Original 2021 statement: Likewise, one of the most important technologies in your life in ten years does not yet exist
What Jim has written about this
From “Monday Musings: The Keynote I Never Gave: Five Perspectives on the Future of the UAE” (August 2026)
The opening sequence was designed to be deliberately provocative. The deck cited the idea that 65% of children would eventually work in jobs that did not yet exist , that 50% of what is learned in the first year of college could be obsolete by graduation , and that many technologies were operating on an 18-month obsolescence cycle . Then came the conclusion: “The future belongs to those who are fast!”
That led directly to one of the most important statements in the entire presentation: Companies that do not yet exist will build products not yet conceived using ideas not yet in existence with methodologies yet to be defined.
Another slide looked at how long major platforms took to reach one million users. Netflix took about 3.5 years. Kickstarter and Airbnb took roughly 2.5 years. Twitter took two years. Facebook took ten months. Dropbox seven months. Spotify five months. Instagram two and a half months.
From “Daily Inspiration: “It’s time to move from triage to tomorrow!”” (January 2023)
Most kids today will work in a job or career that does not yet exist
50% to 80% of the revenue that a company will generate by 2030 will come from a product or service that does not yet exist today
Right now, there is a company that does not yet exist that will build a product not yet conceived, using material not yet invented, with a methodology yet to be discovered.
From “Headlines: The More Things Change, the More Things Stay The Same (sometimes)” (March 2011)
the beginning of the end of the “personal computer.” eMachines still exists, busy manufacturing low-end computers. 10 years later, technology growth is all about mobile devices, tablets / iPads, embedded technology, and who knows what else is yet to come?
to be fair, it was difficult to get onto the Internet 10 years ago in many third-world countries. It still is today. And yet, we’ve witnessed throughout the Middle East and northern Africa the impact that the network can have upon autocractic regimes. In terms of numbers, the Internet is no longer dominated by the ‘rich world,’ and in terms of democracy, it’s having its biggest political impact far beyond that world.
in other words, but 20 years ago, today’s Internet was but a glimmer in the eye of but a few thousand geeks worldwide. A few networks were beginning to realize they could do something awesome if they plugged together. I was one of them. By 1991, I had already been online for some 9 years, starting out with early BBS systems, services like the Source and BIX (Byte Information Network). Yet all of a sudden, in 1991, visions were crystallizing of an opportunity to use a fast-paced emerging standard known as TCP/IP to link together all the computers in the world. Many of us thought the results would be astonishing. That’s an understatment.
Read the full pieces on jimcarroll.com:
Monday Musings: The Keynote I Never Gave: Five Perspectives on the Future of the UAE
Daily Inspiration: “It’s time to move from triage to tomorrow!”
Headlines: The More Things Change, the More Things Stay The Same (sometimes)