Abundance: THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER: How We Build a Better Future

An economy can grow because it adds more people. It can grow because it adds more land or natural resources. But once those avenues are exhausted, it needs to do more with what it has. People need to think up new ideas. Factories need to innovate new processes. These new ideas and new processes must be encoded into new technologies.

An uncanny economy has emerged in which a secure, middle-class lifestyle receded for many, but the material trappings of middle-class success became affordable to most. In the 1960s, it was possible to attend a four-year college debt-free but impossible to purchase a flat-screen television. By the 2020s, the reality was close to the reverse.

This book is dedicated to a simple idea: to have the future we want, we need to build and invent more of what we need. That’s it. That’s the thesis.

For years, we failed to invent and implement technology that would make the world cleaner, healthier, and richer.