Drowning in Potential

In Drowning in Potential, Rod Wallace, PhD, explores the stark contrast between digital technology’s potential and failures in America today. American business and society have been transformed by digital technology, with spectacular benefits. So why is society suffering from such pressing issues? 

• With smart phones, our loved ones are only a click away—yet chronic loneliness is at an all-time high. 


• On the internet, citizens can track politicians’ voting and spending, along with the resulting national debt—yet politicians have spent the past 35 years inflating America’s first massive, peacetime government debt. 


• Thanks to computers and robots, we’re reinventing healthcare—yet American life expectancy is the shortest in the developed world—and getting shorter.

Drowning in Potentialprovides a probing investigation into digital technology’s unintended consequences. This groundbreaking book offers insights, strategies, and tools for overcoming American society’s most pressing issues. In six chapters, Wallace’s vision is clearly presented through compelling stories supported by in-depth-analysis and more than 60 diagrams and illustrations. 

• What are the side effects of digital technology? 

• How have some societies successfully overcome the unintended consequences of new technologies, when most have not?

• How can we redesign our approaches to leadership and collaboration so we can overcome the fallout from digital technology? 

Speaker, economist, and business strategist, Wallace challenges readers with his unique expertise. Wallace earned his Ph.D. with a leading economic historian, worked worldwide on billion-dollar business challenges, and partnered with a Silicon Valley pioneer to explore the impact of artificial intelligence on society. In this insightful book, he weaves his perspectives into a thought-provoking bird’s-eye view of American society today and of a future society in which our children might prosper.

Learn why we are Drowning in Potential and how to meaningfully improve society—while benefiting yourself. This is essential reading for business leaders and fans of Yuval Harari, Ray Kurzweil, Hal Varian, and Erik Brynjolfsson.