Speaking About the Future
Peter Leyden is a keynote speaker on the future who explains better than almost anyone what’s really going on in the world today, what’s probably coming in the decade ahead, what’s possible to achieve in the long-term, and what you could do now to adapt.
Leyden has been giving frequent keynote talks on the future and the impact of new technologies to business and general audiences throughout America and Europe for the last 25 years, mostly working through Keppler Speakers.
He’s a gifted speaker who uses stunning images and powerful info-graphics in multimedia presentations to back up his foresight into the future. His positive, can-do attitude about what lies ahead often leaves audiences energized and inspired.
A Career Figuring Out the Future
Leyden has spent his entire career in a wide variety of roles all focused on better understanding the future and the impact of new technologies. He came to San Francisco and Silicon Valley 25 years ago to work with the founders of Wired magazine and has built an extraordinary network of innovators in a wide range of fields impacting the future.
He learned the future business working with the founders of the renowned Global Business Network, who pioneered the field of strategic foresight and scenario planning. And he now works with The Long Now Foundation, the premier institution in the world for long-term thinking.
Leyden has a proven track record of being prescient about the future. He coauthored The Long Boom, the iconic magazine cover story of the 1990s that largely foretold the story of America and the World to 2020, which then became an influential book that went into multiple languages.
He has since written another book on the future, many articles and online stories that accurately forecast what was coming next. And he’s given hundreds of keynotes throughout America and Europe.
In this highly-produced, very visual 50-minute talk Leyden lays out the many fundamental system changes coming in the next 10 years and the full transformation of the next 25 years to a global conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco in the spring of 2022. If you want to quickly see a variety of top short clips from this talk go to Video Clips Physical.
His Latest Body of Futures Work
Leyden has recently developed a comprehensive body of work about the next 25 years that he generally calls The Transformation. Leyden believes the world is in the midst of a transformation of world-historical importance that will be remembered for centuries to come.
Leyden sees a range of new technologies and megatrends that are inexorably coming under any scenario - what he calls The Inexorables.
He also thinks the next decade will bring a number of fundamental system changes that will require many paradigm shifts in strategy for organizations of all types.
That said, he thinks many of these new developments are largely positive and could open up a new era of progress and bring about a much better world.
He has developed five new talks that explore each of these topics in depth for different audiences. (See below).
Watch this highly produced full 30-minute virtual talk Leyden gave to start 2021 about The Transformation that’s coming in the next 30 years. This talk was given to The Long Now Foundation in their renowned seminar series curated by the legendary Stewart Brand. If you want to quickly see a variety of top short clips from this talk go to Videos Clips Virtual.
A Positive, Practical & Can-Do Style
Leyden is both an intellectual and an entrepreneur who has run multiple organizations and can talk about the real-world implications of big-picture trends.
He ran WIRED magazine in the heyday as Managing Editor, and subsequently has founded and run two of his own media startups. Leyden now works as an advisor in strategic foresight via his Reinvent Futures firm working with senior executives and boards.
Leyden is a talented speaker whose energy and positive attitude on stage can be infectious. Despite the current zeitgeist of despair and fear of the future, Leyden believes there are new ways forward that could bring about a much better future for America and the world.
He uses highly-designed slides based on the latest data to make a compelling case about what’s coming and what’s possible to accomplish over time. Check out the many video clips on this website to get a sense of his entertaining style.
Leyden has been represented by the speaking agents of Keppler Speakers in Washington D.C. for the last 25 years. He has given hundreds of keynote talks to business and general audiences throughout the United States during that time. You can contact Leyden through this website or Keppler through their website for more Information.
Leyden’s Five Current Talks Below
Leyden constantly evolves his talks to the changes in the world around him, and he tailors his material to best fit each audience.
He creates his talks in modules and can give broader overviews of many topics or go deeper into one topic depending on the interest.
He has developed five relatively new keynote talks over the last few years to fit our newly uncertain times. Scroll below to see more. .
Peter Leyden gave this fast-paced 30-minute keynote talk at Stanford University in the fall of 2022 to an unusual gathering of 60 family offices with fortunes each worth billions from around the world who wanted to accelerate their impact on climate change in the next 10 years. Leyden kicked off the whole 4 day summit with an energizing & inspiring overview of the decades ahead and talked about his new magazine piece The Great Progression from 2025 to 2050 (31 min)
The Great Progression from 2025 to 2050
The can-do optimist Peter Leyden uses this signature talk to counter all the pervasive doom and gloom narratives and make what he calls a Positive Reframe of what’s actually been happening in recent decades and what’s likely to emerge in the decades to come.
He tells the story of real progress in America and the world today and great progress that lies just ahead, based on his recent magazine piece The Great Progression, 2025 to 2050.
This talk places our current era in the broader context of American history and makes a compelling case that we’re heading into another period of great progress that will solve many of our greatest challenges.
He points out many new technologies that are giving humans extraordinary new powers, and how burgeoning new knowledge is expanding our understanding of the world at a pace never experienced before.
He argues that innovation can be expected to accelerate in the years ahead and we are well on our way to solving many of the great challenges of our time like climate change.
The Inexorable Technologies & Trends to Come
Leyden lays out a dozen new technologies and massive trends that are inexorably coming and will be almost impossible to slow down let alone stop in the next 25 years - what he calls The Inexorables.
They encompass three fundamental technological transitions of world-historical import: The next stage of Infotech will bring the spread of ubiquitous Artificial Intelligence and an unexpected acceleration of innovation. Biotech will revolutionize human health through genetic understanding but also bring biological engineering that will fundamentally rework our built world. And energy tech will fully scale up clean energy and electric transportation that will reshape cities in profound ways.
