Martin Ford was one of the first analysts to write compellingly about the future of work and economies in the face of the growing automation of everything. He sketches a future that's radically reshaped not just by robots but by the loss of the income-distributing power of human jobs. How will our economic systems need to adapt?

He's the author of two books: Rise of the Robots: Technology and the Threat of a Jobless Future (winner of the 2015 Financial Times/McKinsey Business Book of the Year Award ) and The Lights in the Tunnel: Automation, Accelerating Technology and the Economy of the Future, and he's the founder of a Silicon Valley-based software development firm. He has written about future technology and its implications for the New York Times, Fortune, Forbes, The Atlantic, The Washington Post, Harvard Business Review and The Financial Times.