The partnership that produced this book emerged from a serendipitous meeting in a Caribbean paradise. We met at the Blockchain Summit, a gathering of entrepreneurs and digital currency experts held on Richard Branson’s idyllic Necker Island. So our first thanks go to the sponsors of that conference, without whom we wouldn’t have met: Valery Vavilov and George Kikvadze of BitFury, Bill Tai and Susi Mai of MaiTai and, of course, Sir Richard.
Some time before then, however, the kernel of the idea was planted in Oliver’s mind by Tim Sanders, after he saw him deliver one of his early Social Organism presentations following that formative moment of realization in the Joshua Tree desert. Thank you, Tim, for convincing someone whose professional life revolved around twenty-first-century digital media that a six-hundred-year-old printed medium of long-form communication could drive his ideas further.
We are both deeply grateful to our agent, Gillian MacKenzie, who has by now seen Michael through five book deals and who recognized the significance of this one from the start. She superbly shaped the proposal into a winning formula and devised, among other elements, the narrative’s uniquely styled point of view.
Our editor, Paul Whitlatch, immediately grasped that we could shift the debate on social media away from the prevailing, unhelpful dichotomy that simplistically painted it as either a liberating force or a societal scourge. To make sure we delivered on the book’s promise to help its readers take charge of this new communication architecture, he deftly trimmed our prose and sharpened its focus. Michelle Aielli and the Hachette publicity team, as well as marketing director Betsy Hulsebosch, also deserve thanks for all their hard work and for giving us the leeway to put our Social Organism promotional ideas into practice. And we’d also like to cite Paul’s assistant, Lauren Hummel, production editor Melanie Gold, and, of course, Hachette Books publisher Mauro DiPreta.
Various people shared feedback, offered advice, and otherwise imparted wisdom that helped improve our understanding of the subject matter and sharpened the text. There are too many to name in total, but we’d like to single out Andrew Hessel, Ethan Zuckerman, César Hidalgo, Paul Stamets, Joel Dietz, Patrick Deegan, Ray Kurzweil, Jason Silva, and Norman Lear.
Special acknowledgment must go to Deen Freelon and his co-authors Charlton D. McIlwain and Meredith D. Clark for sharing data that was used to compile charts in their groundbreaking report on #BlackLivesMatter, Beyond the Hashtags. Similarly, we’d like to thank Soroush Vosoughi and Deb Roy of MIT’s Laboratory for Social Machines for providing access to other pools of Twitter data.
In addition, we’d like to add the following individual thank yous:
Thank you, Alice Franceschetti, for seeing something in me and giving me the opportunity to work with Lisa K. Jennings and Melanie White in their lab all those years ago. Thanks to Sam B. Girgus for putting up with me. To my mom, Kay Turner, you gave me a wicked sense of humor and sensitivity. To my father, Bill Luckett, you taught me to have an incredible work ethic and to believe in myself.
Whitney Luckett, I love your loyalty, and Park Dodge, I love your genius and kindness. To Scott and Mer for coming into our crazy family. To our family in Los Angeles who supported us so, so much for so, so many years: Peter Grassl, Nenette Brockert, Troy Adams, Michelle Van Duzen, Teresa Lopez, Kozy n Dan, Concha, Imelda, Tim Sovay, Devin Liston, and Lisa Dimitroff. To our family in New York: Stephanie Ruhle, Steph Cozzi, Brandi Norton, Kelly Covell, Ben Patterson, Adéllyn Polomski, Felabi Phillips, and Mike and Andrea aka the Schnerberts. To our new family in Iceland for welcoming us with such open arms to a strange new land: Heiða Kristín (#BusinessWomanoftheYear), Jóga Jóhannsdóttir, Frosti Gnarr, Högni Óskarsson, Ingunn Benediktsdottir, Sigurjón Gunnsteinsson, Birgir Breiðfjörð, Gummi Jónsson, Einar Örn, and Pétur Marteinsson. I must also include Guðjón, Anton, Robert and Christopher, our adopted Inklaw sons in Reykjavik.
Lisa Bonner...go girl! You are #1BadAssAttorney.
Sean, Alexandra, and Victoria, I love you guys.
Libby Anschutz, Bob Iger, Kevin Mayer, Dana Settle, Ari Emmanuel and Kate McLean, thank you for the opportunities of a lifetime.
Much love to Rob Maigret, for the great partnership; Björk Guðmundsdóttir, for teaching me gratitude; Jon Gnarr, for teaching me humanism; Daniel Lismore and Zebra Katz for teaching me to be myself, Norman Lear, for teaching me equality; and finally, my husband, Scott Guinn, for teaching me true love...You are the love of my life.
First, a nod to my colleagues at MIT Media Lab’s Digital Currency Initiative, which I joined right when this book project was beginning. So to Brian Forde, Simon Johnson, Neha Narula, Chelsea Barabas, Gina Vargas, and Media Lab director Joi Ito, thank you for allowing me to keep my toes in journalism for a bit longer when I could otherwise have been investing all my energies into digital currency research.
A load of gratitude must also go to a group of people in Pelham without whom the burden of family management that I leave on my wife’s shoulders would be even greater: Jen Rohr, Dafne Ginn, Jane Robbins, and many others.
To Lia, who combines an incessantly inquisitive mind with a passion for sports and a deep love of family, thank you for filling my life with light. To Zoe, who has helped a forty-nine-year-old mind break free of its pattern-recognition limits and understand that our quest for self-identity can be fluid and dynamic, thank you for helping me see. And to Alicia, who holds our family and household together, deals with the fact that my head is often in a different place, and still manages to enlighten me with her intellectual acumen, wise counsel, and moral clarity, I would be nothing without you.