Here are 92 books that The Future Normal fans have personally recommended if you like
The Future Normal.
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I’ve been fascinated with the future ever since I watched 2001 Space Odyssey. An amazing spaceship that could help us explore other planets! Then all that weird stuff about an A.I. gone crazy and apes banging sticks around monoliths. What the…? That curiosity smashed into a major concern at the age of fifteen on a canoe trip where I was trying to work out how to live and work closely with other humans - and failing. It turns out humans are crazy creatures. We love being together, and doing amazing things together, but that can be really hard. So leadership and the future fused into a lifelong passionate pursuit.
I absolutely loved the optimism and excitement of this book.
Justin unpacks six megatrends that will shape and affect every sector, all of which are leading to a more inclusive, equitable, and regenerative world.
I cited this book at a recent event I ran called The Future of Leadership and one of the participants asked me why I was so positive about the trends that Justin featured.
"What about all the negatives and downsides?" I answered, "we go naturally to what could go wrong, it’s actually an effort to see what might go right," as the book title indicates.
But this book is not just a Pollyanna look at the future technologies, it’s a call to action for leaders to create the future we want by first imagining it.
When I interviewed Justin for my podcast, I was struck by how much foresight and deep thinking he brings to the…
What Could Go Right invites you to ditch cynicism about the future, and build the one you want.
Instead of worst-case scenarios or Pollyanna optimism, you can envision an ideal world and be empowered to build it. The opportunity of our era is to transition to a sustainable, equitable, abundant global economy. When you rethink your mindset, understand tech and social trends, and design a future you want to live in, you can thrive by building a better future for us all.
Packed with insights, tools, and ideas for what an ideal future might look like and how to build…
I’ve been fascinated with the future ever since I watched 2001 Space Odyssey. An amazing spaceship that could help us explore other planets! Then all that weird stuff about an A.I. gone crazy and apes banging sticks around monoliths. What the…? That curiosity smashed into a major concern at the age of fifteen on a canoe trip where I was trying to work out how to live and work closely with other humans - and failing. It turns out humans are crazy creatures. We love being together, and doing amazing things together, but that can be really hard. So leadership and the future fused into a lifelong passionate pursuit.
This is a smart and broad analysis of global economies and cultures being affected by the collision of emerging technologies.
What’s amazing about this book is its scope, its wry humour, and its balanced approach to solutions.
They showcase very well current global challenges: the pyramid of inequality, climate change chaos, tech trillionnaires taking over where governments leave huge holes, and the failure of capitalism to deliver on its promised golden land.
It’s not just throwing rocks and wringing hands. The authors provide a pathway through that will mitigate the worst of these threats.
These include taxing robots and A.I. to provide a Universal Basic Income for the technologically displaced. It was the first time I have truly understood how UBI might actually work and be funded properly.
From a leadership point of view, some important shifts need to happen, and technology will pressure some of these to occur.
What is the impact of COVID-19 on world economies? If the cost of providing universal health care is lower than the cost of building a political movement to prevent it, would politicians still view it as socialism? In a world where algorithms and robots take the jobs of immigrants and citizens alike, are border controls an effective response? If unemployment skyrockets due to automation, would conservative governments rather battle long-term social unrest, or could they agree on something like universal basic income? When renewable energy sources are a fraction of the cost of coal generated electricity, should lobbyists be able…
As a writer, designer, and technologist, I've always been fascinated by the extraordinary potential of the internet. It’s our species' greatest invention to date, giving us powers our ancestors would have only dreamed of. But I'm equally aware of its darker side. We now live an inordinate amount of our lives in spaces controlled by algorithms that have strange agendas. A key part of my work is exposing how the subtle designs of our online spaces can dramatically change our emotions, making them much more contagious. By translating these insights into understandable narratives, my goal is to foster digital resilience, and help us take back some real measure of control of our digital lives.
A rare book that is as funny as it is profound, illustrating why things feel so broken.
Tim is the creator of the popular blog Wait But Why, and his unique blend of curiosity and storytelling flair is on full display here. The book eschews the standard left-right political analysis for an exploration of how our brains work (and what impact this has on the decisions that shape societies).
From the creator of the wildly popular blog Wait But Why, a fun and fascinating deep dive into what the hell is going on in our strange, unprecedented modern times.
Between 2013 and 2016, Tim Urban became one of the world's most popular bloggers, writing dozens of viral, long-form articles about everything from AI to colonizing Mars to procrastination. Then, he turned his attention to a new topic: the society around him. Why was everything such a mess? Why was everyone acting like such a baby? When did things get so tribal? Why do humans do this stuff?
