 If I had a bullet in my hand and I threw it at you, then of course the change that would occur in your body when the bullet hits the body is not very dangerous. Change, most times, is not very dangerous. Speed, however, can make change dangerous. Today's topic is the speed of change. Okay, I'm back after a long summer break for another season of short speeches about future trends. And today I'm in Berlin and I thought I'd start the fall season and talk about the speed of change. So let's dive right into it. Now, first of all, this is more than a cliche. Change is faster today than it's ever been before. One example is the average lifespan of companies, big market leading companies listed on the S&P 500. Back in 1958, the average lifespan was 61 years. Today it's less than 18. And in 10 years time, 75% of all the companies currently quoted on the S&P 500 will have disappeared. They will be bought out, merged or bankrupt. I will leave a link to this study by McKinsey down below. At the same time, the big ones are dying. We can count a growing number of the so-called unicorn companies. Those that are privately held startup companies value that $1 billion or more. Currently, there are more than 320 unicorns. There were no unicorns at all when I was young. Zero. Back in the 70s, 80s, 90s even, you had to have one thing more than anything else to stay in top. You had to be big. Only the ones big enough to have resources for R&D, manufacturing, marketing, sales. Those were the ones that could drive an industry and decide what the future market will look like. Today, there is still one thing you need to stay in top, but it's not size. You don't have to be big. You have to be fast, however. When I speak about this topic, I often refer to the relation between new technology and adoption rate. How long does it take a market to adapt? If we, for instance, look at the automobile, the first affordable one, the T-Ford, was introduced to the US market in 1914. It's the red line you can see in the slide I'm presenting there. So 1914, new technology. And it took until 1990 to see 91% adoption rate. It's in the upper right corner. So it took the US market 76 years to change from horse to car. 76 years. It's a lifetime to adapt. Now we hear about this new technology, a buzzword like blockchain, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and then boom, a couple of months later we'll read about this unicorn startup who disrupted an industry and everything changed. Of course, this is great when we think about inefficiency, how many things will get cheaper, how we can create more with less. But it's also scary because of the speed. We as human beings are no faster, so we need to understand how to navigate, what to do when the job market is changing, what to teach our kids in school and all these things. Remember what I told you, change is not dangerous. Focus on the speed. Thanks for watching.