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A further obstacle on the path toward becoming a digital company lies in a deeply human weakness: we are accustomed to thinking linearly, and highly disruptive change makes us uneasy. According to the futurist and Google director of engineering, Ray Kurzweil, this is why we tend to smooth exponential functions back toward a linear curve by mapping them on a logarithmic scale. However, this is fatal when it comes to mental processing of the changes involved in digitization, because they develop according to an exponential function and at an increasingly rapid pace.

In his essay The Law of Accelerating Returns Kurzweil impressively describes the exponential dynamics of technological progress throughout human history when correctly mapped on a linear scale, and not on a distorting logarithmic scale. He surmises that people intuitively gravitate to this distorting perspective, and thus – against their better judgment – significantly underestimate the speed and extent of future developments. He predicts rapid progress for the twenty-first century because we are currently in the advanced section of the exponential curve.

In an interview, he explained the fundamental dynamics of exponential growth: “If I take 30 steps in a linear manner – 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 – I get to 30. If I take 30 steps in an exponential manner, I go 2, 4, 8, 16, and get to a billion.” It’s fascinating logic and one that can’t be refuted – and yet it’s so hard to believe, the mind blocks it out. “Today, everyone expects continuous, linear development in technical advances, but the future will surprise us far more dramatically than most observers believe,” Kurzweil says. “Very few understand what it will mean for the pace of change to accelerate even faster.”

Progress and Moore’s Law

Two examples corroborate Kurzweil’s theory of the logarithmic development of progress. The best-known is Moore’s law. Gordon Moore, cofounder of Intel, formulated his theory in 1965 in the journal Electronics. He noted that the number of circuit components in an integrated circuit doubles each year, and predicted that this will continue. To this day, he has been proved right – processing power has doubled every year. Chips have become smaller and smaller. Today, a standard smartphone has 120 times the processing power of the control computer of NASA’s Apollo moon program, and is four times that of an IBM mainframe from 1998 – which was the size of a refrigerator. And an iPad 2 would have been one of the world’s fastest supercomputers in 1994.

Further support for Kurzweil’s theory is the fact that new technologies are adopted increasingly quickly. Following the invention of the radio, it was another 38 years before 50 million devices were in use around the world. The TV needed 13 years to be welcomed into 50 million living rooms. The Internet boasted that many users after just three years. Facebook needed one year to reach this figure, and Twitter just nine months. In 2016, the hype surrounding Pokémon Go heralded a new record: the game was downloaded to the smartphones of 50 million fans in just 19 days. New products and services are being developed and distributed at an unprecedented pace. Managers around the world still struggle to anticipate such rapid change.