Quick Overview
Book: What Matters Next: A Leader’s Guide to Making Human-Friendly Tech Decisions in a World That’s Moving Too Fast
https://www.koinsights.com/books/what-matters-next-book/
Author: Kate O’Neill
Known As: The Tech Humanist
Focus: Making tech more meaningful, ethical, and human-centered
Quick Facts:
- Former experience at Netflix, Google, early-stage tech
- Founder of KO Insights
- Keynote speaker globally on tech & the human future
- Author of 6 books, 4 in business & tech including Tech Humanist
Why I Wrote This Book
Because technology is moving too fast—and leadership isn’t keeping up. We need better decisions, faster, and they have to be aligned with human values.
Core Premise: Helping leaders make wise, ethical, and human-centric tech decisions under conditions of uncertainty and acceleration.
🔑 Key Themes
- Strategic Optimism – Pragmatic hope in fast-moving change
- Now-Next Continuum – A decision tool to weigh present vs. future implications
- Ethical Acceleration – How to move fast without breaking people
- Harms of Action / Harms of Inaction – A dual-lens ethical framing
- Throughline Thinking – Connecting vision, values, and value
- Empathetic Innovation – Leading with imagination, compassion, and clarity
🧠Suggested Interview Questions
- What does it really mean to make a “human-friendly” tech decision?
- What are the harms of inaction, and why are they so overlooked?
- You talk about “ethical acceleration”—what does that look like in practice?
- Why is empathy a business imperative now more than ever?