I’ve been fascinated with the future ever since I watched 2001 Space Odyssey. An amazing spaceship that could help us explore other planets! Then all that weird stuff about an A.I. gone crazy and apes banging sticks around monoliths. What the…? That curiosity smashed into a major concern at the age of fifteen on a canoe trip where I was trying to work out how to live and work closely with other humans - and failing. It turns out humans are crazy creatures. We love being together, and doing amazing things together, but that can be really hard. So leadership and the future fused into a lifelong passionate pursuit.
Chromey has a whole different way of looking at generational differences. When I interviewed him on my podcast, he did a fair critique of the typical division of generations by arbitrary birth years.
Far more important, he says, is to look at the technology that shaped the environment, and hence the mindsets and attitudes of the people who adopted and used that technology as part of their growing up during their ‘coming of age’ years.
Huh. It’s obvious and makes complete sense to me.
The book outlines the chief technologies that shaped attitudes: transportation-telephone, motion pictures, radio, vinyl, television, space, gamer, cable television, personal computer-cell phone, internet, iTech, robotics. And I’d add coming now - artificial intelligence.
On top of all that is the pattern of swinging between optimism and pessimism across the generations across a spring/summer/winter/autumn cyclical model. Very smart.
Every twenty years a new generation rises, but who and what defines these generations? And could current generational tags mislead and miss the point?
In this insightful analysis of technology history since 1900, Dr. Rick Chromey offers a fresh perspective for understanding what makes a generation tick and differ from others. Within GenTech, readers learn how every generation uniquely interacts with particular technologies that define historical temperament and personality and why current generational labels are more fluid than fixed, and more loopy than linear. Consequently, three major generational constellations emerge, each containing four, twenty-year generations that overlap, merge, and blend:…
I am a writer. That is the simplest way to condense the comedic, entrepreneurial, megalomaniacal human who appears in this form. And yes, I am an introvert, but one of the few who lacks stage fright. Additionally, I have met four of the five authors on this list. I am hoping the fifth one invites me to speak on her new journey to Unlock Your Big Energy. In conclusion, I 💜choco chip cookies, Murder, She Wrote, and BTS, in that order. Thank you for reading. 🙂
In 2015, she “was sleeping on the floor of the San Francisco airport” and living off of food stamps. Less than ten years later, Arlan Hamilton is hosting her own conference, Your First Million 2024, teaching other entrepreneurs how to come “for the cake, not the crumbs!”
This book, and Arlan, inspire me as an entrepreneur to keep going. She formed her own company, Backstage Capital, for women, people of color, and LGBT founders in response to the fact that 90 percent of venture capital deals go to white men. Like me, Arlan did not see a problem and just complain about it; she did something about it.
This book showed me that I, too, can help make the world a more equitable place.
“A hero’s tale of what’s possible when we unlock our potential, continue the search for knowledge, and draw on our lived experiences to guide us through the darkest moments.”—Stacey Abrams
From a Black, gay woman who broke into the boys’ club of Silicon Valley comes an empowering guide to finding your voice, working your way into any room you want to be in, and achieving your own dreams.
NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY FORTUNE
In 2015, Arlan Hamilton was on food stamps and sleeping on the floor of the San Francisco airport, with nothing but…
For the last 25 years, I have been a coach to business founders, leaders, and leadership teams. My work has taken me to every continent from my base in London. A lot of my work is done behind closed doors, but I have been instrumental in building two unicorns in the last decade. I’m a founder myself and have always been fascinated by what it takes to succeed as a founder. I have a powerful conviction that learning to lead is the heart of it. The books I love are either based on real-world research or deeply practical and based on hands-on experience. Practice trumps theory every time in my world!
I know the work that Entrepreneur First does and some young founders who have benefitted from their work and built successful businesses. This book is read by the founders as they talk about entrepreneurship, the start-up phase and co-founding.
I found the sections on understanding and using your ‘edge’ especially interesting, and this leads to some smart thinking about how to choose the right co-founder. The book stops at the point where the business is about to take off; keep that in mind.
*WINNER OF THE STARTUP/SCALEUP BUSINESS BOOK AWARD 2023*
An essential guide to equip the next generation of founders with the mindset and tools they need to take the leap to become globally successful entrepreneurs.
Featuring a foreword by Reid Hoffman, founder of LinkedIn, this fascinating handbook inspires potential founders and provides essential guidance and advice for people who want to create their own start-up and build a successful company. This book answers the question "how do I get started?" It takes the reader from making the decision to plunge into entrepreneurship, through the process of choosing and developing an idea…
For the last 25 years, I have been a coach to business founders, leaders, and leadership teams. My work has taken me to every continent from my base in London. A lot of my work is done behind closed doors, but I have been instrumental in building two unicorns in the last decade. I’m a founder myself and have always been fascinated by what it takes to succeed as a founder. I have a powerful conviction that learning to lead is the heart of it. The books I love are either based on real-world research or deeply practical and based on hands-on experience. Practice trumps theory every time in my world!
