Thank you for reading my latest book Thank You For Being Late.''For those of you who read The World Is Flat, I know that you will enjoy this book as well！In some ways it is a continuation of the argument I began in The World Is Flat about the implications of the accelerations in technology and globalization and some ways it is a whole new departure in how to think about the world today and the best ways to thrive as a student, a teacher, a worker, a community or a country.
Thank You For Being Late has three big themes that I believe will be very relevant to Chinese readers. The first question is what are the biggest forces shaping more things in more places in more ways on more days.I have been a columnist for the New York Times for over 20 years and I am always carrying around in my head a working hypothesis for how I think the big gears and pulleys of the world work to shape events.I am always updating my view of this as I learn more things, because I don't believe you can be an effective commentator unless you have a basic working hypothesis of how the biggest global forces interact to shape andreshape our world.
My argument, as you will see, is that what is shaping more things in more places in more ways on more days in the world today is the fact that the three most powerful forces on the planet, which I call"the market, Mother Nature and Moore's Law"，are all in simultaneous exponential acceleration. The market for me is digital globalization.Mother Nature is climate change, biopersity loss and population growth.And Moore's Law, named after Gordon Moore, the co-founder of Intel, says that the speed and power of microprocessors will double every 24 months.It is now closer to 30 months, but that law has held up since Gordon Moore first posited it in 1965，and it is the driver of all technological change.
The three of these accelerations are all interacting with one another-more technology acceleration drives more globalization acceleration and both drive more climate change, and solutions to climate change.
And that leads to the second big question the book tries to answer：how are these accelerations not just changing but fundamentally reshaping the workplace, politics, geopolitics, ethics and communities. We need innovation in all five areas to deal with the age of accelerations, and I provide suggestions for how to rethink all five.Government, politics and the workplace will all have to adapt to this age of accelerations.
The last theme is that-paradoxically-the faster the world gets and the more that these three big accelerations reshape all aspects of our lives-the more important it is for inpiduals to slow down, build strong educational foundations for life-long learning and anchor themselves in strong families and healthy communities, like the one I grew up in the Minnesota back in the 1950s，1960s and 1970s. The faster the world gets the moreimportant become all those things that you can't download, but that you have to upload the old-fashioned way-good teacher to student, good parents to child, good bureaucrat to citizen, good ethical leader to their community.
That is why my favorite quote in the book is from my friend and teacher Dov Seidman, CEO of LRN, which advises global businesses on ethics and leadership, who says：“When you press the pause button on a machine, it stops. But when you press the pause button on human beings they start.You start to reflect, you start to rethink your assumptions, you start to reimagine what is possible and, most importantly, you start to reconnect with your most deeply held beliefs.Once you've done that, you can begin to reimagine a better path.”
Pausing for a moment every so often is very important for a country like China, which is now growing so fast in the 21st century—not so it will fall behind, but so that it can make sure it keeps building its progress on a solid foundation.
So I hope, dear reader, that this book will encourage you to pause and reflect-to better understand the big accelerations now reshaping our world and how every nation and every citizen-in Asia, America, Europe, Africa or Latin America-can get the most out of them to thrive and to cushion all their downsides. Enjoy！
Washington, D. C.
March 25，2017