Summary of Vaporized

“Software-Defined Society”

Architect, author and futurist R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) was fond of saying, “Let’s do more with less.” In 1938, he coined the phrase “ephemeralization” to describe how technology makes more with less material and how physical objects either shrink smaller or disappear altogether. Fuller believed this process fueled productivity. Looking ahead, he found that “three great currents” define the commercial world: unstoppable globalization, “dematerialization into knowledge” and infinite networking.

As businesses go digital, they become either software or software-derived. Amazon, for example, is a software-defined company. These entities are “adaptable,” expansive and multifaceted. As operations gain in information intensity, they shed their physical aspects and become more of a “service.” Uber, for example, has almost no physical assets: It owns no cars, garages or service stations. Yet it rules the market it invented. Amazon built its retail dominance with no stores.

Physical items contain data, but in the digital future, that information will be unlocked. Consider the once legendary Tower Records store on famous Sunset...