Code as the “how” of productivity and key to human development

A conversation between Azeem Azhar and Philip Auerswald.

For the tech community, code almost exclusively has a uniform meaning: a set of instructions, until recently only written by humans, that specifies any action a computer should execute.

In his most recent book, Philip Auerswald talks about “code” in a broader meaning of the word — it is the “how” of human productivity, the manner in which we create, refine and implement the infrastructure that forms a human society. The advance of code, from the Neolithic era to the modern times, has been driving the identity and work reinvention. Philip argues that we are at one of those crucial stages now, and through his book offers a guide to the future.

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In the latest episode of Exponential View podcast, I talk to Philip about his book; we spend a good amount of time discussing the human relationship to code, the sweeping changes taking over the workforce, and reinvention of what it means to be human.

Philip Auerswald is an associate professor of public policy at George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government and a co-editor of Innovations, a quarterly journal about entrepreneurial solutions to global challenges. He currently leads the Global Entrepreneurship Research Network, an initiative of the Kauffman Foundation. His most recent book, The Code Economy: A Forty-Thousand-Year History, explains how code has been a key driver of human development.

Listen to the full episode here: