The statements each group tended to vote uniquely on, as well as statements that enjoyed consensus among all the groups, are shown to everyone. The assertions getting consensus across all groups, or within specific groups, float to the top and are seen more often—just like content on Facebook, but with visibility into what percentage of others

Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you. And you can change it, you can influence it …. Once you learn that, you’ll never be the same again.”

Today two of the companies that teach us the most about the trends shaping the future are Uber and its rival Lyft.

Most of the people who launched the personal computer software industry four decades ago weren’t entrepreneurs; they were kids to whom the idea of owning their own computer was absurdly exciting. Programming was like a drug—no, it was better than a drug, or joining a rock band, and it was certainly better than any job they could imagine. So too

“two-pizza teams,” that is, teams small enough to be fed by two pizzas.) These teams work independently, starting with a high-level description of what they are trying to accomplish.

Frank explained to me that he believed one of the key roles of government was as a convener; once the government identified a problem, it shouldn’t try to solve it directly, but should instead bring together the parties it wanted to engage with this problem.

As the Internet speeds up the connection between human minds, as our collective knowledge, memory, and sensations are shared and stored in digital form, we are weaving a new kind of technology-mediated superorganism, a global brain consisting of all connected humans. This global brain is a human-machine hybrid. The senses of that global brain are

Most often, in fast-moving fields like science and technology, maps are wrong simply because so much is unknown. Each entrepreneur, each inventor, is also an explorer, trying to make sense of what’s possible, what works and what doesn’t, and how to move forward.

The current race in autonomous vehicles is a race not just to develop new algorithms, but to collect larger and larger amounts of data from human drivers about road conditions, and ever-more-detailed maps of the world created by millions of unwitting contributors.