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The Industries of the Future Kindle Edition

by Alec Ross (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 out of 5 stars 2,097 ratings
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  1. Print length
    322 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Simon & Schuster UK
  4. Accessibility
    Learn more
  5. Publication date
    2 Feb. 2016
  6. File size
    580 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Not Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B014DXPATK
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Schuster UK
  • Accessibility ‏ : ‎ Learn more
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ 2 Feb. 2016
  • Edition ‏ : ‎ 1st
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 580 KB
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 322 pages
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1471135279
  • Page Flip ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Customer reviews:
    4.3 out of 5 stars 2,097 ratings

About the author

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Alec Ross

Alec Ross

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Alec Ross is a New York Times best-selling author and Distinguished Professor at the Business School of l’Universitá di Bologna.

His book The Industries of the Future has been translated into 24 languages and been a best-seller on 5 continents.

Speaking of Ross' new book The Raging 2020s, Adam Grant writes:

“Alec Ross fearlessly confronts one of the fundamental concerns of our time: fixing the broken social contract between people, business, and government. His book will challenge you to rethink some of your assumptions about democracy, capitalism, and globalization.”

Alec Ross also serves as Board Partner at Amplo, a global venture capital firm and sits on the board of directors for companies in the fields of technology, finance, education, human capital and cybersecurity.

He began his career as a 6th grade teacher in Baltimore where he lives with his wife and 3 children.

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
2,097 global ratings

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Customers say

Customers find the book insightful and well-written, with one review noting it introduces new ideas and terminology. They appreciate its accuracy, with one customer describing it as a well-throughout analysis.

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17 customers mention ‘Insight’17 positive0 negative

Customers find the book insightful, with one customer noting how it introduces new ideas and terminology, while another highlights its in-depth analysis and interesting stories.

"...quality of life, the flow of ideas, innovation and yes, creating active serendipity. What are you going to do?..." Read more

"...mixed with storytelling, this book gives an informed perspective of future global trends. If you want to stay ahead then this is the book to read...." Read more

"...Long and short, it is a good outlook on the near digital future, but you will probably want something a bit more high octane if you like the..." Read more

"...the chapters are themed so that you are able to understand the different applications of new industries...." Read more

17 customers mention ‘Readability’17 positive0 negative

Customers find the book well written and interesting to read, with one customer specifically noting its clear English.

"...cyber warfare, and digital money, markets and trust he provides very clear pointers (with supporting anecdotes) as to where anyone in business..." Read more

"...From in-depth analysis to interesting stories, this one is worth a read." Read more

"...Long and short, it is a good outlook on the near digital future, but you will probably want something a bit more high octane if you like the..." Read more

"...Read the book - time well spent.(A copy should be sent to politicians. Do they read anything these days except for polls?)." Read more

4 customers mention ‘Accuracy’4 positive0 negative

Customers appreciate the accuracy of the book, with one customer noting its thorough analysis and another mentioning its spot-on predictions.

"...predicted in this book is backed by evidence, stories, and well throughout analysis...." Read more

"...This is IMHO a good round up of what's in store...." Read more

"Quite efficient and effective but should be more available in all headings - titled." Read more

"a Interesting future, balanced and likely a spot on prediction..." Read more

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Top reviews from United Kingdom

  • AntonyS
    5.0 out of 5 stars Insightful, realistic future gazing.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 7 February 2016
    Verified Purchase
    In life it is sometimes important to fight against entrenched attitudes and opinions, but by and large 'going with the flow' is the best choice, if you want to get anywhere. Being the world's best saddle maker just as the first Model T Ford rolled off the production line was not an accolade really worth having.

    Where Alec Ross's book really scores is in mapping out a number of the key megatrends that are shaping the world, and that will have huge and widespread impact in the next 10 or so years. By elucidating on the nascent fields of robotics, genomics, data ubiquity, cyber warfare, and digital money, markets and trust he provides very clear pointers (with supporting anecdotes) as to where anyone in business should be paying attention.

    The book has a very global mindset and hearing about how these technologies are changing lives in, to many of us, unfamiliar parts of the world, is fascinating and often surprising. Hearing how a mobile phone app helps African micro farmers (the sort with just three cows to their name) improve their animal husbandry, and thus productivity, is really quite surreal.

    I further enjoyed the passage explaining the different attitudes towards humanoid robots in Japan to the default US/UK position. In The Shinto religion objects also have souls, so a robot is more easily assimilated into Japanese households and the idea of them assisting the old and frail more easily accepted.

    There is also a very good chapter on what steps governments need to take to thrive in this coming world. The comparison between Estonia and Belarus is insightful.

