Thank You for Being Late Audiobook By Thomas L. Friedman cover art

Thank You for Being Late

An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

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Thank You for Being Late

By: Thomas L. Friedman
Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
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About this listen

A field guide to the 21st century, written by one of its most celebrated observers

In his most ambitious work to date, Thomas L. Friedman shows that we have entered an age of dizzying acceleration - and explains how to live in it.

Due to an exponential increase in computing power, climbers atop Mount Everest enjoy excellent cell phone service, and self-driving cars are taking to the roads. A parallel explosion of economic interdependency has created new riches as well as spiraling debt burdens. Meanwhile, Mother Nature is also seeing dramatic changes as carbon levels rise and species go extinct, with compounding results. How do these changes interact, and how can we cope with them?

To get a better purchase on the present, Friedman returns to his Minnesota childhood and sketches a world where politics worked and joining the middle class was an achievable goal. Today, by contrast, it is easier than ever to be a maker (try 3-D printing) or a breaker (the Islamic State excels at using Twitter) but harder than ever to be a leader or merely average. Friedman concludes that 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, Thank You for Being Late establishes a blueprint for how to think about our times.

©2016 Thomas L. Friedman (P)2016 Macmillan Audio
Geopolitics Globalization Ideologies & Doctrines International Thought-Provoking Inspiring

Critic reviews

"[Narrator Oliver] Wyman keeps to a steady drive and an energetic projection that hold listeners' attention." ( AudioFile)

What listeners say about Thank You for Being Late

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Best of his books so far

He shows a great snapshot of the world today. Uses great examples to show his readers where the world is heading.

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22 people found this helpful

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Insightful

Very few will agree with The author on everything, although I came pretty close. His stories and examples are compelling and the book is balanced. There are some dry spots but they are peppered through the book and great parts are always around the corner.

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Interesting Discussion of The New Age of Technology

The concept that technological innovation is advancing exponentially is intriguing. Maybe not so much nostalgia about Minnesota.

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Fascinating and thought provoking.

I found the vast majority of this book to be absolutely fascinating. Thoughtful and thought-provoking.

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Fact filled but region biased

Good start but became tedius and hard to finish. Too much focus on one town I Minnesota.

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Amazing Book

Tom Friedman, deep interdisciplinary thinker. This book discusses accelerating changes found in the world today, how to foster strong communities and coexist within them. For its depth of thinking...Loved the book.

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Two books

Would you try another book from Thomas L. Friedman and/or Oliver Wyman?

Sure

What did you like best about this story?

The narrative bringing the various components of the technology boom together was helpful to understand how we get from a point in history to now and beyond. The back 1/3 of the book felt like it belonged all by itself as a narrative surrounding an interesting social experiment with interesting people.

Have you listened to any of Oliver Wyman’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

Yes. Similar

Did Thank You for Being Late inspire you to do anything?

Attempt to keep up with changes in tech and be less rigid in what roles various tech will play in our lives.

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As always, great book by Friedman.

Friedman's book are always so insightful. This book does not disappoint. lots of good things to think about.

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I lit bit repetitive

It was in some parts repetitive and with the same information repeated twice. It is a good book that I recommend but when start repeating you can skip that part

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First Part is Great, then…

The theme and explanations that this book presents are interesting and compelling. Mr. Friedman is a wonderful writer, and I was fully engaged for much of the book.

The part where he explains how he grew up is interesting on its own, but it and how Minnesota is “on to something,” drag out far too long. His opinion that this points towards how to address the challenges from the wider accelerations isn’t very compelling to me, but I love his overall optimism.

I would highly recommend this book,, but would warn that this last part is long and maybe skimming a good way to approach it!

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