we’re going to cover a lot today so we
need to go fast alright so you heard
part of the story when I was 12 I give
it said parents let me drop out of
school and homeschool myself so I’m
quite literally a middle school dropout
this photo was actually taken a few
weeks ago month later created muggle net
the number one Harry Potter sites and
one of the largest websites of the early
2000s and I learned a ton through this
experience because we used to and we had
the New York Times best-selling book the
number one podcast in the world used to
go on to or live like rock stars it was
wild and I’m here it’s pretty much
stayed out of my way and let me study
whatever I wanted with one exception I
had to read four short biographies of
successful people every single day
predictably this shattered my little 12
year old brain into 10,000 pieces and I
decided that I want to change the world
fast forward so I do our college for fun
not a good reason to go to college got
born quickly he’s gonna drop out
starting to the business but the first
one went well I want to go really big
with the next one I wanted to identify a
model that would maximize my probability
of getting to a billion by the time I
was 30
the odds were not high but I said I’m in
this intellectual adventure I set a goal
of reading one nonfiction book every
single day business politics psychology
economics technology science and then I
got really obsessed with learning how to
learn because to you learning I learned
was like the most important you’d ever
learned you can because it’s the root of
everything else rights like wishing for
more wishes and I don’t have one tip
this is like nothing with anything in my
talk at all but something every need to
know this if you do this you’ll read
twice as fast think about four that’s
really you read twice as fast oh it’s
really simple too when every just put in
headphones with white noise like the
sound of static is what happens it’s all
time you read you’re like reading
reading was that get distracted siren
going by dog barking was that threat not
a threat where was I and then it takes
you 40 seconds if you’re we left off
every time she just hit then reread the
same stuff over and over never again
making very little progress getting
frustrated because you’re bad at reading
this is easy buddy become good at
reading
try it so fast whirring again I got
really obsessed with morality morality
was like the ultra Forman influence
right because I was like you could make
things viral that’s like having a human
superpower you could tip elections or
dictators start movements revolutionize
industries and it worked and then this
happened and started created a bunch of
huge you know Facebook pages with tens
of millions of followers tens moans
forests and Twitter watch 40 different
websites each of which attracted
millions of monthly unique visitors
basically like funny iPhone Auto cracks
things like that like these big meme
websites then we’ve got like dost com
oMG fax but really it’s not just like
why things go viral it’s also just
curves that go like this like this so
it’s career this shows you this is like
basically all progress throughout
history well you’ll notice here is it
like basically we didn’t do a whole lot
for most of human history
all we did was like starve and kill each
other look at this though look at all
these dots look at this look at all
these things we’ve done recently all
right that’s what I’m talking about
today because we don’t spend our time
thinking how fast things are really
changing basically with no progress lots
of progress all right so let’s go
progress tsunamis is what I call like
viral we talked about viral basely is
like things that don’t sit in the
growing fray fast and they’re like whoa
what was that like a tsunami so I’m
using earthquake the middle Pacific it’s
like this three inch little wave
traveling 1,000 miles and then it gets
close to land the tsunami is like oh hey
and then eat all your cities and stuff
but happens like that and you don’t see
it coming instead of talk about today
things like that Shanghai look at this
progress deny me 23 years go
first of all 23 years ago this was
Shanghai look at it now look at this
progress tsunami ah progress building
skyscrapers etc big deal 23 years
user-generated video another progress
and I mean look at this no basically
user in a video now everyone’s going to
phone and take stuff songs look at all
this look at all this auditory
innovation that’s amazing right the most
songs being created right Xfinity the
own a movie is being created growing
exponentially because entertainment
