Well researched and has some thought provoking (though largely intuitive) suggestions and predictions for the world of the near future.

Has some grammar and spelling mistakes, but I also was reading a galley copy. Certain statistical and factual conclusions didn’t necessarily follow. For example:
“ On a global scale, the middle class includes individuals who have an income between $10 and $100 a day. For a family of four, that would roughly translate into an annual income between $15,000 and $150,000 dollars.” It took me a moment of mental math to realize why those numbers didnt seem to work - Guillén is assuming [i] each person [/i] in the family of four is earning that income, which is never the assumption in economics when applying per capita income to family size. Kids in a family of four arent making middle class income (if they’re making anything at all) and in most countries (especially in developing world) only one breadwinner is likely making middle class income.

The premise is good, and the insight is solid, if, again, not exactly prescient or groundbreaking. Sometimes Guillén tries too hard to be topical and appealing, such as roping in popculture touch points like the Simpsons and JK Rowling to no obvious point. ““The middle class is so funny,” argued author J. K. Rowling. “It’s the class I know best, and it’s the class where you find the most pretension, so that’s what makes the middle classes so funny.”” Besides the fact that Rowling went from being a waitress (inarguably a working class profession) to a millionaire and then billionaire best selling author, thereby more or less skipping the typical middle class (and making it unlikely she really does know it ‘best’), what does that quote even mean? Its funny because she knows it the best? Or because its full of pretentious people? Assumedly that pretension is undeserved, especially because in the present in which Rowling is being quoted she has far more wealth than the pretentious middleclassers she’d previously interacted with? Maybe she means a different word than funny, but nevertheless this quotation sheds little insight upon the middle class. So maybe just leave it out?

Similarly, the math is off in the chapter comparing Amazon with Ford when calculating historical hourly wages. Is it a nine hour day, or an eight hour day? $14 an hour, or $15.69 an hour? If $5 a day in 1914 dollars is $126 in 2018 dollars, then its $14/hr for a 9 hour day, but $15.75 (not $15.69) for an 8 hour day. But saying ‘Depressingly…Ford’s Five-Dollar Day in 1914 was…69 cents higher than Amazon’s $15 per hour’ is intellectually dishonest. Because of fair labor laws in 2018 (or 2019 or 2020), Amazon’s workers mandatorily wouldn’t have faced as long of days as the 1914 Ford workers, and would have had many more mandatory breaks throughout. So the hours matter. In fact, Ford generally only required eight hour days of employees back in 1914 (but as a company discretionary rule and not a federal law, there would have been little recourse for an employee if Ford had occasionally or even regularly ignored it). BUT, Ford still had six day work weeks until at least 1922, which means 1914 employees were working 48 hour weeks. In exchange, they were paid $30 per week, which using the above inflation adjustment comes out to $756 per week in 2018 dollars. The 2018 Amazon worker wouldn’t necessarily have a cap on days, but above 40 hours Amazon would be required to pay time and a half, so $22.50 per hour. Assuming an Amazon worker only worked 40 hours, they’d only make $600 in a week. But if they were required to work an extra eight hour shift (let’s call it the 6th day) they’d make $180 for that additional work, for a total of $780. So Amazon workers would either work a shorter week (which Ford eventually moved to, recognizing that it made workers more efficient) or make more money. Its not much more, but its still more than the 1914 Ford worker.

However, overall a good read. Certainly delves deeper into certain newer topics like blockchain/crypto that some readers may be unfamiliar with, and the insight into how certain regions like Africa may essentially skip over societal evolutionary stages (like landline telephones and traditional banking) is an insight well taken for anyone with interests in these areas (which should be most people in our increasingly globalized world). I highly recommend.

Very insightful and informational book. I read a lot of books and found this book to include a lot of information that I have not seen before. This book is a refresher to a similar thought process.

I read through a lot of this book and agree with a lot of the messages the author is portraying, but I am not big on economics so found myself losing interest here and there. I will be recommending it to some of my classmates who study economics though, as I think it would be useful to them.

This was fascinating and very compelling. I loved how it was written from a lens of "this is what has happened by 2030" rather than "this is what might happen by 2030", although the author was careful to point out this is just one (well-researched) hypothesis. One of the key themes in this book was flexibility, and I think reading the nascent trends is perfect preparation to be flexible; even if the trends don't manifest in exactly the way Guillen described, a thorough understanding of them will help avoid surprises in whatever way they do play out. Highly recommend, particularly for anyone in business!

