Our technology, our machines, are part of our humanity. We created them to extend ourselves, and that is what is unique about human beings.

– Ray Kurzweil

We are in the early days of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which is bringing much more than just digital transformation. The Fourth Industrial Revolution represents a convergence of technological capability, intelligence, and connectivity. It is a merging of new technologies that blur the lines between what's physical, digital, and biological.

The result: a wholesale overhaul of industries the world over.

Previous industrial revolutions massively impacted society, with innovations influencing almost every aspect of daily life in some way or another. However, as Klaus Schwab, founder and executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, describes in his book, The Fourth Industrial Revolution, this one is unprecedented in its scale, scope, and complexity.

The exponential rate of development of emerging technologies has created a pace and scale of change that is unlike anything humanity has seen before. This is, in part, because so many technological advancements are happening simultaneously while also building upon one another. Across every industry, accelerating technologies are intersecting and dramatically changing the way we live, work, and interact.

These shifts naturally impact how we create and manage companies. It is not just a matter of doing what we already do better, faster, or cheaper. Instead, it is the technology itself that is giving us the ability to build fundamentally different businesses.