Note: Netgalley provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

A well written and well researched look into how our society will look in the year 2030. The author brought a lot of knowledge and insight into thinking about what our world will look like come 2030. He introduced me to some new ideas and perspectives, but at times the book was a bit dry. Overall, I learned a lot from this book and enjoyed reading it although it did take me a while to get through and comprehend everything.

In 2030: How Today's Biggest Trends Will Collide and Reshape the Future of Everything, Mauro F. Guillen makes predictions for 10 years from now in many different areas such as business, finance, currency, population, environment, and others.

I find Guillen, like all of us, makes predictions based on his own political viewpoint, which is to be expected. My take is different than his, but that would be the same for anyone reading this, as we are all individuals. Guillen has undertaken a daunting task. So many things have changed in just one year from 2019 to 2020, I think it would be hard to make predictions for ten years out in this day and age. I think Guillen's ideas are well thought out, but can too easily be changed by future events.

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley. My review is voluntary.

As other reviewers have mentioned, covid-19 has changed the world so much that this book already feels dated. I've reviewed many ARCs this year that were already hastily updated in sections to keep them current for release this year in light of the pandemic. This one seems to need a bigger rewrite, as we still have so little idea of what the future looks like in this new normal. Perhaps a 2031 next year would be a bigger seller, as tough as that may be to hear.

I received a free ARC of this book from Netgalley.

Covers a lot of different areas such as: gig economies, longevity rates, generational changes, global water and sanitation infrastructure to help think about what the business world might be like in 2030 which is not far away at all.
Some of the subsections such as: "Are Women Bossy as Leaders?" and "Gays and Bohemians" could be more politically correct. This was written pre-pandemic of 2020 which will definitely have some influence on how things go. Uber and Airbnb have certainly suffered unexpected losses and aren't as robust as they were prior to 2020. However, I have seen other gig economies spring up during the pandemic so you have to be able to retool your business model to suit the changing needs of the world. An interesting read.

A good collection of all the ideas and trends that are going on right now and that we are headed for by 2030. It didn't really cover anything new that I hadn't heard of yet so I think I was a little let down that it didn't seem like anything I hadn't already read or known about before. Still an interesting ready though that analyzed some different ways all the various things that are mentioned might affect and change our lives as we know it and how life might be very different just ten years from now because of some radical changes taking place.

With all that is rapidly changing in today's society, this was exactly the book I needed to read.
It examines history patterns, current events and with that determines what our future in 2030 could look like and the conclusions it draws is very plausible.

There was a lot that I learned while reading the course of this book, even if I considered myself well versed in current events, I enjoyed the various perspectives and insights it was exposed. It is a great book for a conversation starter amongst friends/family to open up lively debate discussions.

At times, it can be seem it might not be relevant to your part of the world but it did help me connect how the impact of one nation can impact others - I'd recommend this read for an eye-opening perspective and to more interestingly to see if any of these trends/predictions come to fruition.

I have an abiding interest in social sciences, and from the publisher's blurb, I thought that 2030 would be an interesting look at how the world we live in is poised to radically change in the coming decade. But that's not exactly what this is – it's not so much how our lives will change as how the business world will change, with advice on how to use “lateral thinking” to take advantage of these emerging markets. While this was still interesting, and it's certainly not author Mauro Guillen's fault that this wasn't the book I was expecting, it wasn't, ultimately, perfectly suited to my own interests. Ending with specific example of what Guillen means by lateral thinking, this should be of interest to the entrepreneurial mind.

There is a tendency on campuses to soften the prospects of uncertain futures. Prof Guillen stops short of the kind of extrapolation that might lead to doomsday scenarios. To fully arm readers with the kind of knowledge they are going to need to thrive in the 21 century, he/they are going to have to consider consequences of unmitigated climate change, pandemics, war for scarce commodities, the end of the dollar as a reserve currency, and deeper social unrest. He must also reconsider his reliance on the tech fix. Past is not prologue, we are not going to mars, and nothing can stop the rising tides. We may not be able to outsmart ourselves this round and preparedness training ought to consider restructured social relationships. Know your neighbor.

Thank you Net Galley for the free ARC. Postulates what changes we will see in the world over the next ten years. Paints a dark picture.