I really enjoyed this! It's a solid nonfiction book that is deliberative and specific in its scope and focus. Some of the information was really familiar to me (population trends, increasing power of technology, power of cities) but there was a ton of novel information as well, particularly the connections Guillen makes, which is a main focus in this thesis. He argues that we need to look at multiple factors rather than isolated patterns, and can't look at bulk data solely, but need to break things down into smaller demographic groups. The chapter breakdowns (each between 45 minutes and an hour of reading) were really well paced, sourced, and argued, and the variety of topics covered was well-rounded and informative. His book (obviously) does not address the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the world, but I'm intrigued to see how prescient his predictions will be, and how many things might change as a result (particularly in regards to his predictions about cities).
I would highly recommend this to people who love current & topical nonfiction books, those interested in nonprofit/change sectors, and those who like predictive books about current trends and demographics.
4.5 stars

I found this book compelling. The storytelling writing style combined with a presentation of facts and focuses on different areas of the world made this an enjoyable, engaging read. I appreciated the seven principles for approaching the future.

It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future

The world as we know it today will be gone by decade’s end. This is the premise of Wharton professor Mauro Guillen’s new book, 2030: How Today's Biggest Trends Will Collide and Reshape the Future of Everything. (Yes, everything!)

2030 is a real page-turner (or page “swiper” if like me you read it in ebook form), perhaps not something you’d expect from a Wharton Professor, with all due respect to the literary chops of his fellow bus school profs.

2030 falls somewhere between Yuval Harari’s Sapiens, in identifying salient trends and presenting them in counterintuitive, sometimes highly provocative new lights and Kahneman and Tversky’s work on cognitive fallacies that distort our thinking

The sweep of the trends and topics the book covers in its near 300 pages is very impressive: the impact of global warming, water scarcity, immigration, more women in the workplace who are amassing more wealth, the sharing economy, AI and robotics, blockchain’s various applications, emerging markets in South Asia and Sub Saharan Africa…and more. But if there’s an organizing theme it’s what Guillen calls lateral thinking, which is something of a lens through which he views all these trends. Put simply, lateral thinking looks at otherwise bleak, unpromising scenarios or trends and uncovers opportunities and new possibilities – a perspective that Guillen succinctly captures in his conclusion: “seeing the unseeable has been my mission in 2030 the effort to visualize a metaphorical black hole if you will of an emerging world remade by shifting demographics global warming technological disruption and geopolitical disarray. Are we doomed?”

Guillen answers his own question with a quote from Winston Churchill: “The pessimist sees difficulty in every opportunity, while the optimist sees opportunity in every difficulty.”

We discussed 2030 with Professor Guillen on our Work in Progress podcast, https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/its-tough-to-make-predictions-especially-about-the-future/id1459149715?i=1000492109961

This title will be reviewed in the November-December issue of GBOE. I will send a pdf copy of the review upon publication. Thank. you so much for providing a copy. I am including a goodreads link which is my personal account - I try to promote the books across platforms. I will also put something on twitter as publication date approaches. The review will be in a printed copy of the journal.

A well written title that is by nature speculative but brings up many things that may well affect our future. Not overly technical in detail but will appeal more to those who want detail than those who want to breeze through a book.

While I was definitely interested in what the predictions were, I was most interested in how those predictions would be perceived in light of 2020's most obvious event, COVID-19. Most of what was examined in the book involved trends, and many trends worldwide are now being disrupted due to the global pandemic.

I wonder, will automations still be allowed such a significant place in the job market with so many now unemployed? As for the Airbnb's positive outlook, cities are now not allowing short-term rentals and similarly residents wouldn't want any risk of infections from tourists--though I could still see this change, much later.

For a layperson like me, the book was both illuminating and engaging, well-written with facts and numbers and narrations that showed the author's realistic optimism, which personally I found very inspiring.

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for providing me with an ebook version of the advanced reader copy.

One of the most imteresting things about this book is about th epositive that can happen but does not address the other side, the less positive aspects such as increased government control. Similar to other books of this style with some very interesting ideas for a future outlook. Lots of good information and insight.

Who doesn't want a sneak peek at the future and what researchers think it will be like? Guillen has done exhaustive research and looks at several factors when he considers where we will be ten years from now: population explosions in some parts of the world and drastic declines in others, the geographic shifting of the middle class, the more dominant role of women in all industries, education, currencies, technology, politics and more.

