Essays
The new airminded: Civil aviation’s post-pandemic transformation
The Atlantic Council October 2021
A Futurist’s View on Climate Change (video)
TEDX April 2021
The Creator Economy (video)
LongNow April 2020
Embracing Uncertainty (video)
LongNow April 2020
Will we ever learn to take the future seriously?
in “Aftershock: reflections on Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock”
After Shock Paul Saffo
Whats New Whats Next (video)
Joint Venture Silicon Valley 2019
Future Forecasting (video)
Singularity University 2017
Sensors: Accelerating The Pace of Scientific Discovery. Edge Question 2016
The Future of Work: We Have Been Here Before.
Pacific Standard Aug 2016 – PDF Version
What Will Be The Place Of Humans In A World Occupied By An Exponentially Growing Population of Autonomous Machines.
Edge Question 2015
We’re on the Edge of an Analogue revolution
2014 FORA.tv
Google Glass signals a wearables revolution.
CNN – April, 2014
Why it’s bad for Facebook to gobble up Oculus.
CNN – March 2014
The Illusion of Scientific Progress.
Edge Question 2014
The Coming fight Between Engineers and Druids.
Edge Question 2013
Facebook’s wounds are self-inflicted.
CNN – Aug 2012
Looking Back from 2100: The Wonders We Didn’t Expect.
The Futurist 2012
How to Save the Global Economy.
Foreign Policy – Jan/Feb 2012
Plate Tectonics and the Beautiful Theory of Continental Drift.
Edge Question 2012
Can Yahoo be Rescued? Lessons from Apple.
New York Times – November 2, 2011 — PDF Version
Summer of discontent 2012 will shape our decade to come.
San Francisco Chronicle – October 16, 2011 — PDF Version
A Game for Elites, Not Day Traders.
New York Times – October 11, 2010 — PDF Version
Do you live in a “gayborhood”?
San Francisco Chronicle – July 15, 2011 — PDF Version
Americans should talk about politics more.
San Francisco Chronicle – August 7, 2011 — PDF Version
Time Span of Discretion.
Edge Question 2011
New era, new god.
The Economist – November 22, 2010 — PDF Version
Service sharing essential in era of deep deficits.
San Francisco Chronicle – November 7, 2010 — PDF Version
Secrets of Google’s Robo-Car.
Daily Beast – October 11, 2010
The Bay Area needs to act like a city-state.
San Francisco Chronicle – July 11, 2010 — PDF Version
A Third Kind of Knowledge.
Edge Question 2010
A Looming American Diaspora.
Harvard Business Review – February 2009
Get ready for a new economic era.
McKinsey&Company What Matters – February 26, 2009
The Discovery of Non-Human Intelligence Will Cure Humankind’s Existential Loneliness
Edge Question 2009
The mouse turns 40.
VentureBeat – December 5, 2008
Will the Treasury ‘Outsource’ the Bailout to Wall Street?
ABCNews.com – September 30, 2008
Beware of PedTEXTrians!
ABCNews.com – September 19, 2008
Obama’s ‘Cybergenic’ Edge.
ABCNews.com – June 2008
High-Tech Quake May Shake More Than Silicon Valley.
ABCNews.com – April 2008
The best forecasters will be computers.
Edge Question 2008
Move Over, the Robot’s Driving.
ABCNews.com – November 2007
Foreward to E.B. White: Notes on Our Times
Levenger Press – 2007
Iron on Troubled Waters: The real climate debate Lies ahead. ABCNews.com – September 2007
Six Rules for Effective Forecasting.
Harvard Business Review – July/August 2007
Time for a Sea Change.
FP Foreign Policy Magazine – May/June 2007
Capitalism’s Diverging Future.
January 2007
Revolution in a bowl: Ramen Inventor Fueled Valley Innovators.
San Jose Mercury News – January 14, 2007
Humankind Is Particularly Good At Muddling.
Edge Question 2007
Farewell Information, it’s a Media Age.
December 2005
The Ghost Dance Half the World is rushing toward the future and the other toward the past. Both have weapons.
California Monthly – September 2005
GBN Book Club: Dormouse, Radical Evolution, and The Glass Bead Game. GBN Book Club – May 2005
Untangling the Future.
Business2.0 – June 2002
Failure is the Best Medicine.
Newsweek – March 2002 — PDF Version
Man Bytes Dogma (Looking Back on the Internet Revolution). 2000
The Real Y2K Bug: Forget Your Computer—Worry About the Wacko Down the Street. 1999
Disinteremediation: Longer, Not Shorter Value Chains Are Coming. 1998
Lifeform Generation. 1998
Remembering Brendan Gill. 1998
Sensors: The Next Wave of Infotech Innovation. 1997 — PDF Version
Are You Machine Wise?. 1997
The Future is Now. 1997
It’s the Context, Stupid. 1994 — PDF Version
The Place of Originality in the Information Age. 1994 — PDF Version
Will Magazines Go The Way Of The Horse? 1993
Cyberpunks Anticipate a New Digital Counterculture. 1993 — PDF Version
Hot New Medium: Text. 1993 — PDF Version
The Future of Travel. 1993 — PDF Version
The Manager as Mystic. 1993 — PDF Version
The 76-Year Century. 1992 — PDF Version
Anxiously Waiting for the Millennium. 1992 — PDF Version
Consumers and Interactive New Media: A Hierarchy of Desires. 1992 — PDF Version
Are EMFs a Risk? Sweden Thinks So. – 1992
Electronic Piñata. 1992
Solitude—Scarce Resource of the 1990s. 1992
Farewell, PC—What’s Next? 1991 — PDF Version
Variable Prices: An Idea That Flies. 1991
Welcome to a World of Global Villages. 1990
Why the Next Computer Is Like the DeLorean Automobile. 1990
Consensual Realities in Cyberspace. – 1989
Information Surfing. 1989 — PDF Version
Information Surfing and Information Shocks. – 1989
Electronic Books. 1988
The Death of Design. 1986
Photo Essays
Fighting Fire with Fire. San Francisco Chronicle Sunday Magazine – September 2001
Alang: The Realm of Lost Ships. Wired – February 2000 — PDF Version