Mauro F. GuillenBesprekingen

Despite its futurist-sounding title, the book mostly covers subjects whose trends are so far along as to be “inevitable”, as the title of author Kevin Kelly’s forecast book claims. This makes it a good overview of the present, and I thought it was a helpful and highly-readable guide to the biggest trends happening now.

See my detailed review

I was rather disappointed in this - I expected more. None of the trends mentioned in here are very surprising and often there's a fair bit of handwaving of this will happen - but without any real delve into what that might change as of 2030. My audiobook did have a brief update mentioning Covid but just to say it would accelerate all these trends - not sure I'm convinced by that. I have a few other books to read on tech trends so hope they are less disappointing.½

Not particularly impressed. I wanted to be, just wasn't. It's a nice overview of interesting topics to look out for over the next couple of years, but it doesn't scratch the surface for any of them. Any reader of The Economist won't find any of these discussions particularly novel.

There are some really odd jabs. The author mentions that millennials won't know what CDs are, which is a bizarre statement.

When talking about crypto, he doesn't seem to grasp one of the key selling points—that it's trustless. None of the examples he gave require any sort of a trustless ledger.

This was interesting, but I'd be lying if I said it was mind-blowing. It is essentially a review of the demographic shifts occurring the world, and speculation as to how said world will have to adapt to those shifts. (My guess is, it will adapt very poorly. Civilization is great at adapting in the long term, and really awful at doing so in the short term.)½

A savvy futurist's look at what he thinks the world will be like in 2030. Some of his major topics include immigration (and why it is beneficial), the role of women, the elderly. rentalism, and paperless economies among other topics. He concludes with tips about how to adapt and thrive in this future. Whether we like it or not most of these changes are coming so the book is a very helpful field guide for the future.I am really glad I am too old to see many of these changes come to fruition. Still a very stimulating read..

Being flexible will save your day. That is the message from Mauro Guillen in 2030. Things are changing rapidly, and society as we know it will have morphed into something very different by 2030.

He looks at major trends: fertility (plunging), millennial behavior patterns (dominating), middle class (in large agglomerations), and women’s lot (improving yearly). These point to different structures going forward.

There are also the technological trends: automation, artificial intelligence, and blockchain applications are his focus. For those who think outside the box (he prefers the phrase thinking laterally), there is huge opportunity. The book has numerous anecdotes about people who saw an issue and turned it into a startup, often with huge success, even if you’ve never heard of it.

All these factors converge by 2030 to present a world entirely different from what we are living today, just ten year’s prior.

Though he recognizes some of the downsides from these conditions, trends and developments, Guillen is a cockeyed optimist at heart. We have huge potential in front of us, and success is there for the grabbing.

The timing of this book might be its biggest risk factor. Everything Guillen examines is a trend, and very suddenly in 2020, trendlines are being broken thanks to the COVID-19 global pandemic. World trade growth is off the table. The question has become will it even recover by 2030. Will manufacturing go back to being sourced globally or will every country insist on replicating every facility? Will artificial intelligence be allowed to destroy jobs in a gigantic recession with tens of millions (just in the USA) suddenly unemployed? Will entire industries like sporting events and concerts recover – ever? None of these factors gets treated in 2030, because none of them had occurred yet. The book requires current trends to continue for the forecasts to work.

Just one example. Guillen is very high on Airbnb as an innovator, an enabler and of course, a disruptor. Perhaps a lot more people are travelling because of it. Perhaps homeowners have relaxed financial stresses because of it. Maybe hotels aren’t hurt as badly as it might appear because Airbnb attracts new travelers. All very innovative, restructuring the whole world in its image.

But Airbnb is in a major bind now. Cities are completely banning short term rentals as tourist renters don’t shop locally, leaving an ever-shrinking supply of local merchants for the fewer full time residents. Residents of buildings don’t want the added disease risk of nonresidents. Or the noise or the insecurity of a constant flow of complete strangers. The company is funding deposit refunds en masse when hosts refuse. And it transpires that possibly 40% of the properties listed are corporate owned, not idealistic homeowners renting out a bedroom in Airbnb’s romantic portrayal of what is on offer. These are instead investors who gamble on buying up blocks of condos and even homes to rent out at big profits (driving up rental prices in the shrunken stock of housing remaining) and now face catastrophic debt situations as their incomes have plunged to zero. Airbnb itself might not make it to 2030 without revenues.

So while all the facts, figures and stories are inspiring and generally positive, one has to wonder if any of it is valid any more.

David Wineberg