To be prepared, he also suggests we get on board with lateral rather than linear thinking. Lateral thinking touts thinking of things from multiple (and hopefully) new viewpoints, jumping in, starting small, making a mark, going with the flow, embracing change, as old ways won't work anymore. The perceived quality of our lives will be proportionate with the fluidity with which we can adapt to changes.

"You cannot swim for new horizons until you have the courage to lose sight of the shore." William Faulkner. This statement is very true. Of course, there are always two sides to everything: "The swimming was great until the shark came!" Jaws.

An interesting read, to be taken with the appropriate grain of salt, because in the end, no one really knows.

My thanks to NetGalley and St. Martin's press for giving me the opportunity to read this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

Fascinating! I really enjoyed this book. The author educated on the state of our world now and what it will look like in 10 years. I loved the chapters on women and wealth and bitcoin and cryptocurrency. Highly recommend! Thank you to St. Martin’s Press, Mauro F. Guillen, and Net Galley for the digital copy in exchange for an honest review! #2030 #netgalley

I love reading books that forecast the future.
As a result, it's rare that I read a prediction that I hadn't read about before.
This book is no exception: there were few surprises or issues that I disagreed with.

The other issue is that projecting 10 years into the future lacks the "wow factor."
Certainly, things will be different, but they won't be nearly as different as things 50-100 years in the future.

Despite these shortcomings, I'm giving this book 5 stars because it accomplishes what it set out to do: give various predictions about the world in 2030.

He predicts that:
- Africa will be more important (thanks to baby production)
- Seniors will extend their career
- Indians and Chinese will play bigger roles
- Women will rise dramatically
- Cities will drown (I disagree)
- Toilets without plumbing will be important
- There will be more currencies than countries

That last prediction has already come true. There are over 1,000 alternative cryptocurrencies.

The book is balanced between pessimism and optimism.

If you want to know what life will be like in one decade, read this book.

The author does a very good job of taking trends and extrapolating them out for the next 10 years. He does hedge his bets by pointing out that no one can predict the future and these things “could” happen. Some of the items I can see might occur over the next 10 years but many others seem like he is condensing the time frame. Of course the author had no idea that the whole world would be shut down for at least one year as he was writing this due to a virus so the title of the book might be 2031. He does let the reader know that people, politics and large corporations could impact the direction things progress. Certainly, statistics and projections can easily be turned on their head by any one or all three of these groups. Having a certain type of government in the United States will have a huge impact on these predictions as well.
Over all this is a very eye opening and thought provoking book. His analysis of Africa and south east Asia are both very insightful. Of course politics and racial differences will play a major impact in Africa. I would recommend this book for anyone that’s just getting into business or starting a career or anyone that might be wanting to push their career to another level. The insights from this book will give many of these individuals the opportunity to think about other options that could be available for them if they adjusted their thought process and understood what these changes will mean to them and the world around us.

This book was a lot of supposition, but backed up with what seemed to be facts. it also became down right scary if everything happend that the author "predicts".. With the mess we are in with the pandemic, the future seems kind of dim and this book doesn't help me feel better. I guess the author does offer some hope and solace--we just all have to be nimble and roll with the punches; however somehow that is hard to do.

"Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow" --Fleetwood Mac

As I too fast approach octogenarian status, I'm ever more aware that I'm not ready to leave this world (whether I'm looking down or up when I get there is a topic for another day). A big reason for this is my fascination with what the future has in store. Some of that is influenced by where I started - growing up using crank telephones, watching a tiny black-and-white TV screen while my dad was on the roof rotating the TV antenna to get the channel we wanted (one of only three available, I might add) and helping my mom put soppy wet clothes through the wringer of her washing machine. I gravitated toward books written by futurists - researchers like Alvin Toffler, John Naisbitt and Faith Popcorn.

So when this book came within my sights, I zeroed in. And I certainly wasn't disappointed - if anything, it's made me more determined to hang around as long as I can to see how the author's predictions play out. He holds the Zandman Professorship in International Management at the Wharton School, and clearly he's done extensive research on the subject (just check out the extensive list of sources at the end of the book). But while he's an academic, the book really doesn't read like a textbook (neither is it something you can skim, but it was so interesting that doing that never entered my mind). He got my attention early on with just one sentence: "Simply put, the world as we know it today will be gone by 2030."

