The Inevitable: Understanding the 12 Technological Forces That Will Shape Our Future

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am indebted to Paul Slovak, my editor at Viking, who has long supported my efforts to make sense of technology, and to my agent John Brockman, who suggested this book. For editorial guidance on the first draft I relied on Jay Schaefer, master book coach based in San Francisco. Librarian Camille Hartsell did most of the factual research and provided the extensive endnotes. Claudia Lamar assisted in research, fact-checking, and formatting help. Two of my former colleagues at Wired, Russ Mitchell and Gary Wolf, waded through an early rough draft and made important suggestions that I incorporated. Over the span of years that I wrote this material I benefited from the precious time of many interviewees. Among them were John Battelle, Michael Naimark, Jaron Lanier, Gary Wolf, Rodney Brooks, Brewster Kahle, Alan Greene, Hal Varian, George Dyson, and Ethan Zuckerman. Thanks to the editors of Wired and The New York Times Magazine, who were instrumental in shaping initial versions of portions of this book.

Most important, this book is dedicated to my family—Giamin, Kaileen, Ting, and Tywen—who keep me grounded and pointed forward. Thank you.