The Economist has called the annual Future in Review conference—known as FiRe—“the best technology conference in the world.” In its seventh year, 150 members of the tech elite and future enthusiasts—a near oxymoron in the current economy—met at the Hotel del Coronado in San Diego. As the old saying goes, “I’m interested in the future because I’m going to spend the rest of my life there.” So I joined them.
This year’s theme, with appropriately empowered defiance, was “Shaping the Rebound: Technology Driving Economics.” These are not folks who believe in the inevitability of trends that can overwhelm them—they believe in creating the trends themselves. The unofficial slogan of the gathering is “we help you change the world.” As physicist and author David Brin put it, “It’s capitalism in its best light.”
The founder of FiRe is Mark Anderson, a Perry Mason-looking dude from Washington State, who is also the CEO of the Strategic News Service, the first Internet subscription newsletter, which counts Bill Gates and Michael Dell as devotees. Anderson’s predictions have had a way of coming true over the years. But FiRe is not a guru gathering; it’s a collection of heavy hitters in sometimes narrow niches from around the globe. Mark just plays ringmaster to the circus.