Oh yeah? Tell me more. And he does, in eight chapters that focus on various topics ranging from changing demographics - by 2030, for instance, the world's largest generation will be age 60 and up (even today, they own 80% of the net worth in the United States alone) and half of the world's wealth will be owned by women 10 years from now. Also interesting to me is the change in birth rates; by 2030, the author notes, one-third of American men and two-thirds of American women will retire childless. As for technology, we ain't seen nuthin' yet. By 2030, there will be more computers than human brains and more robotic arms than human labor in the manufacturing sector. "Artificial Intelligence will bring about epochal change," the author maintains. We're also moving fast toward a cashless world. Today, more than 80% of all international trade is invoiced in dollars - but that will change (pun intended) fast.

For I've read that the author has added his take on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic to the final version of the book, but alas, my pre-release copy for review (for which I thank the publisher, via NetGalley), did not include it. I'd also be interested in his opinion on what effect the current U.S. administration will have on progress, but that's not in here either. I'm no expert, but I do have a couple of theories. First, the advances in technology noted here that relate to our personal lives - like a no-currency, no bank society - may be slowed because the current administration is allowing - even encouraging - people who believe the government is conspiring against them to come out of the woodwork. No way will these folks willingly give up their "guaranteed Constitutional right to privacy," no matter how much it may improve their quality of life. Meanwhile, the pandemic has shown us (well, at least my husband and I) that we can see, hear and buy just about anything we need and want without ever leaving home; that could help speed up the permeation of technology into just about every facet of daily living (especially the cashless society thing). Only time will tell - but if you want to get ready, I encourage you to read this book.

As a professor at the Wharton School, Mauro Guillén worries "not only about the future state of business but also about how workers and consumers might be affected by the avalanche of change coming our way." In 2030, he explains how several trends like wealth disparity (The U.S. federal poverty line in 2019 was $28,100 for a family of four, while, according to the UK House of Commons Library two-thirds of the world's wealth will be owned by the richest 1 percent in 2030), Africa's baby boom and industrial revolution, senior citizens postponing retirement, and the end of modern banking will converge into a single tipping point in 2030.

Full of fascinating (and often frightening) statistics, 2030 supports the facts that many of the "old rules" about our culture, economy, and technology (babies outnumbering retirees, printed money as legal tender, middle class attainability, and paths to financial security) are in the process of a seismic shift. I found the information about birth rate trends in different countries especially fascinating and the entire book was extremely thought provoking. The final copy of this book will also include a chapter on the implications of COVID-19 on these trends.

I received a free ARC of this book from Netgalley in return for an honest review.

In 2030: How Today's Biggest Trends Will Collide and Reshape the Future of Everything of Everything, Mauro F. Guillen predicts how the world will be 10 years from now. Guillen focuses on population, immigration, business, environment, currency and finance and is statistically backed up.. He compiles a strong list of trends that are going on right now and analyzes them to give us a road map of where we will be going as we approach 2030.

This book was a bit tough to get into and took me longer than I would like to read. Unfortunately, this book already feels outdated due to Coronavirus and the implications that it will have on the future.

Interesting look at some of the trends today and how they are likely to affect us ten years from now. But Guillen looks at it mostly from a business perspective, even though it touches on some social issues. I particularly found his analysis of population trends interesting: wealthier people and countries generally have smaller families, and in countries like the United States that means an aging population and less people contributing to social security. With the current emphasis against immigration, we may be facing not only a labor shortage but many may need to work significantly beyond the usual retirement age in order to make ends meet. This also means that the “gray" population will be more influential than is generally assumed, and Millennials may not always be the best audience to target for advertisers.

Places where the population is growing and getting younger, such as Africa, India, and Southeast Asia, will become much more influential than America in global markets. He also talks about the increasing importance of cell phones in emerging markets, and some places in Africa are more “wired" than the United States. He also talks about the "sharing" economy and growing importance of things like Airbnb and Uber. And one area where he honestly kind of lost me was the section about cryptocurrencies. He believes they will become increasingly important, although I wasn’t as convinced and thought this was one of the weaker parts.

I received an advance copy from net galley which says the book includes an update about the coronavirus pandemic, but my copy unfortunately has no such update. 3.5 stars but rounding up to 4.