Peter Diamandis

Former CEO of X Prize Foundation

Peter Diamandis

Former CEO of X Prize Foundation

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Biography

Dr. Peter Diamandis is an international pioneer in the fields of innovation, incentive competitions, and commercial space. In 2014, he was named one of “The World’s 50 Greatest Leaders” by Fortune magazine. He was the chairman and CEO of the X Prize Foundation until 2018, which leads the world in designing and launching large incentive prizes to drive radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. Best known for the $10 million Ansari X Prize for private spaceflight and the $10 million Progressive Automotive X Prize for 100 mile-per-gallon equivalent cars, the foundation is now launching prizes in exploration, life sciences, energy, and education.

In the field of commercial space, Diamandis is the co-founder and co-chairman of Planetary Resources, a company designing spacecraft to enable the detection and prospecting of asteroids for precious materials. He has also co-founded and run many leading entrepreneurial companies, including Zero Gravity Corporation, the Rocket Racing League, and Space Adventures.

His is the co-author of the new book, Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World (2015), the highly anticipated follow-up to the New York Times bestseller Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think. This is a radical, how-to guide for using exponential technologies, moonshot thinking, and crowd-powered tools to create extraordinary wealth while also positively impacting the lives of billions.

Diamandis is also the co-founder and vice-chairman of Human Longevity Inc. (HLI), a genomics and cell therapy-based diagnostic and therapeutic company focused on extending the healthy human lifespan. He is also the co-founder and executive chairman of Singularity University—a Silicon Valley-based institution partnered with NASA, Google, Autodesk, and Nokia—Diamandis counsels the world’s top enterprises on how to utilize exponential technologies and their ability to transform industries and solve humanity’s grand challenges.

Diamandis inspires and moves audiences to action. His message is clear: there is no challenge that cannot be overcome as long as you have a clear objective goal, know what you are measuring, and incentivize the right community to solve your challenge. Using personal and inspirational stories, Diamandis has been called, “one of the best speakers ever” by numerous CEO-level audiences. He has received accolades from an impressively diverse list of listeners, including Google, Microsoft, the United Nations, Facebook, TED, Autodesk, and Activision-Blizzard. He is a frequent contributor to CNN, CNBC, and MSNBC.

Peter Diamandis attended MIT where he received his degrees in molecular genetics and aerospace engineering, as well as Harvard Medical School where he received his MD. His personal motto is “The best way to predict the future is to create it yourself!”

Speaker Videos

Abundance is Our Future

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Payoff from Pushing Limits

CNN: On the Future pf Entrepreneurship

Who I Am & What I Believe

On Abundance

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Speech Topics

Exponential Tech: Innovation/Disruption on the Road Ahead

The only constant is change, and the rate of change is increasing. 40% of today’s Fortune-500 companies are predicted to disappear in the next 10 years. Competition is no longer the multinational overseas, instead it’s the exponential entrepreneur creating companies like Uber, Airbnb, DropBox, Oculus, Whatsapp, SpaceX, Tesla, etc...

Disruption is also coming from data-driven tech giants who are entering into adjacent fields: Google and Apple entering the automotive industry, Apple the music industry, Facebook the global telecom industry, and IBM-Watson into Healthcare.

Much of this transformation is a result of rapidly accelerating exponential technologies such as: Infinite Computing, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, 3D printing Synthetic, Sensors, Networks, and Synthetic Biology.

Diamandis is the Co-Founder & Executive Chairman of Singularity University (SU), the leading institution for the study of exponentially growing technologies. He counsels many of today’s Fortune 500 executive teams and world leaders on the impact of these technologies. In addition, Diamandis is the Founder or co-Founder of 17 companies using the exponential technologies to transform a number of industries.

In this high visual and powerful keynote, Diamandis gives the audience a true understanding of the immediacy of these disruptions, providing them an urgency to innovate and transform old business models. His message: Today’s companies cannot remain stagnant. They must evolve or they will die. You are either disrupting your own business model or someone else will.

Transforming Scarcity to Abundance

Diamandis is the New York Times bestselling author of Abundance: The Future Is Better Than You Think (#1 on Amazon, #2 on NYTimes). In this book, Diamandis shows us how technology is turning areas of scarcity into abundance. This bold, contrarian view, backed up by exhaustive research, introduces our near-term future, where exponentially growing technologies (AI, Robotics, Sensors, Networks, 3D Printing, SynBio, etc.) and the power of the crowd are conspiring to better the lives of billions. Diamandis’ keynote is the antidote to pessimism.

In his keynote address, Diamandis examines human need by category—water, food, energy, healthcare, education, communication and freedom—and shows the audience detailed evidence how there has been a revolutionary improvement in these areas over the past century. He addresses how a range of powerful technologies such as synthetic biology, embedded networks and cloud computing, AI and robotics, biotechnology and medicine are transforming what was once scarce into something abundant. Providing abundance is humanity’s grandest challenge—this is a keynote about how we rise to meet it.

As Elon Musk says, “Diamandis does a masterful job of explaining why we are at the start of a new era of radically increasing standards of living throughout the world.”

