Erik Brynjolfsson

Business adviser, Idea generator, Inventor, Scientist, Technologist, Writer/Editor

Erik Brynjolfsson is the Director of the MIT Initiative in the Digital Economy, the Schussel Family Professor at the MIT Sloan School, and a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His research examines the effects of information technologies on business strategy, productivity and employment. His recent work studies data-driven decision-making, the pricing implications of Internet commerce and the role intangible assets. Prof. Brynjolfsson speaks worldwide on technology and strategy and he is a director or advisor for several technology-intensive firms. His recent books include the New York Times Bestseller The Second Machine Age, as well as Wired for Innovation: How IT is Reshaping the Economy and Race Against the Machine: How the Digital Revolution is Accelerating Innovation, Driving Productivity and Irreversibly Transforming Employment and the Economy. He received his A.B. and S.M. degrees from Harvard and his Ph.D. from MIT. You can read his blog at http://www.economicsofinformation.com, download his papers from http://digital.mit.edu/erik and follow him on Twitter at @erikbryn.

Inclusive Innovation

Advances in digital technologies are accelerating. This should be great news for society. Digital progress lowers prices, improves quality, and brings us into a world where abundance becomes the norm. But there is no economic law that says digital progress will benefit everyone evenly. As technology races ahead it can leave a lot of workers behind. Today, the median worker is poorer than 15 years ago. Technology will create even bigger challenges and opportunities in the next 15 years in than it did in the past 15. We need to restructure our economy, institutions and thinking to keep up with these changes.

Economics, Information Technology, Intangibles, Management