Top 10 Things I Learned at TED

I just got home from a fantastic week at TED 2015 in Vancouver. I heard more than 80 amazing talks from great speakers ranging from Bill Gates to Monica Lewinsky, from Tony Fadell of Nest to playwright Sarah Jones.

I want to summarize some of great things I learned this year.

1. I learned from the head of the Google self-driving car project that more than 6 BILLION minutes are wasted in traffic every single day. How many of those minutes will we get back from this new technology? I am personally very excited about this technology and how it could reshape cities and the world, and most importantly, save lives.

In searching for the Google self-driving car picture to share here, I came across this funny picture of a self-driving car in the UK:

2. I learned in an amazing talk by David Eagleman how the brain works to interpret our senses and how he's using that to "create" new senses for humans. His talk is amazing, and is here:

http://www.ted.com/talks/david_eagleman_can_we_create_new_senses_for_humans

He has created methods to help blind people "see" and allow the deaf to "hear" with special sensors that apply pulses to the skin. It can be either on the forehead, your back, your tongue, and it's absolutely amazing how the brain, over time, processes this and turns it into vision or hearing. I tried on one of the special "hearing" vests (me pictured wearing that below) and it was really incredible.

3. I learned from an amazing speech by urban sociologist Alice Goffman that the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world. It is nearly literally off the charts - as you can see below.

4. I learned from Monica Lewinsky's talk about the price of shame. In 1998, says Monica Lewinsky, “I was Patient Zero of losing a personal reputation on a global scale almost instantaneously.” She said, "Just imagine walking a mile in someone else's headline" in reference to the cyber-bullying she experienced.

Her full video is here and I really recommend it:

http://www.ted.com/talks/monica_lewinsky_the_price_of_shame

5. I learned about the amazing eco-architecture that can be created with bamboo, as exemplified by this house designed by Elora Hardy in Bali.

6. I learned that the accelerating pace of technological change has equally impacted the Fortune 1000 turnover rate. Here you can see what % of the 1000 companies turn over each of the last 4 decades:

1983 - 40%, 1993 - 45%, 2003 - 60%, 2013 - 70%

7. I shared what I learned about what are the top 5 factors in startup success. I arrived at this surprising (to me) conclusion by looking at more than 200 companies, including successes and failures.

8. I learned from Sophie Scott that you're 30 times more likely to laugh if you’re with someone else than if you’re on your own. That laughter is actually a very strange noise. That it's more like an animal call than speech. That laughter modulates and improves relationships, lowers our stress, helps us deal with embarrassment, and simply makes us feel better too.

9. I learned from Bill Gates that if anything kills 10,000,000 people in the coming decades, it won't be a missile, it will probably be a microbe.

10. I learned that a human can actually develop a skill of echolocation, almost like bats. Daniel Kish, who has been blind since he was 13 months old, learned how to navigate and understand the world by making clicks with his voice. Seeing him in action was absolutely amazing.

Not only was his talk wildly inspiring, almost all of them were. I will share the links to the rest of the videos when they are all placed online, but you can find them trickling out at www.TED.com. I hope some of these stories inspire you, and I would love to hear your feedback and thoughts.

Thanks! Bill