options online courses there are huge
implications of this one slide alone
from what the future education looks
like look at that online courses things
connected the Internet
yeah internet image earns being created
drones are gonna revolutionize a whole
lot of different industries big big big
deal the amount of words I didn’t really
know why this is true but amount of
words being created is growing
exponentially linguistic innovation who
doesn’t get excited about that right
planets alright this one like just
imagine look at this we basically found
like no planets at all then also look at
all those planets we just found this is
a really big deal you don’t to be like a
little kid like astronaut thinking that
matchin like how imagine this curve but
when he goes up like all the way ever
here we found like ten thousand more
planets like amazing just think of what
the universe might hold it we’ve never
found before it’s exciting
alright the amount of books books the
amount of books being created is growing
exponentially of all things right this
old format paperback oh very exciting
alright startups you want to starts
being created everyone should join a
startup now right look at this you can
see in the data two stars look at all
this innovation think what this
represents as far as how much progress
making society when any one of the
laptop can start an internet connection
to start a business the amount of
knowledge being created growing
exponentially this one articles being
uploaded Wikipedia we didn’t know
anything look at this we knew nothing
now look at all the things we no big
deal you might a collaboration this
shows how many articles per scientific
paper collaborations exploding my TV
show is being created you can re that’s
bad I think it’s good you want apps
being created growing exponentially you
want a scientific studies again look at
this
you know anything we knew nothing and
that’ll do all these things we know
that’s very exciting we’re just
scratching the surface of like knowledge
okay so this what this shows right
greater spaces like the percentage of
the world population living in extreme
poverty basically people in listening to
dollars a day what you’ll notice here is
that no one lives in extreme poverty
anymore
look at this hundred years ago we were
all poor again just starving killing
each other now look at this it went from
like 80% of the world population in
extreme poverty to like less than 10%
this is a very big deal that we’re on
the verge of eliminating absolute
poverty why is no one talking about this
you read the newspaper all you see is
like a bunch of negative happening
look at this we’re eliminating poverty
like this is a huge deal where’s our
ticker tape parade right why wouldn’t we
five million people packing the streets
of Chicago New York and LA celebrating
one of the greatest achievements in
human history I’ve never seen a headline
about this I don’t mind you but this is
a very big deal look at this literacy
same thing we couldn’t read it all for
like all of human history until very
recently now look at this 80% of the
world was illiterate 100 years ago now
look at this
10% doesn’t mean to read well but at
least reading that’s a big step in the
right direction child labor also child
mortality look at kids are not dying
this is also a very very big deal 40% of
kids I’m the age 5 used to die right
within the first five years now look at
this hardly ever teen birth rate
plummeting homicide rates in Western
Europe we notice here is like basically
almost no one kills each other now and
we used to just sit there and kill the
out of each other
look at this all we did was kill each
other that would say we’d set it on
starving killing each other this is big
disco you read the headline seems like
every day someone got murdered like
Chicago murders everywhere 6-under
people year it is a big deal it sucks
but it’s a lot less than the 60,000 per
hundred thousand we used to do a long
time ago right violent crime rate
plummeting and you would never know this
from the media but the actual data shows
that the crime rates are plummeting the
amount of people living in democracies
exploding right now this is also a very
big deal all right I want talk about
self-driving cars because this is a big
deal we’re not talking enough we’re not
talking about enough so basically here’s
the here’s the staff first of all take
aways this myself driving cars exploding
growing exponentially look at this
McKinsey study widespread embrace of
self-driving vehicles could eliminate
90% of all auto accidents in the u.s.
