I had a conversation once with my grandfather, who was well into his 90s at the time. He suggested no one could possibly witness more change in a lifetime than he had in his.
He was born into a world of plough horses and candles, and lived next door to Richard Pearse, who some argue was the first to fly. He swapped the plough horse for a Model T Ford, watched those early flying attempts evolve into fighter bombers and passenger planes, and lived through a war that ended with the creation of atomic weapons. He saw a man walk on the Moon on a black-and-white television, then watched space shuttles dock with an international space station on a colour one. He became infuriated by computers in the home when he needed help out in the shed, (Commodore Amiga Paper Boy game!!) and eventually carried a cordless phone in his pocket so he never missed another phone call.
He believed the most dramatic transformation in human history had happened and he’d seen it all.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about that conversation. Not because I disagree with the marvels of what he saw, but because the kind of change unfolding around us now feels equally immense—maybe a little quieter. Less visible, more abstract.
We’re not just changing what we use. We’re changing how we think, what we trust, and even what we are.
I’m currently reading Apple in China, which tells the story of how companies like Apple helped shape China’s industrial and technological rise—not intentionally, but through a series of decisions that made perfect sense at the time. Apple needed scale, precision, and speed. U.S. factories couldn’t deliver what their designs required. China could.
What began as a cost-saving exercise became something else entirely: a training programme. Apple, along with companies like Dell, HP, Motorola, GM, and others, taught Chinese manufacturers not only how to build, but how to build better. And China didn’t just absorb this. It studied it. It scaled it. It turned around and built its own ecosystems with those very tools.
The U.S., and much of the West, didn’t seem to realise what was happening. They outsourced not just production, but their knowledge. And now, as we stand in a new age of AI, green tech, and global rebalancing, there is a quiet realisation dawning: the ground shifted. And most people didn’t notice.
This isn’t about blame. It’s about awareness. It’s about seeing the long arc of change, the kind that doesn’t make headlines until it’s already history. It makes me wonder: what shifts are happening now that we’ll only understand years from now? As AI becomes a co-worker, a creative partner, a decision-maker—will we even notice when we’ve crossed a line?
The 20th century gave us the tools. The 21st century is asking us what we’ll become with them.
If he were still alive, I think my grandfather might understand now that we’re still pulling up that curve of innovation and change. Our lifetime, like his lifetime, might be perceived as unmatched.
