Homo Deus

Harari’s new book is as challenging and readable as Sapiens. Rather than looking back, as Sapiens does, it looks to the future. I don’t agree with everything the author has to say, but he has written a thoughtful look at what may be in store for humanity.

Dominic Barton, the global managing partner of McKinsey & Company, has gotten into Harari’s new book, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, which explores the future of human evolution, and a world we've conquered famine and death.

There’s this book by Yuval Noah Harari called Homo Deus. A close friend of mine gave it to me as a gift and it gave me a glimpse of the future. The book made me believe that we can chart our own future and that everything around us is constantly changing and if we don't change with it, we will fail; and this works for both business and life in general.

I certainly wouldn’t consider myself a big reader of paleontology or anthropology – not good words for us dyslexics! – but I enjoy learning about how society has unfolded and history has developed in an exciting, easy to read way. The sequel, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, is a fascinating look into the future too. While these aren’t traditional business or leadership books, they are all about people – and learning how to work with, live with, interact with people and get the best out of them is what leadership is all about.

Not that I agree with all of it, but it is still mind-bending speculation about our future as a follow-up to a previous favorite, Sapiens. It’s directionally right.

When asked about the books he is currently reading, Matthieu replied: "Homo Deus, as I read several books on what could happen in the future."

You need to read “Sapiens” and “Homo Deus” by the same author, about the story of humankind and why we are who we are, which is a fantastic read. I think as a marketer, if you don’t understand people and if you don’t understand where we’re coming from, it’s going to be very difficult for you to break away from the crowd,

Another book, Homo Deus. He talks about where we’re heading technologically and he’s really done the research, really looking honestly medical research, what to expect the next 30 years.
[...] Not only are we gonna’ live much longer if you have the money, but the real question he ends the book in a way is “we have to decide as human beings, for the first time in history we can control our own revolution. We have to ask ourselves what we wanna become.” That’s a really big responsibility. What do you wanna become? Because that question can be answered, we have the technology to answer that question. And it can get silly when we can splice our genes with a lion or with a gorilla, but more importantly we’ll be able to splice our genes with synthetic biology. That’s a very big question.

Many books have changed my view of the world, even when I don’t agree with everything an author says. I have enjoyed Yuval Noah Harari’s books Sapiens & Homo Deus and how humanity might evolve in the presence of AI, Robots and super humans.