ANNOUNCEMENT

From Understanding to Building, and Thank You!

 

Ten years ago we started RethinkX to answer one question: how fast, and how far, would technology disruption reshape the foundations of the global economy? We set out to help leaders in government, business, finance and civil society see what was coming in energy, transportation, food and labour, and to understand the choices it would force on them.

 

That question has been answered. The disruptions we described are no longer forecasts. Global solar capacity has passed 3 terawatts, tripling in four years. More than 60% of new cars sold in China are now electric. Paying passengers ride in cars with no driver. Precision fermentation (a term we coined) has continued to improve in cost and capability. We didn’t get every specific forecast perfect, but the direction and transformative nature of disruption we nailed. The case for the speed and scale of disruption has been made, and it is now part of the mainstream conversation.

 

So today we are bringing RethinkX’s research arm to a close. We call this a graduation rather than an ending. The work graduates, and so do we.

 

Why we are stopping new research

The barrier to change is no longer a lack of research. We could go broader, into more sectors, or deeper into each one. Both would add detail. Neither would have the impact of what we are planning next. The constraint has moved.

 

Most people now accept that individual industries are being disrupted. What they have not yet grasped is what follows: the transformation of whole systems. Energy, transport, food, labour and information are being rebuilt at the same time, and with them the economic, political and social systems built on top. Beneath all of that is a human transformation, in how people work, live and find purpose. It may be the hardest part. Our book Stellar (https://stellarworld.com/) has begun a conversation here.

 

More reports won’t solve that. It is a problem of story-telling: helping people see a future worth building. And it is a problem of action: getting people to build it, place by place, starting with energy, while avoiding the traps that would let a few capture the gains of abundance.

 

And personally, both of us have limited time, energy and resources and we both feel that there are other projects and approaches that can have a greater impact than more research and we are excited to turn our attention to these.

 

Why now

We didn’t want to become an organization that exists just to keep existing, where raising money slowly replaces the mission. When the job you set out to do is largely done, it’s time to move on. Ten years felt like the right moment. And as students of disruption, we would be the last people who should cling to work that AI is quickly learning to do.

 

Thank you

None of this happened without the people who did the work. Thank you to our brilliant research team, Adam Dorr, Bradd Libby, Taylor Hinds, Georgia Bartlett and Owen Westfold. Thanks also to our co-director, Uzair Niazi who has been on the journey with us since the start, sometimes as CEO and always as a trusted adviser.

 

Thank you also to the many researchers who have worked with us over the past decade and to the many others we have collaborated with. It was a privilege and a joy. We are glad that Adam and Bradd will keep working with us. And thank you to everyone who read our work, argued with it and passed it on.

 

What happens to the work

Everything RethinkX has published will stay online at rethinkx.com. We are releasing it under a Creative Commons Attribution licence (CC BY 4.0) so that anyone may use, adapt, translate and build on it, as long as they credit the source. The work was always meant to be used. And hopefully AI will find and train on it.

 

One final piece of research is still to come. Shortly we will publish the case for building a Stellar city or region, across economics and competitiveness, resilience and security, access and equality. This future will be built region by region, and we want every region to have what it needs to start.

 

What comes next

Each of us is taking on new work and projects, all toward the same aim: helping to bring about a Stellar world. The RethinkX community of readers, partners and collaborators is part of that. Watch this space. More announcements will follow.

 

You now know how fast the disruptions are coming. That was the easy part. The harder question is what we build with them. The science to understand them exists. What we do with that understanding is a choice. We hope you will join us in choosing to go Stellar.

 

Tony Seba and James Arbib, co-founders, RethinkX

 

 

View related video messages from co-founders: Tony Seba and James Arbib and from our lead researchers: Adam Dorr and Bradd Libby