taking stock, and re-establishing a calm and reassuring sense of time and place. It doesn't matter how late you think you are to the fast-moving, frequently overwhelming, "mediascape" of the present millennium. You still have time to "catch up."

If the foregoing summary suggests the book is full of abstract "theory" along with sweeping generalizations about the ills of modern civilization, that's not Friedman's style. He's an "uploader," someone who "offers" his potentially life-changing ideas through his own personal experiences, observations and captivating stories. He's also a writer who avoids a "big word" when a shorter one will work just as well. His aim is not to show the reader how much HE knows but to engage YOU as the reader with an inviting style and irresistible, even "old-fashioned," personal voice.

Who am I to critique the latest from a Pulitzer Prize winner? But everyone reacts very personally to any work, so here's my short take. I can see three type of writers address the topic Friedman writes about here as to what is happening and its affects on society: the newsman/reporter, the sociologist/culturalist/humanist and the spiritual/religious writer. This book is the newsman/reporter view, mostly giving you what is happening on the three accelerations from the front lines of tech companies. Friedman's connections are broad and the fine details of his narrative emerge mostly in local stories (than cold facts and charts). If you want the "facts," you have to wade through the stories. If you like context to facts, you'll enjoy his stories. However, I found the book really does not much address the impacts of such exponential accelerations in the realm of socio-human-spiritual realms in a deep, analytical or cultural critique way if that is more of what you are looking for. And the latter musings about Minnesota seem disconnected and repetitious. I also don't connect much with how he titles his books but that is pure nit picky. Overall, a valuable contribution to understanding how technology is exploding and quickly changing most everything if the world around us.

This book deserves 5 stars for its in-depth research and its comprehensive analysis of major issues affecting all of us throughout the world today. It is particularly clear in its explanation of the problems caused by accelerating change driven by Moore's Law. Technology accelerates faster than people and institutions can keep up. This has two major consequences. First, some people feel alienated and threatened and this leads to resurgent Ludditeism. "We will tear down what you have built because it takes away the life we knew. We will be great again." Second, institutions cannot keep up with appropriate regulations and controls. Governments can easily spy on people. Individuals can steal identities. Addressing these problems of accelerating change is essential if we are to control our futures. Unfortunately, the book seems to have been written on the assumption or expectation that a Democrat would win the Presidential election. One chapters provides a long list of policy initiatives for addressing the issues Friedman identifies. Almost none of these initiatives, except possibly slowing globalization, has any chance of being implemented in the next four years. There will clearly be no progress on advancing the status of women or addressing issues of population growth. There will be no progress on enriching our society by expanded immigration especially of people with different skin color and ethnicities. One would hope that Friedman is already planning a 2018-19 update of this excellent book in preparation for the post-Trump era.

This one was tough to rate for some reason. I dislike when a book is not titled correctly. The author calls this and optimists guide. I felt the book was pretty depressing. Mass migration due third world countries falling apart and global warming destroying the planet are a few of the light hearted topics discussed.
That being said I thought there was a lot of interesting information within the pages. I especially enjoyed his suggestions for improving the world and America. He's a center left kind of guy and I'm a center right kind of guy but I think we could find some common ground and compromises and get things going again. He mentioned a couple of suggestions that I found very interesting.

1. He was in favor of better border security with a healthy visa program.
2. More local problem solving versus Washington DC and the big, slow federal government trying to fix problems.

The last three chapters are a review of his hometown and for some reason I didn't enjoy them. I felt like everything was roses in his mind about the good old days. He tried to point out failings now and then but it just felt out of place with this book and the previous 90 percent being about accelerations in the world.

Interesting book

4.5 stars. Very good but not exactly what I was expecting. The book is an astute mix of journalistic reporting (covering politics, world affairs, climate change, and the like), historical overview of technology, and cogent observations about what it takes to survive and thrive in a world undergoing accelerations (technology, climate, and markets/globalization). I found the mix to be enlightening and thought provoking. The author has looked far and wide and has a perspective that is not as Western-focused as some authors fall into. He clearly feels strongly about the topics and is willing to deliver up conclusions and advice that may be unpopular -- including a theoretical political party based on the strategies of Mother Nature, looking to maximize variety and sustainability, encouraging experimentation to find new solutions and willingness to let poorly performing ideas whither and die (which he ticks off in 18 strategies Mother Nature would endorse and which often include pairing strategies from both the Republican and Democratic sides of the aisle that are currently unpaired and thus ineffective). The book is timely and interesting. Unfortunately, I don't see a lot of hope that its many good points and thoughtful ideas will be heeded.