    Overall, an enjoyable and worthwhile read.
    21 people found this helpful
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  • Ron Immink
    4.0 out of 5 stars Do you want to be Belarus or Estonia?
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 August 2017
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    What are the industries of the future?

    Before I read this book I would say anything environmental, AI, robotics, biotech (that include genetics), IoT, neuroscience, space, gaming and health. There is obvious overlap between those sectors. Just imagine a huge box full of lego blocks, combining these technologies with mobile, nano, virtual reality, big data, augmenting, biomimicry, material science, quantum physics and you have a Pandora’s box of industries we have not even imagined.

    Alec Ross

    Alec Ross thinks that the industries of the future are robotics, advanced life sciences, the codification of money, cyber security, and big data. Not much to argue there, although in my view very limited and almost too easy.

    North Korea or Estonia

    What the book does do is show the countries that are ahead and the once that are behind, and the book puts the industries into a geopolitical, cultural, and generational context. All 196 countries in the world have a choice. You can be North Korea or Estonia. That goes for your company too.

    Europe versus Japan

    I would suggest it will make for unhappy reading for European policy makers and there is no doubt, power is shifting East. Japan already leads the world in robotics, operating 310,000 of the 1.4 million industrial robots in existence across the world. Driven by an increasingly older population, they have particularly focussed on elderly care and health. That includes augmentation, which is a growth sector all on its own. Other counties to watch in robotics are China, the United States, South Korea, and Germany.

    Pandora’s box

    What everyone needs to consider, and here is the Pandora’s lego box again, is when robotics get combined with big data, cloud (all robots connected and learning), AI, nano and biology. No wonder venture capital funding in robotics is growing at a steep rate. It more than doubled in just three years, from $160 million in 2011 to $341 million in 2014. The market for consumer robots could hit $390 billion by 2017, and industrial robots should hit $40 billion in 2020.

    Robotics

    The number of robotic procedures is increasing by about 30 percent a year, and more than 1 million Americans have already undergone robotic surgery, and it is growing exponentially. It is quite amazing what robots are doing already, from hunting jelly fish and hunting cancer to hair washing, waiting tables, cleaning floor but also teaching maths and anything in between. There is no doubt, as the technology continues to advance, robots will kill many jobs.

    Jobs

    Two Oxford University professors who studied more than 700 detailed occupational types have published a study making the case that over half of US jobs could be at risk of computerization in the next two decades. Forty-seven percent of American jobs are at high risk for robot takeover, and another 19 percent face a medium level of risk.

    Singularity, when, not if

    The level of investment in robotics (including drones, self-driving cars, etc.), combined with advances in technology are setting the foundation for the 2020s to produce breakthroughs in robotics that bring today’s science fiction right. Including singularity which is expected somewhere between 2023 (Vernor Vinge) and 2045 (Ray Kurzweil). We have moved from “if” to “when”.

    China

    That is why China is not just relying on forced urbanisation to produce low-cost labour; it is also investing heavily in the industries of the future. Every country needs to invest in growing fields like robotics but also invest in a social framework that makes sure those who are losing their jobs are able to stay afloat long enough to pivot to the industries or positions that offer new possibilities. Humans are not as easy to upgrade as software.

    Life sciences

    That is the robotic industry. Now for life sciences. The size of the genomics market was estimated at a little more than $11 billion in 2013 and is going to grow faster than anyone could imagine. We are talking DNA sequencing, precision medicine, designer babies, neuroscience (the genetics of suicide), xenotransplantation and Jurassic Park.

    With 78 organs, 206 bones, and 640 muscles, not to mention up to 25,000 genes, our bodies are complicated machines. We are hacking the machine, part by part. As a result, we will live longer lives, but our lives will grow more complicated as we manage

    Cyber security

    Including and particularly in the world of cyber security If you have read “Future Crimes“, you really want augmentation, DNA and robots to be secure. A hacked care robot hovering over your bed with a knife is not something you want. A hacked augmented hand strangling you is also not a prospect you would relish. Let alone someone hacking your voice, your DNA, or your brain.

    Hacking. Malware. Virus. Worm. Trojan horse. Distributed denial-of-service. Cyber attack. The terms for the weaponisation of code are by now well known, but we are just beginning to understand their full implications.

    175 billion industry

    Over the 20 years from 2000 to 2020, the cyber security market will have grown from a $3.5 billion market employing a few thousand people working in IT departments to a $175 billion market providing critical infrastructure. Cyber has grown into such a mission-critical function that every Fortune 500 board chairman now should make sure he or she has a board member with cyber expertise. In five years, any board of directors without a board member with expertise in cyber will be perceived as a shortcoming of corporate governance.

