The author spoke to TIME about 'Going Infinite' and why he thinks most people misunderstand Sam Bankman-Fried....
For more than half a century, the U.S. was the center of global innovation for financial technology, inventing credit cards, ATMs, and online banking. Now, however, itâs falling behind, as China has become a leader of mobile payments, and now African countries â namely Kenya â are making huge strides with familiar technologies such as mobile phones and SMS-style messaging, and rapidly expanding the circle of financial inclusion. Companies can learn three important lessons from this most recent wave of innovation: bundling services (think: banking and cellular as one offering) is essential to success; finance is about trust, but trusted companies can lend their credibility to newcomers with promising offerings; and technology that enables mass adoption or expansion is often old, not cutting edge....
One of the most common ways to get people to save is through their employer. In particular, behavioral economicsâthat marriage of economics and psychology that has put terms like ânudgeâ into the popular lexiconâhas provided a powerful tool for increasing savings, in the form of the default enrollment. The idea is simple: people save more in retirement accounts when they are automatically enrolled by their employer than when they have to sign up themselves. Most U.S. employers have adopted default savings programs, but the idea is only just entering poor countries, where saving is less common. According to World Bank figures, half of adults in high-income OECD countries save in a formal account; in developing economies, itâs only one in five. But we now have some evidence about how to scale nudges to help change this....
I participated in a cognitive technologies conference a few days after the November 8 election, and much of the talk at breaks (and some on the stage) was about the election results and the reasons behind them. There was a general feeling that the âRust Beltâ had been largely responsible for Donald Trumpâs victory, and a growing, if belated, understanding of the economic plight of some citizens from that Midwestern region....