Would Lehman Brothers have had a more encouraging prospect if it was Lehmann Sisters instead? What is the connection between block-chain technology and a national election? In his book “2030” (one of the shortest ever main titles for a book succeeded by what has to be one of the longest subtitles ever for any literary work), Mauro F. Guillen, Zandman Professor of International Management, Wharton School and Director, Lauder Institute, tackles these questions along with a whole horde of seemingly unconnected but intricately linked phenomena as he proceeds to dissect some of the most disruptive trends that the world would be a spectator to by the year 2030.

The book mulls about the tectonic trends, that by the year 2030 would put paid to the conventional, and upend received wisdom. For example, as the author highlights, the most powerful middle class both in terms of sheer population and purchasing power by the year 2030 would be in India and China. In a humorous take on Arthur R. “Pop” Momand’s memorable conception of “Keeping up with the Joneses”, Mr. Guillen mulls that in future, it would be a case of “Keeping Up With the Singhs and Wangs.” This is also in line with the funnel of innovation that seems to have sprouted in the two most populous nations on Earth. “…while in 2016, the number of patent applications filed in the United States was three times greater than in 1995, in India it was seven times greater, and in China, a whopping seventy-two times greater.”

If you are a woman and you are reading this, drop whatever it is that may be doing, do a cartwheel, or two, and whoop out in undisguised glee. For according to Mr. Guillen, women will get rich – and most importantly richer than men – by the year 2030. This trend, the author argues is in keeping with the famous, or rather infamous (depending upon how one interprets the findings), “Harvard-Yale Study” that “resonated with educated women who were trying to balance their professional goals with personal life.” From a risk aversion perspective, women tend to spend more on their own physical and mental well being and are more inclined to ensure that their parents, off-spring and grandchildren get the healthcare that is essential. The author after quoting Gloria Steinem “we can tell our values by looking at our checkbook stubs”, argues that, “its not much of a stretch to argue that if instead of Lehman Brothers we had Lehman Sisters, the crisis of 2008 might have been averted.”

Whilst holding forth on futuristic trends, one cannot afford to either neglect or ignore the existential threat of Global Warming, and neither does Mr. Guillen. Cities, according to him have become teeming masses of humanity and unless drastic and conscientious measures are instituted, these megapolises face imminent peril. “Cities occupy 1 percent of the world’s land yet are home to about 55 percent of the human population. Told another way, the total land mass on Earth is 196.9 million square miles and cities account for roughly 2 million of those. With 4 billion urban residents, that’s an average of 2,000 people per square mile in cities, which is quite a crowd. Cities account for 75 percent of total energy consumption and 80 percent of total carbon emissions.” Sobering statistic and a time for introspection in so far as humanity, that is more tightly packed than a cliched can of sardines, is concerned.

An added melancholic aspect attached to the new age city, according to the author is its dehumanization. Mr. Guillen proclaims that our cities have lost their soul and are beginning to alienate themselves. Characterised by stereotypical architecture and grotesquely towering monuments, that bear shameless testimony – in addition to paying brazen obeisance – to capitalism, one cannot but agree with Mr. Guillen. Drawing his reader’s attention to the twentieth century Italian metaphysical painter Giorgio de Chirico, Mr. Guillen mulls about the bleak paintings of the acclaimed artist. He also quotes the poet Federico Garcia Lorca, who in 1929 after a stay in New York said, “there is nothing more poetic and terrible than the skyscrapers’ battle with the heavens that cover them.”

Mr. Guillen also offers a kind of liberation and escape from the vice like grip of a city life. Drawing on the principle of “mundanity of excellence” – a term coined by the sociologist Daniel Chambliss, Mr. Guillen educates his readers that high performance is not a natural outcome or corollary of quantum leaps or innate talent, but, a product of a series of tiny and incremental improvements.

Mr. Guillen also jumps on the bandwagon of vertical farming and its perceivable benefits (if this statement comes across as an exercise in complaining, then I ask the author to pardon me.). This proposition of Dickson Despommier of Columbia University has fast gained traction, and companies such as Sky Greens, Green Collar Foods and Artesian Farms have made a veritable enterprise out of the novel concept.