    IoT

    Combine that with what will be a $19 trillion global market in the Internet of Things and we are creating an almost unimaginable new set of vulnerabilities and openings for cyber security hacks.For example, in July 2015, hackers managed to remotely infiltrate and shut down a Jeep Cherokee while it was speeding along the highway. Did you know that GPS is hackable? Don’t trust your Tom-Tom.

    Long term cyber attacks pose a greater threat to national security than terrorism. We have moved from cold war to code war.

    Coded money

    Alec Ross other favourite future industry is coded money, blockchain and fintech and how that will transform local and global economies, particularly Africa. M-Pesa and Shwari as examples. But also the sharing economy. At last measure, the estimated size of the global sharing economy was $26 billion, and it’s growing fast, with some estimates projecting it will be more than 20 times larger in size by 2025. Read “Machines, Platforms, Crowds“.

    Big data

    The last industry he mentions is big data, quantified self and algorithms. Did you know that an estimated one-third of all marriages in the United States begin with online dating which is run through an algorithm? The best quote of the book is this one “Serendipity fades with everything we hand over to algorithms”.

    Impact on your business

    Alec Ross is spot on. None of those industries can be ignored and they will impact on your business. Robotics, cyber, big data, coded money will do so very soon.

    What are we going to do?

    The question is what policy makers are going to do about it. If you read “The Seventh Sense”, politicians are the last ones to understand what goes on. And it not about:

    Technology parks
    Mix in R&D labs and university centres;
    Provide incentives to attract scientists, firms and users;
    Interconnect the industry through consortia and specialised suppliers;
    Protect intellectual property and tech transfer;
    Establish a favourable business environment and regulations.
    It is about broadband infrastructure, women (“women hold up half the sky”), openness, domain expertise, quality of life, the flow of ideas, innovation and yes, creating active serendipity.

    What are you going to do?

    Or look at some examples of good practice such as Singapore, Estonia, Japan and China versus Belarus, North Korea and Venezuela. Which one do you want to be?

    I want to be Estonia (or Japan).
    9 people found this helpful
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  • POWER BY BOOKS
    5.0 out of 5 stars Read This and Get Ahead!
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 22 April 2021
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    Wish you could have predicted the internet before it happened? Well this book will help you understand and predict what’s about to happen next. Economic analysis mixed with storytelling, this book gives an informed perspective of future global trends. If you want to stay ahead then this is the book to read. Every global trend predicted in this book is backed by evidence, stories, and well throughout analysis.

    If you’re interested in the future, in tech, and in staying ahead of the majority then this book is for you. From in-depth analysis to interesting stories, this one is worth a read.
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  • Supercure
    3.0 out of 5 stars A good general outlook on the digital future but a tad one-sided
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 1 April 2016
    Verified Purchase
    Is the author a visionary or a mere a reasonably connected guy making sweeping statements based on pub discussions with his mates? You decide.

    Some insights about what will happen next are interesting (you should soon be able to tweak your own genes, big data is –well– big, money is no longer made in manufacturing stuff but in design and clever marketing, Uber is here to stay). This is IMHO a good round up of what's in store.

    Despite the large number of references to papers and articles, I have the nagging feeling that Alec Ross has adopted an angle (spoiler alert here: if you are not in the digital economy by tomorrow morning, some guy in Estonia will eat your bacon sandwich) but has conveniently disposed of the nuances and the "if things carry on exactly the way they go now" - and we know they don't always do.

    Long and short, it is a good outlook on the near digital future, but you will probably want something a bit more high octane if you like the specifics and a more nuanced approach.
    19 people found this helpful
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  • Neil Macdougall
    5.0 out of 5 stars Made me change my outlook for my business. This ...
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 April 2017
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    Made me change my outlook for my business. This book brings together a lot of those newspaper articles about innovation and technology that you kinda take on board but don't GET. There are changes taking place across the globe and they are not necessarily developed world driven. Read the book - time well spent.(A copy should be sent to politicians. Do they read anything these days except for polls?).
    One person found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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  • Surendran Cherukodan
    5.0 out of 5 stars A must read
    Reviewed in India on 20 April 2023
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    A must read for teachers, research scholars, students apart from business people and policy makers
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  • Kelly McCarthy Barner
    5.0 out of 5 stars An enlightened look at future competition that remembers why it matters on a human level
    Reviewed in the United States on 24 February 2016
    Verified Purchase
    The Industries of the Future, by former State Department Senior Advisor Alec Ross, is a compelling exploration of the conditions businesses and countries need to optimize in order to be successful in the decades to come. It borrows extensively from his time traveling the world in the federal government’s service, which means that his examples are unexpectedly diverse and shared in such a way that is only possible when the author has experienced something first-hand.