As President Bill Clinton says, “Abundance shows us that while the headlines are really bad in the world today, the trend lines are pretty good. Extreme poverty is down. The health care is improving dramatically around the world. There are developments now which make me believe we might be able to do what we did in the 1990s, which is to use technological developments to create more jobs than we lose.”

BOLD Thinking for an Exponential Organization

A company (and leadership’s) mindset is a huge factor in determining its results. This keynote examines the mindset and thinking required today to succeed during this exponential age. Where should a company be looking to grow 10x bigger, rather than 10-percent bigger? What does it take for a company to become an Exponential Organization? How do you become Uber rather than Kodak?

In this keynote, based on the work from his book Bold: How to Go Big, Create Wealth and Impact the World, Diamandis examines Billionaire Thinking at Scale and presents case studies and concrete takeaways from Larry Page, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson.

He also looks at the importance of Bold, Moonshot thinking and provides insights coming from GoogleX’s work and their innovation principals.

Diamandis explains the importance of adopting a Massively Transformative Purpose (MTP) to drive mindset and attract the best employees. He also explains the attributes of today’s “Exponential Organization” that are going from concept to billion-dollar valuations in record time.

During this keynote, Diamandis uses personal examples to emphasizes each of these points while he both inspires and teaches his audience. He draws from his own bold, Moonshot companies, specifically: through the XPRIZE he speaks about solving the world’s Grand Challenges; through Human Longevity, Inc. (HLI), Diamandis discusses transforming the healthcare industry; Finally, through Planetary Resources, Inc. (PRI), Diamandis shows us how to rethink scarcity and see how we will soon have access to vast resources.

Testimonials

"Peter gave the featured Keynote to my first All-Executive meeting in my new role as CEO and made it a huge success. Several employees came up to me later to say that he was the best speaker we’ve ever had. His presentation on innovation and exponential technologies was very thought-provoking discussion and extremely valued."

- CEO, NextEra Energy

"Diamandis is one of the most passionate and dynamic speakers today. His knowledge and leadership in exponential technologies and crowdsourcing tools such as incentive prizes helps senior management teams understand how to transform linear organizations into exponential ones. If you want to energize your senior management team and give them an understanding of the future, bring Diamandis in as your keynote speaker."

- Governor, California

"Peter's presentation is world-class. One of the best I’ve had the pleasure to watch. His passion and vision about innovation, creativity and a future of abundance is infectious. Diamandis offers a critical perspective that everyone—from CEO to innovator—needs to hear. His insights on innovation, technology, and the future are a breath of fresh air, a perfect antidote to the latest depressing headlines. If you’re looking for someone to help you chart your future, Peter is the perfect choice."

- Author, Speaker, and International Leader in Education & Creativity

"Dr. Peter Diamandis is a rare combination of visionary, CEO, scientist, storyteller, innovator, and wizard. In his passion-driven, mind-stretching presentations, he can show you—and your group—how the alchemy of innovation actually works. More than any presentation I have seen in a very long time, Diamandis delivers both inspiration and a concrete understanding of how exponentially growing technologies will transform companies and industries over the coming years. His appetite for breakthrough ideas is matched only by his remarkable life experience in manifesting them."

- Founding CEO of Age Wave

"This is the 2nd time that Peter Diamandis has been the keynote at our global executive retreat. His enthusiasm, vision, and message is extremely powerful. He has motivated my company to change the way we think about the future and how we will drive innovation. In fact, we’ve committed to creating our own internal X PRIZE. He is that truly exceptional visionary who turns big ideas into action. I can't recommend him highly enough."

- Chairman & CEO, RPM, Inc.

"We’ve been hosting our Fortune magazine summits for over a decade and our audience of CEOs and senior executives have seen and heard most of the top business thought leaders and CEOs of our time. And over these years they’ve only given a handful of spontaneous standing ovations, one of which was for Dr. Diamandis. His presentation is one of the most inspirational yet specific, impactful yet practical presentations we’ve ever had the privilege to host. His message must be heard by everyone who hopes to participate actively in the 21st Century."

- Chair, Fortune Summits

"Never before have I seen someone provide a view of the future that is so informed by science and history, yet utterly optimistic! Diamandis clearly and entertainingly uses analogies from the past to illustrate how the major problems mankind faces today and tomorrow will inevitably be solved through exponential technologies. Bravo!"

- CEO & Founder, GIVIGIV

"Peter gives hope where others see none. Not only is his speaking style engaging and inspirational but his message is one of great importance for all of humanity. This man is doing critically important work. He is making his life and the lives of others count immeasurably."

- President, Accelerated Intelligence Inc.

"The audience response to your session was absolutely fantastic! The rating scale is 1-5 with 5 being the highest. Your total overall score was 4.78. You hit it out of the park! The most common phrases describing you were: 'amazing,' outstanding,' and 'inspiring.' It was truly one of the highlights of this year's GSX. You have certainly expanded your fan base here at Cisco!"

- Cisco