Huffington Magazine Issue 5 | Page 28

Voices breakneck speed, expertise is obsolete within five to 10 years. Think of all the industries turned on their heads by Internet disintermediation, whether it was book and magazine publishing, the printing industry, the recording industry or retail sales, to name a few. MySpace rose and fell from grace as the world’s leading social network in less than five years and pundits already question whether the era of Facebook, with its more than 900 million active users, is over. The digital revolution has also meant a revolution in access to information. This puts more power and knowledge into the hands of non-experts. Open-source encyclopedias such as Wikipedia and search engines such as Google and Bing, which people can tap into anytime and anywhere via computers and smart phones, put a world of knowledge at our fingertips at a lower cost than ever before. Granted, they alone don’t make us experts—but they give us access to information in abundance, giving us a greater base from which to “think big.” Some of the most inspiring and innovative minds I know are such disruptors. Take Elon Musk, a fel- NAVEEN JAIN HUFFINGTON 07.15.12 low trustee at the X-PRIZE Foundation. The South African-born engineer and entrepreneur has never hesitated to venture into new waters where he had no industry expertise but felt he could make a difference. The former founder of PayPal is now CEO and CTO of SpaceX, a private company sending cost-effective space launch vehicles and rockets into space, and is cofounder and head of product design at Tesla Motors, where he led development of the elecWith tric vehicle Tesla technological Roadster. advances The goal must occurring at be to expand ourbreakneck selves beyond one speed, expertise field of focus and is obsolete use our improved within fi