THE BOTTOMLESS CLOUD will Challenge Everything You Thought You Knew about AI and the Future of Data

Bestselling author and leading futurist Tom Koulopoulos has teamed up with Wasabi hot cloud storage CEO and serial entrepreneur David Friend to provide business leaders with a clear and straightforward understanding of the incredible power of the cloud and data abundance. The Bottomless Cloud: How AI, the Next Generation of the Cloud, and Abundance Thinking Will Radically Transform the Way You Do Business (Hybrid Global Publishing; Paperback; January 15, 2019) takes a hard look at how industrial age business models are failing us by regarding data as a  cost that needs to be constrained, rather than an near infinite resource that can be mined to build entirely new sources of value and insight.

According to Koulopoulos, “An abundance of data, like the abundance of electricity that powered the industrial revolution 100 years ago, is driving the world’s economy.  The data abundance mindset is being driven by the ever-decreasing cost of storing data.  Businesses that fail to make the transition to a data abundance mindset will be left behind by competitors who transform their industries by using vast amounts of data to fuel AI and Machine Learning.”

The sudden emergence of new data-rich transformative businesses like online shopping, navigation, logistics, medical care, and online financial services is no accident.  The cost of storing all the data that makes these businesses possible simply dropped to the point where such things became profitable. Cloud 2.0 technology, with far cheaper and faster cloud storage, will continue to drive innovation and the complete rethinking of traditional businesses.

According to Friend, “You have to throw away the old idea of thinking of data storage as a cost to be minimized and instead focus on building complete and unique data sets that give you the ability to do things you just couldn't do before.  Companies, such as Uber, Nike, and Netflix, have adopted this mindset to build and grow entirely new businesses.”  

“The other point,” adds Friend, “is that, as the cost of data drops, you reach a tipping point where the value of data far exceeds its cost;  that’s when your business model has to flip to an abundance mindset.”

The Bottomless Cloud is defining the tenets of success in the 21st Century by changing the way we view data, from being a byproduct of business to a foundational driver of radically new business models.

Tom Koulopoulos is the Chairman and co-founder of Boston-based Delphi Group, a 30 year-old global futures think tank that focuses on the impact of digital technologies. Delphi Group was named one of the 500 fastest growing private companies in the US by Inc magazine. He is the author of 11 books, the past executive director of the Babson Center for Business Innovation, an adjunct professor at Boston University, and a frequent keynote speaker on the future.  Tom is also a contributing editor for INC.com.

David Friend is the co-founder and CEO of Wasabi, a revolutionary cloud storage company. Wasabi provides bottomless storage that’s 80% cheaper, up to 6x faster and even more reliable than the competition.  David’s first company, ARP Instruments developed synthesizers used by Stevie Wonder, David Bowie, Led Zeppelin and even helped Steven Spielberg communicate with aliens providing that legendary five-note communication in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Friend founded or co-founded five other companies: Computer Pictures Corporation – an early player in computer graphics, Pilot Software - a company that pioneered multidimensional databases for crunching large amounts of customer data, Faxnet - which became the world’s largest provider of fax-to-email services, Sonexis - a VoIP conferencing company, and immediately prior to Wasabi, what is now one of the world’s leading cloud backup companies, Carbonite.

In addition, David is a respected philanthropist and supporter of the arts in Boston. He is on the board of Berklee College of Music, where there is a concert hall named in his honor, serves as president of the board of Boston Baroque, an orchestra and chorus that has received 7 Grammy nominations. An avid mineral and gem collector he donated Friend Gem and Mineral Hall at the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History.

David graduated from Yale and attended the Princeton University Graduate School of Engineering where he was a David Sarnoff Fellow.