Acknowledgments

This book was a two-year journey, in which almost every major business publisher had a chance to bring this book to market and turned it down. I am deeply grateful to the fearless Adrian Zackheim for his support of my vision and my ability to connect with readers. His capable team, including my faithful editor Courtney Young, believed in this project from the first day they read the first terrible draft. They gave me the room to develop and design the book the way I wanted it.

Thomas Davenport brought me to the attention of Hollis Heimbouch, who saw the vision and loved it. Even though we didn’t end up as partners, her support helped me write the early drafts that brought the project to Adrian’s attention. Tim O’Reilly helped by turning down the project but then friending me on FaceBook and pointing me to several fascinating developments.

Hundreds of people contributed to this book. Many contributed to chapters that didn’t make the cut. My faithful researcher, David Wineberg, chased everything down and argued relentlessly for me to make the book more relevant to business people. My brother Rob read it many times and contributed to the health-care chapter. My many test readers suffered through jargon-filled drafts, hoping I would simplify. All the people I interviewed were gracious with their time and effort to help me succeed in painting this picture of a future world that doesn’t yet exist. Mills Davis of Project 10x was particularly helpful in redlining early drafts. Jason Chan contributed throughout as usual. Brian Wu hung in there through dozens of cover designs. Kaliya and Drummond spent endless hours explaining layers of Internet security. Many members of the Semantic Web movement, from Esther Dyson to Nova Spivack, encouraged me to go the distance and get the message out. Charlie Hoffman, David vun Kannon, and Mark Bolgiano spent endless hours with me explaining and re-explaining XBRL. Mark Lesswing at the National Association of Realtors helped keep me honest. Frances Haugen at Google and all the people in the book industry were very generous with their time. Amy Gorin and Hugh Wallis helped make it more accurate. All my friends on FaceBook cheered me on as the word count mounted, then shrunk back.

Finally, my wonderful wife Beatrice, whom I married and had a child with during the course of writing this book, is the true hero of the project. She supported me fully during the days, nights, and months of writing. When she had a hungry child and a thousand things to do, she let me put on my headset and interview yet another person around the world by Skype, giving me the time I needed to put everything in place.