90% no vestments very some people ask to
be 99 percent some people have spent
99.9 percent some say 50 percent either
way it’s a lot of live safe now if we
did eliminate 90% of all Auto accents in
the US that’d be the equivalent
preventing
9:11 every single year that’s a huge
deal and there’s some significant
implications of that but let’s I once I
like shelters are not this distant
future they’re here right now like look
at these these are real headlines like
real headlines uber self-driving truck
packed with Budweiser makes first
delivery in Colorado to make this very
clear this is a car that drives itself
and delivers beer on the roads
delivering beer right now
Alan bust Josh’s prediction of full-time
miss driving from three years to just
two not 30 years to twenty three years
to two years right now early data
Tesla’s autopilot lowers probability of
having an axon by 50%
think of all the people who died because
of accidents 50% reduction just for
early data already that’s what like
early crappy technology it’s gonna get
way better that’s a lot of life saved AI
controlled traffic lights in Pittsburgh
25% faster travel times 21 percent fewer
emissions imagine sending your car 25
percent less because you get there
faster you can save months of life very
big deal also yeah earth 20% fewer
emissions more headlines uber 9-1-1 in
new york city the median response time
for an ambulance is six minutes
uber two point four minutes you get an
uber faster than an ambulance thinking
people die because of the six minute
time and how many people will die when
we have it down to two minutes lots of
life savings man builds a self-driving
car with $1,000 in computer parts do I
need to say more robotics expert
predicts kids born today will never
drive a car there’s food for thought
alright if cars manthang here like if
cars are driving themselves and the
accident rate drops 90% here’s some
implications here’s where I speculate
wildly but I think you’ll see that these
are well they are wild speculations but
they’re interesting to think about
alright so what happens to these
industries the auto and life insurance
industry car if cart sensor down 90
percent auto insurance companies well
they’re in big trouble good for us bad
for them rates go down right life
insurance people aren’t dying good for
us bad for life insurance companies auto
body shops again good for us bad for
auto body shops
trucking delivery three million people
drive trucks not good for those jobs
being lost but getting good for progress
societies a whole hotel so you don’t
need to drive you don’t need to design
cars or people are sitting there with
their hands in the wheel you can design
cards many that you design little mini
hotel rooms on wheels right go to sleep
wake up in the you know cross country
why do you stay in a hotel planes planes
buses and trains again why do you take a
plane or a bus or train you just fall
asleep and wake up in your destination
inside your awesome self driving car
radio and podcasting this we spend 46
minutes a day
single they were their eyes locked on
the road driving magic happens we have
to do it anymore that’s 46 minutes we
can look at screens and you other stuff
with that those entertaining meetings
will change health care a son asked me
five hundred billion dollars pence we
stuck to the health care system of
people not dying getting hurt in cars
again may be bad for health care or not
but very good for us right organ
donations one in five organizations
right now come from people who died in
self-driving car in car accidents again
very very big deal that’s the problem of
the solve but a good problem all right
let’s talk about VR and AR because I
don’t think we’re spending time thing
about the applications is first of all a
couple things one exploding right the
amount of virtual reality headsets
exploding the amount of content in
creative rich reality exploding more
implications think of realist okay first
of all a it’s a fast word don’t think
like the clunky VR experience now just
cool you have to imagine it being 99% as
realistic as real life because we’re not
that far away from actually to that
point that will happen our lifetime real
estate right now real estate agencies
that you can like sample different
places but you got to think bigger than
that because if we’re spending really
inside virtual reality you don’t
necessarily need to spend all your time
in real reality and an occasional never
trial you might spend majority time
instead virtual reality it’s like why
buy it for a million dollar mansion if
you can just get a million dollar
mansion equivalent in virtual reality
for like a fraction of the cost right
live events you don’t need to go to
concerts traveling sporting events
things like that nine percent realistic
just lock in your headset travel
business travel I go to New York all the
time takes me like half a day to get
there happy to get back for like
sometimes to meetings when I do that if
I can have a 90 percent realist
experience inside virtual reality
tourism again traveling places is cool
but like wedding you spent thousands of
dollars on a full day of travel to go to
Australia you can have like a 90 percent
realist experience inside virtual
reality they come here they’re shipping
in transportation we don’t need ship
stuff inside virtuality
things don’t cost money to move gaming
obvious sex work prostitution this one’s
interesting porn is obvious we only talk
about that but think about like
prostitution is an industry where
suddenly now all the risk and dangers of
like sti’s and you know abuse and things
like that something you don’t need that
