How Building the Future Really Works

By Mats Larson

Mats Larsson’s How Building the Future Really Works presents a short, yet comprehensive, look at the principles driving technological and business innovation, likening them to the immutable laws of physics. An interesting read, the book is particularly thought provoking for military readers when overlaying the principles to Defence, with useful ideas for managing modernisation challenges we face today at the strategic level.

Larsson argues that the current pace of technological change builds an increasingly complex architecture that only governments have the resources and incentives to tackle. He majors on electromobility and sustainability, highlighting how no country has prepared for the full-scale implementation of electric vehicles. He urges the need to map the landscape of innovation and technology, and to prioritise; spreading resources thinly merely slows down progress. The book emphasizes the formidable development challenges we face and the need for economic growth to build the future, however he recognises that new technologies only contribute to the economy when widely introduced and are considered general-purpose.

What sets Larsson’s approach apart is how he offers a clear framework to better understand and influence the future. He introduces the term ‘hyperthink’ to describe superficial ideas and high ambition with no corresponding plan. His critique of governments striving for the impossible, across multiple lines of effort, without intricate planning, or allocating sufficient resource, is a potential metaphor for how Defence has recently struggled with modernisation. Larsson argues for properly managed change, prioritisation of investments, and the need for specific development goals; one must understand the aim of why a new technology is being introduced before embarking on the process.

For readers interested in understanding the intersection of business, technology, and society, Larsson provides both a guide and a call to action. Technological complexity can only be handled by prioritisation of resources and by making difficult decisions.

Brigadier Richard Byfield

Published by Self Publishing, 186 pages

ISBN 979-8887598819