These three tech booms will help drive an overarching economic boom throughout the world. But there also are demographic trends that will inexorably roll out and impact culture and politics, as well as a global version of The Inexorables that will shape the future in profound and potentially positive ways.
This short clip explains The Inexorables, the new technologies and megatrends that are inexorably coming over the next 25 years and can't be stopped under any scenario.
The Strategic Paradigm Shifts of the 2020s
The world is going through a rare historical juncture of fundamental systems change across multiple systems in the 2020s. The systems that defined how the world worked in the last 40 years are buckling if not fully breaking down. And the new systems that will supersede them have begun to emerge but are far from fully developed.
This poses an unusual strategic challenge – you must develop strategies in the midst of multiple paradigm shifts in how the world around us works.
These junctures create big risks but also incredible opportunities for those who have the strategic foresight to understand the epic shifts earlier in the process and lean into the new opportunities that the new systems afford.
Leyden will lay out those risks and opportunities in a way that’s particularly useful for senior leaders of companies and organizations.
This short clip give an overview of 10 fundamental system changes that will take place in the 2020s and that will require a paradigm shift in strategies by companies and organizations of all kinds. Watch the use of stunning motion graphics.
The Transformation of Our World to 2050
The world arguably is going through a fundamental transformation in the next 25 years as part of a historical period of almost unparalleled significance that may well be remembered for centuries to come.
Leyden tells the epic story of our times and lays out the probable future of America and the world in a comprehensive narrative that weaves together the most important developments that are coming in technology, science, economics, politics and society.
He gives audiences a vivid, big-picture look at the many transformative changes that will have the greatest impact on our lives, our work and the planet over the next 25 years.
He explains how we can and will solve many of our great challenges like climate change—leaving audiences energized and inspired.
This is a short clip of the opening overview of a keynote talk that makes reference to the transformation coming in the next 25 years and references the full talk on that topic.
The Transformation of Our Civilization to 2100
This talk tells the sweeping story of our entire era from 1980 to 2100 in the context of all human history.
Leyden starts the story with the dawn of the digital revolution in 1980, tells the essential developments of the last 40 years, before explaining what we can expect to happen through the rest of the 21st century—including humans getting a handle on climate change and making great progress on many fronts.
Leyden makes the case that people centuries from now will look back on the 21st century the way we look back on The Enlightenment and other key moments of civilizational change. Leyden tells that epic story and helps people appreciate the extraordinary times we’re living through and the potential of what lies ahead.
This short clip shows the ending of a Leyden talk that gives a very big-picture perspective about what people even 1000 years in the future will think about our times and the full transformation of our world coming throughout the 21st century.
Talks Before the Pandemic
Leyden has given hundreds of keynote talks over the last 25 years and the vast majority are not videoed. Unfortunately most conferences and executive summits have not been recorded though that is starting to change. Below you can find some of them that were captured in high enough quality to continue to be shared. They show a range of experiences over time.
Paris for European Business Leaders
For the last 20 years Leyden has given keynote talks in Europe on a regular basis to C-level executives and other business leaders from across the continent. He would often bring what he was learning in Silicon Valley and explain what was coming in the decade ahead.
This talk was given in late 2019 just before the pandemic hit for a high level conference of about 250 senior executives gathered by Capgemni, the French technology and strategy consulting company. Leyden also participated in this highly interactive conference for three days beyond this 30-minute talk.
New York City for National Conference of Planners
This talk was on a big stage in front of an audience of 1,000 urban planners from every state in America gathered for their national conference at the Jacob Javits Convention Center in New York City in 2017.
This talk was a good example of The Reinvention of America talk Leyden was giving at that time. This material has since evolved into four new talks around the body of work developed around The Transformation. This 2017 talk centers more on America’s future and makes comparisons to a handful of other times our country has gone through similar transformations.
Brussels for C-Level Executives
This talk on The Future of the Platform Economy was given in Brussels to a conference of very senior business leaders from many different companies from across Europe, organized by Sogeti in 2018.
Leyden had been working closely with the senior leadership of Airbnb in San Francisco for the previous two years through his startup company Reinvent. That project with Airbnb on the future of the sharing economy gave him an excellent understanding of the future of the platform economy in general.
This talk helped these European business leaders understand this inexorable trend. He also drove some smaller breakout conversations on this topic over the course of the 3-day conference.
Las Vegas for Autodesk’s Huge Customer Audience
This video shows an example of Leyden working a big high-tech stage complete with television-style video cameras on mechanical arms swooping in for shots.
This talk was in Las Vegas several years ago for Autodesk’s annual gathering of 8,000 of their customers to better understand the inexorable shift to the cloud. Leyden was on the main stage in front of about 1000 people giving a relatively tight 20-minute talk.
TEDx on California is the Future
This TED talk was on the future of American politics that largely predicted what would happen in the 2018 midterm American elections a year before people went to the polls. Leyden also accurately predicted what would happen in the 2020 Presidential election as well.
Leyden has learned to avoid talking about partisan politics in talks he gives to business audiences or even general audiences in the heartland of America. It can distract people from understanding the many other things that will change about the future in technology, economics and society.
That said, Leyden thinks politics will have a big impact on what happens in the world in the next 30 years and he has many big ideas about what is coming. This talk to an audience in Oakland lays out his thoughts on how California is the Future of American Politics.