if you get 90 percent seamless
experience inside brought reality that
industry just goes oh so they say pimpin
ain’t easy
I just came up with that right now that
was good
oh man I thought that that was good okay
all right so now we gots our song this
is another huge huge huge hugely
important thing first of all notice this
solar in 2016 soldier had a major
milestone basically solar became cheaper
than coal for the first time in history
this is huge and the guys even before it
became cheaper the amount of solar being
installed growing exponentially look at
this chart coal is growing in cost Solar
is plummeting in cost so coal is
becoming economically unviable this
means like no tree-hugging required
solar is the big winner fossil fuels we
can say our dinosaur energy get it cuz
get it cuz dine it like it’s just
dinosaurs in the ground and then also
it’s like dinosaurs like old technology
and stuff see that’s how you know to get
it because that guy it’s good right
alright I know you know supposed to
explain jokes but I carved my own path
alright more headlines these are not
headlines from right now renewables just
passed coal as the largest source of new
electricity worldwide I can think of all
like the thing of all the environmental
movement all the actions regulation
things like that nope it’s already
happening renewables passed coal because
of the cost economics six major
countries including Canada France
Germany the Netherlands Austria and
Finland all announced the imminent
phase-out of all coal power plants again
not for environmental reasons
necessarily for economic reasons France
announced in 2023 they’re shutting down
the coal power plants Britain 2025
that’s like five and seven years away
because of economics very very big deal
we should be talk about building new
coal power plants we can’t shut the ones
you already have down because they’re
not going to be economically viable
all right Tessa solar roof to cost less
than a regular if you can here by this
test announced these roofs basically
solar panels without the whole roof they
look just like a regular you know ugly
solar panels and then they’re cheaper
even before you add in the energy
savings of being on generate electricity
Murray roof very big deal solar-powered
pipe desalinate spill yinz of gallons of
drinking water here for California water
shortages very big problem lots of salt
water and a lot of freshwater not a big
deal at all if we have cheap energy and
we can turn that salt water into fresh
water and that’s exactly what’s
happening more things that are actually
happening right now man lives 555 days
on a heart-machine he carried in a
backpack what could I possibly say a
heart he carried in his backpack staying
alive
medicine is amazing three men had their
hands amputated and replaced by
prosthetic
hands they control with their minds not
sci-fi not Star Wars happening right now
human radiologists in the 7% of cancers
in a study a deep learning algorithm is
0% again
yay humans right 7% is pretty good 93%
of cancer is caught that’s the only
people died because of that 7 percent
error rate people aren’t going to die
when this kind of stuff happens more and
more which it is researchers find
missing link between the brain and
immune system translation mind over
matter we no time to go into that but
that’s really interesting science
actually found a real link between what
you think and how your body responds to
illness skin gun helps burn victims
quickly regrow skin by spraying them
with their own stem cells
bam-bams skin regrown whoa I mean I
think that’s super cool think about that
like scars things like that okay doctors
just reverse severe MS using stem cells
bio hackers figured out how to inject
your eyeballs with night vision
fda-approved exoskeleton allows
paralyzed people to walk same episode
Selden also makes you super strong
Superman a straight view superhero two
students created a device that uses
sound waves to extinguish fires thinking
the implications of this instead having
a water like transporting helicopters
and drop it in from California and
bringing down hundreds and millions of
acres of land here we just like pop out
gun that shoots sound waves and I mean
that’s I just think it’s super cool
lab-grown meat 30,000 times cheaper than
18 months ago hear about this basically
the idea love growing meat is that we
don’t have to like raise much for
animals feed them tons of corn and stuff
and then slaughter them in huge
quantities to be able to like eat stuff
we can actually just like grow the stuff
from the ground up which sounds really
gross right you who would do that thing
is you will do that it doesn’t happen it
costs that is gonna become way way way
cheaper than animal means unless you
wanna go pay like 10 times more for real
meat and also then there’s the years I’m
not getting making any like moral
judgment here I love me meats wonderful
but like you know this is going to get a
slaughter a lot of animals to like feed
the people right you can do it this way
and the cost comes on that much and if
by the weights but it’s chemically
identical like it will be kind of like
identify like there’s no difference you
what people tell them between like stuff
that came from animal those killed in
scum became animal it wasn’t this is one
of those things to look out for this
will happen in our lifetimes again with
my overly optimistic predictions NASA
plans mission to a matter metal-rich
asteroids again not Star Wars stuff like
NASA’s already planning we’re gonna go
land on this asteroid
mine it cool it by there’s like a
hundred trillion dollars in the world so
quadrillions is a lot of money put it
