The Network Always Wins

Acknowledgments ix Preface xi Let's Get Started xv

CHAPTER 1 THE AGE OF UNCERTAINTY The Theory of Everything 2 The RAND Corporation 3 The Ultimate Model 6 Stepping into the Unknown 6 VUCA 8 VACINE 9

CHAPTER 2 SPEED, AND WHY THE THEORY OF RELATIVITY MATTERS A Brief History of Time 14 Speed 14 Faster, Faster, Faster 14 The Era of Now 15 Clock Speeds 16 Internal Clock Speed 17 The Clock Speed Conundrum 18 The Theory of Relativity 19 Breaking the Sound Barrier 20

CHAPTER 3 LINEARITY IS DEAD Chasing Simplicity 24 Linear Systems 25 Dynamic Systems 26 New Language of Systems 28 Complex Adaptive Systems 29 Entropy 30 Schroedinger's Cat 31 Depressed Yet? 31 The Age of Networks 32 The Core Vocabulary of Complex Systems 33 Scale-Free Networks 35 Conclusions 36 HOW THE MEDIA DISCOVERED NETWORKS 37

CHAPTER 4 INFORMATION BECOMES A FLOW It's a Small, Small World 44 Flow of Magic 45 Information Becomes a Flow 46 Information Theory 47 The Signal and the Noise 48 The Gambling Connection 50 The Gambler's Fallacy 52 The Signal and the Noise, 2.0 52 The Little Elephant 53 The Mathematics of War 54 Graphs Rule The World 56 The Rich Club 58 Leverage the Power of Networks 60 The Topology of Your Organization 64 EDUCATION IN THE AGE OF NETWORKS 67

CHAPTER 5 WHEN MARKETS STOP BEING MARKETS Book Bind 79 The Original Speedboats 80 The (Old) Heart of Marketing 81 Consumers Take Over 82 Good Clean Funnel 83 A Real-Life Mad Man 84 Disruptive Forces 85 Don and Martha 86 From Firefly to Amazon 88 Recommendations 89 The Second Life of Netfl ix 90 Getting Personal 91 The Popcorn Experiment 92 Unconscious Branding 93 Fear, Trust, and Hormones 94 Markets are Becoming Networks 95 The Tribe Has Spoken 96 The Agency Will Do All That 97 The Paradox of Choice 99 Conclusion 99 They Bought a Zoo 102 Watching Water Boil 103 THE ERA OF NETWORKED HEALTH 105

CHAPTER 6 WHEN ORGANIZATIONS BECOME NETWORKS OF INNOVATIONGeneration N 115 Org Charts and Their Discontents 116 Reimagining Careers 117 Relevance Replaces Loyalty 118 The Antihierarchy 120 The Opposite of Fragile 121 Both Wave and Particle 123 Conway's Law 125 Build Fluid Organizations 126

CHAPTER 7 CREATION AND DESTRUCTION Broken Halos 130 Built to Last 130 Creative Destruction 131 Phoenix from the Ashes 133 The Halo Effect 134 Written in the Stars 135 Building Stellar Companies-and Black Holes 136

CHAPTER 8 STRATEGY FOR THE AGE OF NETWORKS Fun with Creeping Death 140 Frozen, Fluid, Rigid, and Superfluid 142 Fluidity and Start-Ups 144 The Thermodynamic Cycle of Organizations 145 The Triune Brain 147 The Triune Networks 149 Why Start-Ups Are Magic 150 Industry Disruption 153 It Takes a Network to Fight a Network 154 The Golden Rule 155 The Holy Trinity in the Age of Networks 156 Waves of Disruption 160 The Age of Networks 161

Epilogue 163 Endnotes 171 Sources 183 Index 187 About the Author 203