Technology improves exponentially. Institutions adapt incrementally. This gap is the central challenge of our time.

In 2021, I published Exponential to articulate a pattern I’d observed across two decades of building, investing in, and analyzing technology companies: the pace of technological change has decoupled from the pace of institutional adaptation. I call this the exponential gap.

The gap manifests everywhere. Regulators struggle to govern technologies that evolve faster than legislative cycles. Corporate boards make three-year plans in industries being reshaped on eighteen-month timelines. Educational institutions prepare students for jobs that may not exist by graduation.

This is not a counsel of despair. The exponential gap is a diagnostic — it identifies where the friction is, where the opportunities lie, and where institutional redesign can create enormous value. The firms and governments that learn to close the gap will define the next era.

Closing the gap requires three capabilities: exponential literacy (understanding how compounding technologies behave), institutional agility (the ability to reconfigure organisations rapidly), and what I call “directional clarity” — the capacity to make bold moves when the data is ambiguous but the trajectory is clear.

As Mariana Mazzucato, Professor at University College London, writes: “While many talk about the rate of innovation, too few talk about its direction. Azeem’s work helps bring that directionality to the surface through a dynamic understanding of the connections between economic, social and technological forces.”

I’ve developed these ideas through conversations with thousands of leaders — from Davos plenary sessions to intimate boardroom workshops. The exponential gap is not inevitable. But closing it requires a fundamentally different approach to strategy, governance, and leadership.

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This is the core thesis Azeem explores in his keynotes and workshops. Begin a conversation.