I love the fact that Ali has provided evidence that ANYONE can succeed as a founder. He has done a lot of number-crunching on ‘unicorns’ (I admire his tenacity for that!) and examined what makes a successful startup founder and some surprises emerge.
Age, education, and number of cofounders were not predictors of a startup’s success, as many of us might have expected. The big thing that does matter is experience. Sixty percent of unicorn founders had previously launched startups. It seems that in pretty much every walk of life, including this one, practice is the key.
Every VC wants to find the next billion dollar company to invest in, and every startup wants to become one. Ali Tamaseb set out to find patterns in the backgrounds, methods, and trajectories of these companies, gathering and analyzing 40,000 data points about the 200+ billion dollar companies and the people who founded them. And you'll be surprised by what he discovered:
* Half of unicorn founders are over 35; * Most founders don't have any directly relevant work experience in the industry they're disrupting; * There's no disadvantage to being a solo founder; * Sixty percent of billion dollar…
The future is the one thing in which we are all invested. In order to shape the future we must be able to visualise possibilities, prepare for consequences, and take action. My job is to help companies, charities, and governments to see and prepare for the future. But so many of the lessons that I find myself trying to teach to leaders have their parallels in our personal and working lives - including mine. In a time of great uncertainty about the future, we all must take time out to picture where we’re going, make choices about our direction, and invest in ourselves to achieve our dreams.
**WINNER OF THE STARTUP INSPIRATION CATEGORY OF THE 2020 BUSINESS BOOK AWARDS**
'It's impossible to read this book without being inspired and energised ... Essential reading for any start-up or entrepreneur, at any stage of the journey.' - Alison Jones, Host of The Extraordinary Business Book Club podcast and author of This Book Means Business
'Genuinely fresh and jargon-free' - Financial Times
How to Have a Happy Hustle shares the secrets of innovation experts and startup founders to help you make your ideas happen.
If you're looking for fulfilment outside the day job, have an idea but don't know where…
I have had the unique experience of having been a successful CEO of a global publicly traded semiconductor company, a founder and CEO of an innovative and valuable startup, and now as a teacher and scholar of entrepreneurship and innovation. I’m a Professor of the Practice at Princeton University where I teach and write about being a successful entrepreneur. My three books on the subject are: Startup Leadership: How Savvy Entrepreneurs Turn Their Ideas Into Successful Enterprises; Building on Bedrock: What Sam Walton, Walt Disney, and Other Great Self-Made Entrepreneurs Can Teach Us About Building Valuable Companies;and THE ENTREPRENEURS: The Relentless Quest for Value.
David Sax spent more than a year on the road, living with a handful of real live entrepreneurs. We get to know these people, what their days are like, what their families are like, their stresses and their joys—ultimately what it feels like to be an entrepreneur. You’ll feel like a voyeur, but you’ll ultimately empathize with what these entrepreneurs do what they do as well as the challenges they constantly face. The book is a page-turner.
We all know the story of the latest version of the American Dream: a young innovator drops out of college and creates the next big thing, remaking both business and culture in one fell swoop. We are told these stories constantly, always with the idea that we'll be next.But this story masks a lot about what really goes on in our economy. Most new businesses aren't tech startups; they are what we think of as ordinary: restaurants or dry cleaners or freelance writing or accounting or consulting services. And those who are starting new businesses aren't all millennials. In fact,…
For the last 25 years, I have been a coach to business founders, leaders, and leadership teams. My work has taken me to every continent from my base in London. A lot of my work is done behind closed doors, but I have been instrumental in building two unicorns in the last decade. I’m a founder myself and have always been fascinated by what it takes to succeed as a founder. I have a powerful conviction that learning to lead is the heart of it. The books I love are either based on real-world research or deeply practical and based on hands-on experience. Practice trumps theory every time in my world!
I like this book because it’s based on mining quantitative data on almost ten thousand founders, not only anecdotal experience.
There is a lot of debate about the importance of co-founders and not trying to ‘go it alone.’ According to Noam, 65 percent of startups fail because of co-founder conflict. I find that super interesting, and it emphasizes why, if you want success, you’ve got to pick your co-founder(s) wisely. The same is true of the management team as well of course.
Often downplayed in the excitement of starting up a new business venture is one of the most important decisions entrepreneurs will face: should they go it alone, or bring in cofounders, hires, and investors to help build the business? More than just financial rewards are at stake. Friendships and relationships can suffer. Bad decisions at the inception of a promising venture lay the foundations for its eventual ruin. The Founder's Dilemmas is the first book to examine the early decisions by entrepreneurs that can make or break a startup and its team. Drawing on a decade of research, Noam Wasserman…
