Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data

By: Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, Thomas Ramge

Narrated by: John Chancer

From the New York Times best-selling author of Big Data, a prediction for how data will revolutionize the market economy and make cash, banks, and big companies obsolete

In modern history, the story of capitalism has been a story of firms and financiers. That's all going to change thanks to the Big Data revolution. As Viktor Mayer-Schönberger, best-selling author of Big Data, and Thomas Ramge, who writes for The Economist, show, data is replacing money as the driver of market behavior.

Big finance and big companies will be replaced by small groups and individual actors who make markets instead of making things: think Uber instead of Ford, or Airbnb instead of Hyatt. This is the dawn of the era of data capitalism. Will it be an age of prosperity or of calamity? This book provides the indispensable roadmap for securing a better future.

©2018 Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Thomas Ramge (P)2018 Basic Books

Critic reviews

"Digitalization is challenging us to re-think the future of our economy. This thought-provoking book provides excellent insights and guidance." (Henning Kagermann, former CEO of SAP and President of Acatech at the National Academy of Science and Engineering)

"It's vogue today to proclaim the 'death of capitalism' - and yet the one truly global system is going through profound reinvention as a combination of technological forces reshape every aspect of our economic, political and social lives. This book is an absolutely essential guide to our collective digital future and equally importantly, a sensible manifesto to shape it for everyone's benefit." (Parag Khanna, author of Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization and Technocracy in America: Rise of the Info-State)

"Reinventing Capitalism is a stunning and extremely provocative sketch of a world where data flows replace money flows and where data becomes a new kind of currency and provokes a new kind of capitalism. I highly recommend this astounding book that will help us all reimagine what capitalism could become in our new, data centric, AI based world." (John Seely Brown, former Chief Scientist, Xerox Corp; former Director, Xerox Palo Alto Research Center [PARC]; and co-author of Design Unbound)

"An unnerving yet plausible portrait of a future in which 'finance capitalism will be as old-fashioned as Flower Power.'" (Kirkus)

"A welcoming and comprehensible narrative featuring interesting profiles of key personalities driving the Big Data revolution.... The future marketplace of goods, services, and ideas will benefit from a wide readership of this instructive study." (Booklist)

"Anyone interested in the future of business should read this fascinating book as soon as possible. By now it is conventional wisdom - thanks in no small part to Mayer-Schönberger's previous book - that big data will transform the way firms operate. Reinventing Capitalism in the Age of Big Data makes a compelling case that it will change the nature of the market itself. With brilliant insights, it explains how the shift from simple price signaling to data-rich preference matching will determine the winners and losers of the 21st century economy, and thoughtfully outlines steps to curb the excesses of this new environment." (Kevin Werbach, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania)

Lackluster content

Honestly, I expected a lot more from this book. After I finished, I felt like it was just a waste of words. (I have the physical copy too). It’s as if it wasn’t really saying anything. That’s my opinion. It’s also ridiculous to say our future would be incredibly social... When clearly with all this social media, we don’t even interact with each other anymore.

What a load of...

Really looked forward to this book based on title and reviews - forced myself to the end in hope that I might find something insightful. Big Reveal: Data often helps us to make better decisions. beyond that, techno utopian claptrap that is ignorant of history and human behavior, and conflates price with judgement, and markets as the place where we will all self-actualize in data risk collaboration, just as long as we ensure diversity in our AI. My head hurts. It's like Paul Coehlo and Mark Zuckerberg had a love child. Take two aspirin before reading.