But one of the most important trends identified by Mr. Guillen in “2030” appears in a chapter titled “Imagine No Possessions.” An obvious take on John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s immortal melody, this chapter deals about the inescapable rise of the gig economy. The likes of Uber and Airbnb have demonstrated with a chilling precision that the best way to enjoy possession is by not possessing the product or the service or the experience that triggers such enjoyment! As Mr. Guillen illustrates, “in 2014 Facebook paid $19 billion to purchase WhatsApp, a messaging app with virtually no physical assets to speak of and fewer than sixty employees.” Airbnb, in addition to providing hassle free accommodation to the egregious back packer also bestows upon the owner a spectacular financial benefit. A senior citizen who owns a house can now earn a steady income by letting out a part of his property without being beholden to a bank, which otherwise would have been the unfortunate case in the event loans were obtained with the house as an inevitable collateral.

However, the gig economy brings along with it, a set of unfortunate inconveniences. Crowded cities, and traffic congestion may result in a tragedy of commons, a concept pioneered by the sociologist Garrett Hardin, in 1968, and first observed by the nineteenth century British economist William Forster Lloyd, who penned the environmental hazards that might accrue as a result of grazing on unregulated lands.

Mr. Guillen rounds off his book with a Chapter on Bitcoins and Cryptocurrencies. The burgeoning rise of cryptocurrencies has ensured that there are more currencies on Earth than countries. What makes cryptocurrencies very alluring is their perceivable safety. “Consider that the odds of guessing a winning Powerball lottery number is 1 in 292 million. The probability of hacking a bitcoin private key, which uses 256-bit encryption, is a minuscule 1 in 2 to the power of 256, or 1 in over 115 quattuorvigintillion – a number with 78 digits. That’s equivalent to the odds of winning Powerball nine times in a row.”

Estonia seems to have grasped this concept perfectly well. Presenting itself to the world as “e-Estonia”, the country is a Digital Republic. The citizens, as the author points out can apply for benefits, source medical prescriptions, register their businesses, vote and even access nearly three thousand other digital services online. The author opines that from facilitating elections to funding development, blockchain technology may be the way forward.

As we are trying to tortuously untangle ourselves from the grip of an insidious pandemic, words like the “new Normal”, “social distancing etc.” are rewriting our everyday Lexicon and rewiring our attitudes and outlook. These unprecedented times are the ones where re-imagination, reinvention and repackaging would save the day for mankind. Yet more trends, perhaps for Mr. Guillen to seriously start mulling about a sequel!

(2030 How Today’s Biggest Trends will collide and reshape the future of everything by Mauro F. Guillen, a St Martin’s Press Publication published on the 25th of August 2020).

I used to have the opinion that a non-fiction book better be right to be good. maybe, Just maybe....

Here comes Thomas Robert Malthus 3.0. Mauro F. Guillen takes the reader through a series of topics over the course of the book, explaining current changes we see in society, geography and technology. He takes current observations and trends, calculates some magic formulas in his head, generates forecasts and comes up with general climate for our way of living 10 years from now.

As Thomas Malthus or John Maynard Keynes before him, he is going to be wrong, we know that. The former two lived during the industrial revolution, but did not anticipate the innovations the agricultural revolution brought. Mauro of course cannot predict major disruptions caused by things no one can see yet, like a major unprecedented pandemic, for example. There also will be technologies emerging, faster than ever.

But at the end, Thomas Malthus "Essay on the principles of population" was still a stellar publication, the author still famous, and we are still worried about how we use the resources on this planet 200 years after its publication. This book is a refresher on the same thought process. At the conclusion he kind of sort of admits that he is likely going to be wrong and brings his thoughts to a very sensible ending. It is the shift of your thinking that makes this book great, and it is ok if he is going to be wrong. His thought process isn't.

I was very interested to read this book, and typically enjoy data-driven research and future-thinking. As other reviewers mention, in a COVID-19 world, I wonder how much such an epidemic already affects the considerations in the book. I found the reading to be somewhat dry and repetitive in the beginning, but the author seemed to reach more of his stride further in. The book poses some interesting points for those in businesses to consider. For our bookshop, it will not appeal to the majority of our customers.

This is mostly interesting, but I'm sure other readers will point out that since it was written last year, it's already out of date due to Covid. For this reason I ended up skimming it. It may be best to table this or re-write it, I'm sorry to say, since the world is evolving quite quickly. Otherwise, it would be more relevant.

Thanks for the ARC for review!!

I requested this book before the global pandemic began in early 2020, and reading it now (late April 2020) feels like it's already out of sync with the world. This is not the author's fault, but things have changed so much, so quickly, that it's hard to read this as a current predictor of future trends. It'll be interesting to see how Guillen's predictions for population, wealth distribution, obesity, etc., will play out over the next ten years, in light of our current crisis.