INSTANT WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER!

"Bold, provocative...illuminates why we’re having fewer babies, the middle class is stagnating, unemployment is shifting, and new powers are rising.”
―ADAM GRANT

The world is rapidly changing in front of our eyes; are you ready for what comes next? One of the world's leading authorities on global trends offers a ground-breaking study, along with predictions about how COVID-19 will intensify and quicken each of these shifts.

The world's economy was formerly cleanly split into advanced and developing nations. There were many more babies than retirees, a greater proportion of individuals aspired to be middle class, and many wanted to buy automobiles and homes. Businesses might succeed by looking no further than Europe and the US. The legal currency for all debts, whether public or private, was printed money. Growing up, we were taught how to "play the game," and we assumed that if we got our first job, got married, had kids, and retired with our money all sorted, the rules would stay the same.

Those norms and that world are gone.

A new reality will establish itself by 2030, and before you realize it:

- Grandparents will outnumber grandkids.
- The middle class in Sub-Saharan Africa and Asia will surpass that of the US and Europe put together.
- For the first time in modern history, non-Western consumers will drive the global economy.
- Women will hold a larger share of the world's wealth than males.
- Robots will outnumber humans in the workforce.
- More computers than human brains will exist.
- The number of currencies will surpass that of nations.

By 2030, all of these trends—which are now in motion—will have come together to transform culture, the economy, and the world as we know it.

Thinking laterally is the only method, in Mauro F. Guillen's opinion, to fully comprehend the worldwide shifts that are taking place and their effects. In other words, applying "peripheral vision" or taking an unconventional and innovative approach to challenges. Guillen invites us to think about the dynamic interplay between a variety of forces that will converge on a single tipping point—2030—that will be, for better or worse, the point of no return—rather than concentrating on a single trend, such as climate change or the emergence of illiberal regimes.

2030 will transform your perspective on catastrophic change and its effects by serving as both an exceptional roadmap for the changes ahead and a test of "lateral thinking" techniques.