Singularity University Global Ambassador Salim Ismail on Exponential Organizations

Socrates /

Posted on: September 11, 2015 / Last Modified: November 9, 2018

Salim Ismail is one of those very rare individuals who can be and look from both inside and outside of the box – all at the same time. Furthermore, Ismail is one the few interviewees who have the uncanny ability to keep surprising me with challenging, provocative, enlightening and often unexpected answers. During my time at Singularity University [GSP’11] I interviewed Salim for the very first time and then we talked about his personal background, why he is not a singularitarian and why “We are already Gods.”

During this 2nd conversation with Salim Ismail we went both further and deeper in a variety of interesting topics such as: the progress and changes since my time at Singularity University and what SU is all about; potential cures for Alzheimer’s and Diabetes; his book Exponential Organizations and who is it for; business, scarcity and abundance; the definition of Exponential Organization [ExO]; the Importance of a Massive Transformative Purpose [MTP]; the acronym SCALE IDEAS; whether SU is an ExO or not; why Apple and Google are among the most prototypical ExOs; why we may be witnessing the beginning of the end of the era of large organizations; the monumental implications for our political, legal, economic, social and ethical structures; technological unemployment, zero marginal cost and the decline of Capitalism

(As always you can listen to or download the audio file above or scroll down and watch the video interview in full. To show your support you can write a review on iTunesmake a direct donation or become a patron on Patreon. Apologies for Salim’s shorting mic which eventually died half-way through the interview so that we had to use the backup audio. Alas, those are the occasional birth-aches of my small, free podcast trying to produce expensive, broadcast quality interviews.)

Who is Salim Ismail?

Salim Ismail is a sought-after speaker, strategist and entrepreneur based in Silicon Valley. He travels extensively addressing topics including breakthrough technologies and their impact on a variety of industries and society in general.

Salim has spent the last six years building Singularity University as its founding Executive Director and current Global Ambassador. SU is based at NASA Ames and is training a new generation of leaders to manage exponentially growing technologies. Prior to that, as a Vice President at Yahoo, he built and ran Brickhouse, Yahoo’s internal incubator. His last company, Angstro, was sold to Google in August 2010. He has founded or operated seven early-stage companies including PubSub Concepts, which laid some of the foundation for the real-time web.

He has been featured in numerous media outlets, including the New York Times, Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Fortune, Forbes, Wired, Vogue and the BBC. He advises Fortune 500 executives and many world governments on the future of technology and has recently released his first book – Exponential Organizations.

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