2. ˜˜ THOMAS FRIEDMAN
Submitted by:-
Bhagora Jignesh- 17BCL004
Krunal P. Barad- 17BCL038
Heli Patel- 17BCL065
Srushti Sheth- 17BCL100
Madhavan Nandaniya-
17BCL133D
3. ▪ INFORMATION ABOUT THE BOOK
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SUMMARY OF THE BOOK
QUOTES FROM BOOK
LEARNINGS FROM BOOK
CONCLUSION
INDEX
THANK YOU
FOR
BEING LATE
4. ▪ Author: Thomas Friedman
▪ First published: 2016
▪ Number of pages: 486
▪ Genres: Business · Non-fiction · Science · Politics · Technology · Economics
“Nothing in life is to be feared, it is
only to be understood. Now is the
time to understand more, so that we
may fear less.”
― Thomas L. Friedman,
5. ▪Thomas Loren Friedman is an American political commentator and
author. He is a three-time Pulitzer Prize winner who is a weekly columnist for The
NewYork Times. He has written extensively on foreign affairs, global trade, the
Middle East, globalization, and environmental issues. He has been criticized for his
staunch advocacy of the Iraq War and unregulated trade and his early support of
Saudi Royal Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
6. ▪ ThankYou For Being Late (2016), a self-help book by American journalist Thomas L. Friedman,
explores contemporary agents of social, technological, and economic change, analyzing them
and suggesting possible ways for individuals to capitalize on them as their frontiers only continue
to accelerate. Friedman also provides critiques of different social and technological advents that
might represent threats to the stability and health of human populations. His topics range
between global education, employment, geopolitics, nationalism, and computing.The cumulative
goal of Friedman’s book is to reframe how people think about, and shape, the environments they
move through every day.
▪ Friedman begins with a meditation on the increasing pace of the modern world. He recalls first
realizing the extent of the phenomenon when he went to breakfast with a handful of friends, who
all ended up being late; soon, he realized he was impulsively thanking them for causing him to
wait in solitude. He argues that the year 2007 is a hallmark example of the proliferation of high
technology. He looks with amazement on the invention of the smart device, which has brought
unprecedented access to technology to people, and relates it to Moore’s Law, which forecasts the
rate of technological change by capping the rate of the increase in transistor density necessary
for faster computation. He terms this cloud technology explosion the “supernova.” At the same
time, the year, with its unprecedented volume and intensity of natural disasters, signified the
reality of climate change.
▪ Next, Friedman turns to information flow, and how its acceleration affects human interconnectivity
and globalization. He suggests that as corporations become better able to isolate and manipulate
flows, their market value will become increasingly correlated to their prowess in this area. He
suggests that some information flows are becoming too fast for our own good, using the Air Force
as an example of an industry whose technologies, especially drone surveillance, have
outstripped the rate of evolution of policy.
7. ▪ Friedman moves on to international relations in the time after the Cold War. Now, a state’s status
and stability in geopolitics are caught up in its ability to follow trends and advances.This
accelerating pace puts new stress on states, especially those without the resources to easily
keep tabs and experiment.To suggest a way for the modern state to become more adaptable,
he employs the analogy of the natural system: dynamic and continuously energized, the natural
system consists of a multitude of tiny parts which all move in choreograph, uniting and parting
according to instantaneous forces.
▪ Friedman examines several outlying moral questions of human behavior now that the world is
becoming so fluid and dynamic.Though he does not prescribe answers, he suggests that
modern STEM education, while highly useful in a technological world, could take lessons from
the liberal arts in how to humanize students, ensuring that their intelligence is applied well,
rather than squandered on vacuous, overly capitalistic enterprises.
▪ Friedman ends asking how we might promote feelings of calmness and stability in a world that
is no longer stable. He discusses the benefits of community and other local forms of
organization in quelling the anxiety that inevitably accompanies change. Moreover, he exhorts
his audience to keep learning from the past, elevating the process of learning from history
above more short-sighted or self-conscious process. He expresses anxiety about the future of
America, calling it a majority-minority country increasingly dominated by groupthink and
corporation-sponsored ideological homogeneity. Finally, he contends that humans need to
learn; or, rather, re-learn, how to work together. It is inherently difficult for anyone when truths
and conditions seem to be changing too fast to understand, but these changes are predicated
on interpersonal interactions, which remain the core of human evolution. ThankYou For Being
Late thus promotes a contrarian view on America’s ideological direction, extolling the benefits
of solitude and dissent despite deeply validating social dialogue.
8. ▪ God always forgives. Man often forgives. Nature never forgives. —”
▪ We go to school for twelve or more years during our childhoods and early adulthoods,
and then we’re done. But when the pace of change gets this fast, the only way to retain a
lifelong working capacity is to engage in lifelong learning.”
▪ “The principal factor promoting historically significant social change is contact with
strangers possessing new and unfamiliar skills.”
▪ “No athlete, no scientist, no musician ever got better without focused practice, and there
is no program you can download for that. It has to come from within.”
▪ “today, our social media experiences are designed in a way that favors broadcasting
over engagements, posts over discussions, shallow comments over deep
conversations.”
9. ▪ HOW TECHNOLOGY HAS CONTRIBUTED TO AND ACCELERATED – GLOBALIZATION
▪ WHY NO ONE USES MYSPACE ANYMORE;
▪ WHAT MOORE’S LAW IS , AND WHY IT’S IMPORTANT.
10. CONCLUSION
▪ From the book we can conclude that “The nations and individuals must learn to be
fast (innovative and quick to adapt), fair (prepared to help the casualties of change),
and slow (adept at shutting out the noise and accessing their deepest values).With
vision, authority, and wit, ThankYou for Being Late establishes a blueprint for how to
think about our times.
