Since the advent of computing and the Internet, we've seen various cycles of innovation being 'slowly' absorbed by the economy over several decades.
There have been countless waves: integrating personal computers into business processes, moving online, launching cloud software, adopting a mobile-first strategy, mastering the art of social media communication, and more.
This gradual process, spread over several decades, often makes us lose sight of the sheer number of new technologies that have emerged and the scale of transformation brought about by the digital revolution.
If we compare how a company operated in the 20th century (e.g., ExxonMobil) with a current big tech company (like Google), we see a vast chasm between them in terms of technological tools, processes, business models, culture, speed, product quality, etc.
It's a completely different beast in nature, structure, and content.
But it didn't come out of nowhere. It was decades upon decades of technological development, and societal and entrepreneurial adaptation.
However, when we look at our governance system and state institutions, we don't see this gradual learning curve. While companies that didn't digitize their processes and business models died off, governments remain largely protected.
In other words, a universe of innovations is held back from institutions. Decades of technological development and new paradigms are kept artificially distant from governments.
And because of the institutions' detachment from the innovation cycles, a potential reform is practically compromised. Current governments won't even be able to grasp the extent of these transformations because their leaders haven't developed the muscle for gradual adaptation and adoption of technologies like companies have. The gap is so wide that we've long surpassed the stage of marginal improvements.
But this is good news for emerging countries.
With the rise of charter cities and the network state industry, we have a new frontier to experiment and innovate with governance systems from scratch.
This is a tremendous opportunity for emerging countries to leapfrog developed nations. It's a chance to bypass the intermediary path that these nations took in the 20th century to prosper, and move straight to the future of governance based on the Internet, crypto, AI, and social innovations.
That's why small jurisdictions, special economic zone laws, regulatory sandboxes, and any initiative that allows governance autonomy for small cities or districts will be fundamental for us to see real innovation in governments.
We're so used to a bad governance system that we can only envision marginal improvements. But what we're about to witness in the coming decades are cities built on the world's most advanced platforms, where tax allocation, law enforcement, public service delivery, and infrastructure are on par with the applications we use daily like Google, Uber, ChatPGT and Amazon.
Of course, this will only be possible in countries that are technologically progressive enough to adopt special zone laws and embrace emerging innovations. And we already see some countries standing out.
Whether Brazil will be one of those countries in the future, I don't know. But we will work to ensure that the next 50 years are very different from the last 50.