that way
think of the implications of that
alright League of Legends ratings top
NBA Finals and world series if you know
about this esports about the future of
sports eSports like video game sports
League of Legends is one of those
more people watch the League of Legends
Championship than the NBA Finals and the
World Series so there’s another one
things to keep an eye out for because
eSports are exploding scientists can now
make lithium-ion batteries last a
lifetime
I don’t need to sell this one right like
imagine your phone battery lasting a
lifetime and all the other things that
matter all right a man suffered a heart
claw at the wheel and his Tesla drove
him to the hospital I can think people
don’t have to die you have to wait two
minutes for the uber your car will just
drive you itself big big big deal first
home brain implant let’s locked in woman
play games basically the woman’s total
vegetable frozen every way and now with
because of a brain implant she can like
play games and stuff with their mind and
eventually communicate with her mind
again very big deal think how much your
life was stuck before and how much more
awesome it’s gonna be now and all these
people have the same kinds of problems
Amazon wins patent for a flying
warehouse that will deploy drones to
deliver packages in minutes just think
about like a flying warehouse just
zooming sending these drones out you
order something and within minutes is at
your door gone are they gonna be the
days we have to wait like days for stuff
to come in the mail 3d printers we’ll
have that happen instantly to an AI
system redbreast x-rays 30 times faster
than doctors with 20% greater accuracy
20% greater actually again think all the
people who die because of the accurate
the error rates we have right now
because humans are imperfect again
humans are great but we’re not perfect
right stanford announces that has found
a way to reverse symptoms of a stroke
man detects an exoplanet with household
equipment some plywood in arduino and a
normal digital camera he found a planet
with stuff you can buy at Home Depot and
he made a video of it he put it online
to show other people I do it too think
of all the new plants we’re gonna
discover because of things like this two
teenage girls built Africa’s first-ever
private satellite teenage girls Lego
architecture company uses recycled
plastic box to build homes for five
thousand bucks
imagine homelessness in a world where
you can create homes for five thousand
bucks
very big deal all right Obama said we’ll
be debating unconditional free money
over the next 10 to 20 years you have
heard of this you’re gonna hear about
this a lot more the idea is called basic
income the idea is it like we just give
people money to live off of all right
you’re good that sounds insane I know
that sounds like the crazy thing you’ve
ever heard even heard that idea before
it it doesn’t seem remotely feasible but
a lot of these things are going to take
away a lot of jobs and suddenly they
begin field money is gonna seem crazy at
all so that’s just one of those ideas to
keep an eye out for because that’s going
to happen more and more
like that conversation the very first
film was written entirely by an
algorithm
ninety-year-old made a free robot lawyer
that has appealed three new
in dollars in parking tickets bad for
lawyers good for us LG show a TV you can
roll up like a newspaper a robot chef
that can cook two thousand meals go
inside on 2017 household one you can buy
it you can afford it it’s a chef like
your own private chef push button two
thousand meals
the first water shark was released in
the Rotterdam port this is a water drone
that eats plastic again think of the
implications of this for like nature and
stuff you know mother earth like the
Giant Pacific trash pile o water drowns
elin bus says there’s a one in billions
chance reality is not a simulation based
in other words Elon Musk is 99% sure
that this world that we live in is
actually computer simulation almost like
a video game again it sounds insane but
faster over time 10 years this will
actually be a commonly held theory of
the world a lot of people are going to
come around to this there’s a lot of
very smart Nobel Prize winning physicist
you think this is true as well
goodbye human translators Google’s
within striking distance of human level
translation in other words Google is
like this close to having like a box I
talked to this and translating any
language in the world fluency level
instantaneously think of how that will
bring people together and also think
about the equations of learning
languages like wine learn languages
Google’s got this thing coming out right
on the corner that you can just not have
to learn a language and speak a language
that’s a big deal man has vision
restored with bionic eye scientists
discovered how to regenerate human skin
scientists reverse aging in mammals ten
years away from human trials reverse
aging just to really drop down to that
point lab-grown kidneys have been
successfully transplanted animals
basically like lab science beakers of
stuff and then kidney not like cut out
kidney put an animal like that’s that’s
happening right now
other other animals too thanks to
scientists develop an eye drop they can
dissolve cataracts I dropped cat Oregon
again amazing these are like real things
that are happening right now and this is
my personal favorite one researchers
found a way to structure sugar so 40%
less sugar can be used without affecting
the taste start to be available in 2018
now we can all get her on something
right that’s when we can get United
around thank you [Applause]