I have been a Thomas Friedman fan since I first read "The Lexus and the Olive Tree" many years ago as a college student. He has a knack for humanizing difficult subjects and blending the old and the new to make sense of today's world. Despite the criticism he often receives as a NYT columnist, I believe Mr. Friedman finally got his groove back with this book, so to speak, and I found it one of his more enjoyable reads. There is no doubt the world is at a turning point as we accelerate into the twenty-first century, I just wished he finished the book a few months later than he did so that he could fold Donald Trump's election into its pages. The prescription he puts forth in this book of tolerance and inter-human connections in a world of changing communities, as well as how to survive and thrive in a world of automation, Moore's law, changing knowledge sets and environmental change makes this a must read for all leaders, regardless of industry. I found his reminisces of St. Louis Park, Minnesota, the suburb of Minneapolis where he grew up, both fascinating, but too lengthy to make his point. All in all, however, this is an excellent read that anyone seeking to understand today's world should read.

461 pages! I bought the book after I heard an interview of the author on NPR. He was articulate, informed, and made creative political and social comments that were not the usual Right or Left dogma. Book was a big disappointment. It appears that he emptied-out a fat file drawer of stories and interviews with well-known people over his many years in journalism, and then dumped it all into a book with a cute headings such as -"Learning to ADD." If the book were 1/3rd as long, I would recommend it. It has insights on topics such as the Middle East, Africa, and immigration to the U.S.-- e.g., build a very high wall with a very wide gate"-- namely, stop illegal immigration of all types and encourage legal immigration of high-skilled workers.

This title of this book comes from the heading of chapter #1 but this was a mistake (IMHO). The book should have been titled or subtitled after the heading of chapter #2 "What the Hell Happened in 2007?". Chapters 2-6 document many changes in the computer industry which went unnoticed by many people (even those working in the computer industry including me) due of the chaos surrounding the financial meltdown of 2008. Now these changes in that one industry changed the world in ways too numerous to mention here so I will only mention two product introductions of many: "Apple releases the iPhone" and Facebook. Chapter 3 provides a unique new view of Moore's Law.

This book posits three powerful currents going on in the world today which Friedman calls “accelerations”; they are technology, globalization, and climate change. He eloquently addresses interconnections among these currents and their subordinate movements. Any one of these accelerations would be enough to disrupt society; the three occurring simultaneously form a mosaic of challenges that stress our attention span and ability to cope; much less take positive action with initiatives that will address the problems and opportunities brought forth by Friedman.

A criticism I offer of the book is Friedman’s selection of the title, which does not come close to doing justice to the seriousness of the subjects he addresses or the way he writes about them. The title is a whimsical reference to how he greets people with gratitude when they show up late for a meeting, and give him a chance to reflect; apparently a rare experience in his busy life. A non-sequitur, in my opinion.

Historians call BC and AD to refer to historic events. Thomas Friedman calls 2007 as the new cut off period. He even specifically mentions the launch of iPhone as that cut-off moment where humanity moves on to the next level. As a gifted New York Times author, the stories are so interesting. It could be about Hadoop and big data, it could be about the impact of global warming and so on.

Friedman provides a very compelling argument why there is no more of a low skilled high paying ( factory) jobs that existed a while back. There are high skilled high paying or low skilled low paying jobs and the need to quickly address the new world challenges in education. You might have heard similar arguments on NPR and elsewhere but the levels of detail here is simply outstanding. And similarly, his argument on climate change impacts is quite good.

This is one of the books you can skip, but certainly not regret reading it.

New York Times columnist Thomas L. Friedman offers readers almost five hundred pages of his viewpoints and thoughts in a new book titled, Thank You for Being Late: An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations. Veering very close to mansplaining at times, he pulls back just before crossing that line. The advantage of reading Friedman is that you can read quickly over what seems familiar or what you’ve heard before, and spend a little time in those areas where he has new insight or an interesting synthesis. He offers some remedies for the challenges of living in our accelerated world: extend trust, build community, fight isolation and collaborate. While so many concepts are fundamental, and reflect the world in which many of us were raised (as Friedman himself explores in reflections in this book about his Minnesota youth), it seemed timely for me to spend a few hours being reminded of those fundamentals and what is important.

Rating: Four-star (I like it)

Want to understand much of what is taking place in the world? Pick up a copy as the author tracks the speed and acceleration of technology, globalization and severe climate change. These have altered our circumstances far faster than previously in history and the solutions offered by our leaders tend to be simple, futile, and unrealistic.

While there is a bit too much padding in places, in general it is quite a readable text and the solutions offered to help us adapt to a rate of change that is quite frightening and frankly, beyond the capabilities of many are quite sensible and pragmatic, which frankly makes me doubt they will ever be enacted before far greater damage is done by our dysfunctional political system.

