What is the Exponential Revolution?
To understand the Exponential Revolution, you must first understand the power of doubling. To illustrate what doubling technological power looks like, let’s use an analogy. Imagine for a moment that you worked in a school that was overcrowded. (Yes, I know this may be hard for some of you to imagine in these days of chronic budgetary crises and taxpayer fatigue.) Finally the overcrowding became so severe that you just had to build a new addition onto a school. You have responsibility for the project, and have just received the bids for the work to be done. Strangely, all the bids come back close to the same—the projected cost is $3 million.
Now these are tough times for education, and we just don’t have that kind of loose change. But the school is severely overcrowded and we need that addition. So what are we going to do? However, at the last minute, a new contractor in town submits another bid. It’s a remarkable proposal that goes like this: The contractor will only charge one cent for the first day of work including all materials, equipment, and labor. The only thing he asks is that you double the amount he is paid each day for a month—let’s say August. He'll get paid one cent the first day, two cents the second, four cents the third, and so on. That’s it! After a month, he won’t charge you another penny, no matter how long it takes to complete the work. Right off the top, this sounds like a great deal, right? Since this proposal comes from a good contractor, you decide to take him up on it. Now let’s take a close look at how this works out.
Day 1 $.01
Day 2 $.02
Day 3 $.04
Day 4 $.08
Day 5 $.16
Day 6 $.32
Day 7 $.64
Day 8 $1.28
Day 9 $2.56
Day 10 $5.12
After 10 days your total output has been $10.23. No problem. In fact, this is better than our wildest money saving dreams! Let’s continue...
Day 11 $10.24.
Day 12 $20.48
Day 13 $40.96
Day 14 $81.92
Day 15 $163.84
Half the month is over and you are laughing all the way to the bank. Your total expenditure is now just $327.67. So let’s proceed:
Day 16 $327.68
Day 17 $655.36
Day 18 $1,310.72
Day 19 $2,621.44
Day 20 $5,242.88
Day 21 $10,485.76
Day 22 $20,971.52
Day 22 is an important one to ponder. You can see that the contractor is now starting to get a reasonable amount of money for each day, but you have still only paid out a total of $41,943.03. This is still far below the other bids of $3 million and there’s just over a week remaining. This seems too good to be true—and it is. Watch what happens as the doubling effect really begins to kick in.
Day 23 $41,943.04
Day 24 $83,886.08
Day 25 $167,772.16
Day 26 $335,544.32
Day 27 $671,088.64
Day 28 $1,342,177.28
Day 29 $2,684,354.56
Day 30 $5,368,709.12
Day 31 $10,737,418.24
It’s Time To Call 9-1-1
The total you would end up paying is more than $21 million! Wow! And interestingly it’s important to note that the doubling has the greatest impact in the last few days (WHY didn’t we build it in February?). In the beginning, did you really have any idea that starting at one cent would lead to such an astonishing amount? The answer for most of us would certainly be no.
This is what Malcolm Gladwell in his book of the same name calls “the exponential tipping point”, where change goes from relatively being linear and relatively predictable to being massive, sudden, and overwhelming, exploding into our lives.
In most field of human endeavor, you hope for gradual improvement. You want an engine that’s somewhat more efficient, or a medicine that improves life expectancy slightly. But exponential trends progress exponentially—warping social life, intellectual horizons, social tradition, and the business playing field. This is the power of exponential growth. The reason why this is so significant is because most of our predictions and assumptions about the future are based on very linear thinking, but most things don’t unfold in a linear way. That’s why most of our predictions and assumptions will most likely be wrong and the future will absolutely jump up in front of us.
Coming Next: Part 4—Global Exponential Trends