By Medium
“Our assumptions about how economies function no longer seem to hold true entirely because of exponential technology.” This is a claim argued by Amin Toufani, entrepreneur and Singularity University faculty member, who perceives a crossing point between economics and exponential technology or, as he calls it, “exonomics”.
It might seem a weird word, but Toufani applies it to break down the tech-driven changes happening in the modern economy and points out that its ultimate goal is to connect people and prosperity. However, in order to think about this, we first have to establish pillars such as people, property, production or price.
“Technology is empowering all of us and people seem to be doing what companies used to do and companies seem to be doing what governments used to do,” Toufani explained. The democratizing effect of information technology is enabling small teams to have an outsized impact on the world.
Technology is also changing the dynamics of ownership for everything from cars to homes to everyday goods by giving people more choice even when the choice is to own fewer things. On-demand ride services make it easier to not own a car. The sharing economy means you can rent someone else’s room, office, farm equipment, or supercomputer for just as long as you need it
As regards production, costs are declining and the common denominator across various platforms is their capacity to enable people and companies to share things, services and time they have in excess and that they’re not using. And price no longer represents the intersection of supply and demand but has become a dynamic value that helps to keep the market at the right price point for each purchase.
“The truth is,” Toufani says, “I’m very optimistic about this future. The biggest risk is not thinking big enough.”
These ideas and many other that constitute Toufani’s exonomics theory will be discussed at the SingularityU Portugal Summit Cascais where the entrepreneur takes the stage to speak about prosperity in this exponential age.