    The ‘industries of the future’ in the context of this book are not familiar verticals such as healthcare, manufacturing, or financial services, but the shifting paradigms that will govern future business. As Ross states in the introduction, “This book is about the next economy. It is written for everyone who wants to know how the next wave of innovation and globalization will affect our countries, our societies, and ourselves” (p. 6-7). Competitiveness is a function of all three dimensions, and it assumes that connectivity (and therefore interdependence) will only increase in the future.

    Advances in robotics play in important role throughout the book, and my only disappointment is that Ross confines his robotics discussions to traditional (mechanical) robots as opposed to including their newer software-based counterparts. While Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a relatively new service delivery model, and serves a different role for individuals and businesses than physical robots such as Honda’s ASIMO do, some of the human acceptance barriers seen in traditional robotics still apply. The need to lower costs and fulfill tactical service requirements drive robotics innovation and interest, but people continue to have trouble ‘bonding’ with these automated support systems. Despite the fact that most of the robotics discussion in the book relates to mechanical robots, Ross points out that the horizon for their impact far exceeds what we might conceive of today. In fact, it is hard not to feel in the robotic ‘cross hairs’ – even as a knowledge worker – when he writes, “In the greatest peril are the 60 percent of the US workforce whose main job function is to aggregate and apply information” (p. 38).

    In the future, the affects of globalization will be felt broadly, particularly in geographies that take an inefficient (authoritarian) approach to infrastructure, skills development, and information. There are two case examples in chapter six, The Geography of Future Markets, that are not to be missed.

    The first is the undeniably inspiring story of Maria Umar, a woman living in ‘bleak’ and ‘virtually lawless’ Waziristan, Pakistan. Her Women’s Digital League makes it possible for women with a wide variety of skills in remote parts of the world to connect with freelance virtual work opportunities. Not only is it a commercially effective arrangement for the women and the companies they support, it is an empowering force for good in parts of the world where women are prevented from balancing work and family, in some cases without any freedom outside the home. Later in the same chapter, Ross appeals to humanity (as well as logic) to make the case that societies that disregard the potential represented in the female half of their population will have no meaningful role in the industries of the future.

    The second story compares the current situation and improvement trajectories of Estonia and Belarus, two former Soviet occupied countries that found themselves in dire economic and industrial straits in the early 1990s. Estonia embraced openness – social, commercial, and political – and has reaped the benefits. The have become one of the innovation capitals of the world, due in part to their determination to climb out of chaos and also in decisions about technology infrastructure that allowed them to leap forward to the full capabilities of the present day rather than following the same process as other developed nations, even at a faster pace. Belarus on the other hand, has a ‘tightly controlled’ political and economic system. They have no technology and even less modern industry, both of which contribute to a weak and unstable economy.

    The real meaning in the difference between these two countries is not, however, their economic status as much as it is the living conditions of their citizens. Estonia’s standard of living has improved dramatically since the fall of the Soviet Union, while Belarus’ residents are living in what amounts to modern feudalism. There is no freedom of expression, of the press, or of assembly, and most businesses are state owned by the neo-Luddite government.

    Perhaps the most important take away from The Industries of the Future is that everyone, in every industry, geography, and walk of life, will find something in it that holds meaning for them. Living conditions and the role of the family are stressed from beginning to end and provide a constant reminder of why we work as hard as we do to achieve success, and what is required from a human perspective to realize the benefits of competition.
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  • luciana Murakami
    5.0 out of 5 stars Muito bom
    Reviewed in Brazil on 9 July 2022
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    Otimo
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  • Simon Rotelli
    5.0 out of 5 stars Illuminante
    Reviewed in Italy on 19 January 2019
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    Ben scritto e ben argomentato. Ti lascia con le ovvie preoccupazioni sul futuro, soprattutto per chi ha figli che stanno studiando, ma anche con la consapevolezza delle molte trasformazioni epocali in corso.
    Come sempre le conseguenze non potranno essere tutte positive, ma neanche tutte negative, quindi inutile essere catastrofisti.
    Da non perdere, e da consigliare a tutti.
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  • Jean-paul Garcia-moran
    5.0 out of 5 stars Very insightful for parents
    Reviewed in Spain on 1 August 2017
    Verified Purchase
    I am both a father and an IT professional. I picked up this book interested to understand better the market trends. Though I ended up with something much better as the book also helped me ponder how to educate my son in the hopes to best prepare him for the future. Recommend to both parents and the inquisitive mind alike.
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