Thank you for being late offers an increasingly bleak picture of the future. The Lexus and the Olive Tree described how great everything would be and over time with Globalism, it seems like Friedman's optimism regarding post-national Capitalism is getting hammered away by reality. The tone of optimism in this book strikes me as a cracked and fading veneer. I don't see how this is an "Optimist's Guide" to anything. Friedman says that you need to have deep and increasing knowledge of 7 to 9 different areas of knowledge to be relevant and that you'll need to be continuously learning at a faster faster pace to be capable of a fraction of the security that previous generations had. He adds that the environment is heading towards near disaster. He offers a bunch of advice to countries that won't be taken and when he pauses to reflect on his life as a journalist it has moments of nostalgia...those seem optimistic.

Friedman came up with an odd title for his latest book. The title is also funny. I was reading the book in a crowded train which was running late. A couple of co-passengers were amused by the title and took pictures of the book in my hand ! Sounds more like a fiction book. Regardless, it is a great book highlighting the current global trends and its impact on the vast populations who are slow to respond and are confused and angry as a result.

Friedman claims to be a translational journalist, the one who translates from English to English. He has crystallized his opinions by making numerous observations and by talking to different movers and shakers across the world. Three types of accelerations converged to form a huge supernova.He starts with the year 2007 as the watershed year in the global history. A few momentous technological innovations emerged - the iPhone became an open platform for others to develop apps, storage capacity became cheaper, GitHub emerged as an open source platform for writing and collaborating on software. Twitter started. Google popularized YouTube after acquiring it a year earlier. Google launched Android for smart phones. the store released Kindle the forerunner of the present day tablets. AT&T worked on “software-enabled networks” to cope with the ever increasing need for bandwidth due to the hungry apps on the smartphones.

Several other things happened in 2007. Airbnb was conceived in San Francisco. IBM began building a cognitive computer, combining machine learning and artificial intelligence. Which subsequently won the TV game show Jeopardy. Intel introduced non-silicon materials known as high-k/metal gates. The beginning of an exponential rise in solar energy, wind, biofuels, LED lighting, energy efficient buildings, and electrification of vehicles. The cost of DNA sequencing started falling dramatically.

I was impressed by Friedman’s description of computer science concepts like Google File System and MapReduce (which in open source is known as Hadoop) algorithms which made possible analyzing huge amounts of data with a cluster of cheap computing resources. Google put these developments in public domain thereby accelerating technology trends.As a result, Uber, the world’s largest taxi company owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate.

The second accelerator is the globalization, which is leading to sharing of ideas and concepts across the world, transgressing national boundaries within no time. It is not just the trade or moving manufacturing to cheaper locations. But sharing of knowledge and awareness at high speeds. Added to this is the third accelerator of climate change. Increasing levels of carbon dioxide in air, shooting up temperatures as a result of green house effect, combining with waters to form carbonic acid leading to acidification of oceans which is detrimental to the marine life. Dwindling rain forests and melting of arctic and antarctic ice sheets, increasing desertification of Africa are threatening the very eco-system on the face of the earth.

These three accelerators are having an impact on populations of advanced countries, which are resorting to populism and protectionism. The impact on economics in the Islamic countries is leading to terrorism. The incumbent industries like fossil fuels are reducing in size. Making people angry and trying to blame someone for the losses due to revolutionary changes.

In spite of these changes and its impact, Friedman is optimistic that in the end everything is going to be all right. Building of trust between communities and increased collaboration between opposing political parties is what is required today. US could fund and strengthen schools and Universities throughout the Middle East and Latin America, rather than supplying arms and drones. Micro level funding of chicken coops by individual entrepreneurs and community building of gardens to stop desertification in Africa are other viable suggestions. In 2014, US sent in 3000 troops and spent $3 billion to wipe out the Ebola virus in Africa. There was no Russian or Chinese aid mission that jumped into the breach. Friedman gives a detailed example of how his hometown of St. Louis Park in Minnesota is still continuing the spirit of collective problem solving. Hubert Humphrey as the mayor of Minneapolis took on anti-semitism and appointed a task force to eradicate it in the city government. He turned the task force into a permanent Mayor’s council on human relations. He gave a famous speech calling for equality of blacks at the 1948 democratic convention. Eventually becoming the Vice President of US.

Overall, a great description of the current problems and some suggested solutions.

This is a must read for every American citizen, as well as every lawmaker. Thorough analysis of today's chaotic circumstances, and recommendations for both reflection and action.
Friedman quotes Brandi Carlile and Tim Hanseroth's song: The Eye. "You can dance in a hurricane, but only if you're standing in the eye."
Hurricanes are all around us. We need to find the eye. Friedman says, "There is only one way to thrive now, and it's by finding and creating your own eye." And for Friedman, the closest political analogue for the eye of a hurricane... "is a healthy community."
Superb book. Don't miss it.