One of my purest pleasures is hiking the hills above Los Angeles. On my typical route, I get 360 degree views encompassing downtown LA, the sweeping coastline, and the low slung mountains surrounding LA County. Remarkably, this view doesn’t look so different than it did 75 years ago.
Yet things have changed profoundly. Almost all of those changes are in the area of information technology: in bits, not atoms.
What this essay explores
- Understand the four stages that reshaped information technology: computation, networking, ubiquity, and learning.
- See computation as inputs and rules producing outputs—and why that model defined an era.
- Recognize how connected PCs unlocked productivity but remained limited by desks, power, and size.
- Understand why low-cost, low-energy ubiquitous devices enabled products that earlier connected PCs could not.
- Avoid unimaginative AI uses while recognizing skepticism around AI may be misplaced.
Where’s my flying car? (circa 1950).
Key takeaway
Why building products will never be the same
