Decoding the World

A vision of the future where the latest Silicon Valley tech meets cutting-edge genetics. Po Bronson and Arvind Gupta, venture capitalists from Silicon Valley, take everyday news headlines and decode them, leading us on a journey through their unique and highly entertaining view of the world. Each chapter is prefaced with a real-world headline from today's chaotic news cycle: Dying bees. Rogue planets. Beyond Meat. Glaciers melting. Bronson and Gupta decipher what's really going on behind these headlines, and why. They offer first-hand experience in funding technologies to solve these problems, most of which involve genetic engineering. But what the authors then do with that premise is always surprising and unexpected. One moment they are ripping it down to the bare bones physics or chemistry, and then they invoke history, philosophy, or psychology, all the while using joyful literary devices and storylines from popular movies. Decoding the World is the kind of book you get when you give two guys $40 million, a world full of messy big problems, a genetics laboratory to play in, and a set of Borges' collected works. After looking through their lens, you'll never see the world the same. (P)2020 Hachette Audio