The major takeaway from the article is that he fell into the same trap that a lot of us did in the 90s, that the future was so bright you had to wear shades. I

The major takeaway from the article is that he fell into the same trap that a lot of us did in the 90s, that the future was so bright you had to wear shades. I had no idea the 2000s were going to be so dang BLEAK. What happened to agricultural commodity prices in the Roaring 1920s began happening to almost human labor (except high-end private-sector social climbing) around 1998. Badly managed plenty (in the '20s, in food; in the '90s, in services in general) leads to a catastrophic depression. If excellence-maximizers are in control, people see better uses for the freed-up resources. But the ones who succeed in human organizations tend to be the boring cost-cutter type, and if those sorts of people are in control, then growth (paradoxically?) leads to meltdown and widespread poverty.