Knowingo
The cover of The Second Machine Age

The Second Machine Age

Erik Brynjolfsson, Andrew McAfee, 2014

Digital technologies do for mental power what steam did for muscle, creating huge bounty and a widening spread; see what drives both and how people and policy can respond.

Get the app Read on the web

15 parts, about 24 minutes to read.

Why read it

  • Argues digital technology is exponential, digital and combinatorial, so computers now do for mental power what steam did for muscle
  • Separates bounty from spread: abundance and new digital goods on one side, widening gaps between superstars and ordinary workers on the other
  • Offers advice on racing with machines, including education, entrepreneurship, and policies such as a negative income tax

Who it is for

  • Workers wondering whether automation threatens their jobs
  • Parents and students choosing skills for the coming decades
  • Business leaders and policy readers tracking digital change

What the summary covers

  1. The Big Stories2 min
  2. The Skills of the New Machines2 min
  3. Moore's Law and the Second Half of the Chessboard2 min
  4. The Digitization of Just About Everything1 min
  5. Innovation: Declining or Recombining?2 min
  6. Artificial and Human Intelligence1 min
  7. Computing Bounty1 min
  8. Beyond GDP1 min
  9. The Spread2 min
  10. Superstars1 min
  11. Bounty and Spread2 min
  12. Racing With Machines2 min
  13. Policy Recommendations2 min
  14. Long Term Recommendations2 min
  15. Technology and the Future1 min

Recommended by

  • Michael SpenceWinner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences
    A terrific book. Brynjolfsson and McAfee combine their knowledge of rapidly evolving digital technologies and relevant economics to give us a colorful and accessible picture of dynamic forces that are shaping our lives, our work, and our economies.
  • Garry KasparovWorld Chess Champion from 1985 to 2000
    How we build, use, and live with our digital creations will define our success as a civilization in the twenty-first century. Will our new technologies lift us all up or leave more and more of us behind?
  • Clayton M. ChristensenHarvard Business School professor and author of The Innovator's Dilemma
    Although a few others have tried, The Second Machine Age truly helped me see the world of tomorrow through exponential rather than arithmetic lenses.
  • Marc AndreessenCofounder of Netscape and Andreessen Horowitz
    Brynjolfsson and McAfee are right: we are on the cusp of a dramatically different world brought on by technology.
  • Reid HoffmanCofounder of LinkedIn
    The Second Machine Age offers important insights into how digital technologies are transforming our economy, a process that has only just begun.
  • Hal VarianChief economist at Google
    Brynjolfsson and McAfee take us on a whirlwind tour of innovators and innovations around the world.
  • Kevin KellyFounding executive editor of Wired
    Technology is overturning the world's economies, and The Second Machine Age is the best explanation of this revolution yet written.

About the authors

  • Erik BrynjolfssonAmerican academic and Stanford University professor
    • Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Professor and Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Human Centered AI, and Director of the Stanford Digital Economy Lab.
    • Born in Roskilde, Denmark, the son of a nuclear physicist.
    • Holds bachelor and master degrees from Harvard in applied mathematics and decision sciences and a PhD from MIT in managerial economics.
    • On the MIT faculty from 1990 to 2020, including as Director of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy and of the MIT Center for Digital Business.
    • Among the first researchers to measure the productivity contributions of information technology and one of the most cited authors on the economics of information.
    • Has written nine books, including the bestsellers The Second Machine Age and Machine, Platform, Crowd, and more than 100 academic articles and five patents.
    • With Andrew McAfee, won the top prize in the Digital Thinkers category at the Thinkers 50 Gala in November 2015.
    • Cochaired a 2017 National Academies of Sciences committee on Automation and the US Workforce.
  • Andrew McAfeeResearch scientist at MIT and codirector of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy
    • Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management, cofounder and codirector of the MIT Initiative on the Digital Economy, and inaugural Visiting Fellow at the Technology and Society organization at Google.
    • Studies how technological progress changes the world.
    • Grew up in a small town in the Midwest.
    • Earned a doctorate from Harvard Business School and two bachelor and two master of science degrees at MIT.
    • Wrote The Geek Way (2023) and More from Less, and with Erik Brynjolfsson The Second Machine Age.
    • Has advised organizations ranging from the IMF to the Boston Red Sox to the US Intelligence Community.
    • With Brynjolfsson, one of only two people named to both the Thinkers50 list of top management thinkers and the Politico 50.
    • Has spoken at TED 2013 and appeared on The Charlie Rose Show.

More books like this