The $100 Billion Device in Your Pocket

The $100 Billion Device in Your Pocket

The average smartphone gives one person access to technology that would have cost well over $100 billion to build over the past century.

Consider just a few examples:

• GPS satellite system — over $12 billion
• The Internet infrastructure — hundreds of billions of dollars
• Search engines — tens of billions
• Artificial Intelligence — tens of billions
• Digital mapping of the world — billions
• Smartphone operating systems — tens of billions
• Global telecommunications networks — hundreds of billions
• Digital cameras, music players, televisions, radios, calculators, encyclopedias, libraries, translation systems, video conferencing, banking, and cloud computing — together representing many additional billions of dollars in development.

No individual owns these systems, yet almost anyone with a smartphone can use them instantly.

For a few hundred dollars, the average person now carries capabilities that kings, presidents, and the wealthiest people in history could not have bought at any price.

The real question is not what technology can do.

The real question is what we choose to do with it.

We can use it to waste hours scrolling through trivial entertainment, or we can use it to learn, create, solve problems, strengthen relationships, build businesses, spread wisdom, help people, and bring more goodness into the world.

Never before has so much power been placed into the hands of ordinary people.

Technology is not merely a convenience—it is a responsibility.