Rating: 
Summary: A Good Read!
Review: Author Stephen R. Waite is a Wall Street veteran, but despite its title Quantum Investing is not about investing (the few investor-oriented tips are at the end of each chapter and at the book's conclusion). Rather, it is a futurist manifesto, an infectious, heady hodgepodge of science textbook and thought experiment, which reads like a sequel to Future Shock. Waite takes you on a whirlwind tour of quantum theory, which has enabled astounding technological advances (note the glossary of physics terms and the timeline of relevant scientific developments). He assesses the accounting industry as hopelessly out-of-date when it comes to valuing intangible assets, and offers a thought-provoking discussion of the stock market, chaos theory and complex systems. You'll probably be skeptical of - but intrigued by - the discoveries he predicts for the twenty-first century. We from getAbstract recommend this to executives who are interested in a big-picture treatment of the economic evolution, or who are science (or science-fiction) buffs.
Rating: 
Summary: A great read on the next wave of technology
Review: In a single easy to disgest book Stephen Waite explains how quantum science and technologies will have a profound impact on investments and the world we live in. He walks the reader through the key periods of great change in economics, society and wealth creation. This puts in context the next great wave that will effect all of us-quantum-based science and technologies. Waite explains the underpinnings of quantum science and builds an excellent case that quantum based-technologies will have a significant long-term wealth creation potential through much of the 21st century and how the investor came begin to take advantage now. This is a book on investing and a lot more-Waite focuses on potential areas of historically unprecedented opportunities and also on the significant societal benefits emanating from quantum-based development. Waiter sites physicists, economists, historians, futurists and politicians in the text. This gives a multi-dimensional view to the impact quantum technologies will have and that in fact we are beginning to see them today. The book is also well organized with takeaways at the end of every chapter. Given there is so much information for the reader, the chronology of events of quantum science and the glossary of terms are very helpful understanding the ideas discussed in the text. I highly recommend Waite's Quantum Investing to all-To the investor who is looking to take advantage of emerging opportunties and to anyone who is looking to understand quantum science and technologies and how it may change our lives.
Rating:
Summary: Let's face it folks, this is a deep book.
Review: Let's face it folks, this is a deep book. Spend some time with it - mull it over. It's not People Magazine. The insight it gives us on who we are, and where we are going as a society and an economy is quite profound. We are living today, and have been living for quite some time, in a world driven by quantum discoveries. Tie the threads together - and realize that we're on a spaceship earth that is moving through the universe in surprising ways. "Quantum Investing" opened my eyes.
Rating:
Summary: Eye-opening in a good way
Review: Picked this booking thinking it would be a good way to familiarize myself with what's going on in high-tech industries. But this book has little to do with investing. It merely suggests spreading your risks in a diversified portfolio and consider mutual funds or a good index fund. That would be a major disappointment for most readers. However, I found the book fascinating because I share a common interest with the author in what he appears to be most interested in writing about. He writes about the pace of advancing technology and quotes people like Arthur C. Clarke and Ray Kurzweil - both advocates of rapidly advancing technological progress. Waite explains clearly the idea of just how fast exponential change is occuring. His metaphor with grains of rice on a chess board is quite useful. And his explanation that technology is evolving 10,000 times faster than biological evolution is so clear I had to read it out loud to other family members. His explanation of tangible vs. intangible assets and the need to consider both to evaluate modern businesses is one of the most convincing arguments I've read regarding this misunderstood and often ignored idea. Arthur C. Clark and other futurologist's lists of anticipated 21st century technological breakthroughs are quite interesting to ponder. His suggestion that the crash of the dot.coms is not the end of the world for the advancement of technology stocks is well argued and illustrated. But the most interesting concept introduced to me in this book is the idea of what he calls a coming "singularity." Definded by Waite as a point in technological advancement where human understanding is unable to keep pace with the remarkable advances of technology and future advances in science and technology fall into the hands of superintelligent thinking computers. It sounds astounding and quite arguable but Waite and others suggest that it may come to pass in one's current lifetime. Very interesting and alarming.
Rating:
Summary: Seeing Into the Quantum Future
Review: Quantum Investing provides investors a road map for understanding the impact of innovations in science and technology on businesses. It's a must-read for those looking for an eloquent and cogent synthesis of the forces of quantum physics, complexity science and intellectual assets on the business world.
Steve Waite builds a very strong case for the expectation that these forces will combine to unleash a powerful wave of innovation that will wash over nearly all parts of our scoiety. Though the tech bubble has burst in the stock market, it is important to recognize that we have only begun to benefit from recent advances in science and technology. Steve Waite makes it very clear that the real power of recent advances lies in how they combine to drive faster and faster rates of innovation and improvements in productivity. Having better tools enables us not only to do more with less but also to create even better tools. This virtuous cycle is just getting its footing as we begin to taste the benefits of consilience.
The stock market may be down over the short-term, but Steve Waite shows that it will rise again on the shoulders of scientific breakthroughs that will reshape our world.
Rating:
Summary: Broad science knowledge is key to sound investing
Review: Science is taking society on a magical trip that has tremendous consequences in the way that we plan our futures. Investors to be successful must prepare their trading day by first being cognizant of the drastic changes that science is providing us everyday. A technological breakthrough may mean that the stock that you highly value today becomes the stock that you are ashamed of tomorrow. Quantum Investing is an incredible asset to own as you change over your investing philosophy to one that mindful of the power of science over our lives. Stephen Waite's writing style is smooth and easy I eagerly recommend this book. Rick Torres
Rating:
Summary: Investors Must be Cognizant
Review: Science is taking society on a magical trip that has tremendous consequences in the way that we plan our futures. Investors to be successful must prepare their trading day by first being cognizant of the drastic changes that science is providing us everyday. A technological breakthrough may mean that the stock that you highly value today becomes the stock that you are ashamed of tomorrow. Quantum Investing is an incredible asset to own as you change over your investing philosophy to one that mindful of the power of science over our lives. Stephen Waite's writing style is smooth and easy I eagerly recommend this book. Rick Torres
Rating: 
Summary: Quite disappointed. Not an investment book at all.
Review: Though the authors emphasized that the purpose of the book was to pursue what Munger of Bershire Hathaway preached about the "lattice of models" approach to investing that successful investors should read as much as he could on as many diverse subjects as possible, and that development in Quantum physics would bring 2/3 of the existing 30 DJI stocks out of their places in the index in less than 2 decades. this book was far too repetitive and clumsy in elaborating the same idea of the importance of Quantum Physics. The amateur knowledge and so so writing skill of the authors would drive nearly half of the readers to confusion because they would still have close to nothing clue about Quantum Physics, whilst those who know Quantum Physics would be bored to coma. Perhaps the best part of the book was the definition they quoted from Feynman, that it was the description of the behaviour of matter and light in all its details and, in particular, of the happenings on an atomic scale. Besides that, the whole book read like a product of copy and paste here and there from science journals more than anything else. Despite the above, the authors were clever at choosing the right facts and figures. Some astounding items include:- 1. The only original DJI stock left behind after a century was General Electric.
2. In 1989, Intel launched i486, a chip that features 1.2 million transistors. In 2001, Intel launched P4 which contains 43 million transistors.
3. In 1997, IBM installed Deep Blue. It could evaluate 200 million chess positions per second, and defeated the world chess champion Gary Kasparov. In 2001, IBM installed ASCI White, which is 1000 times faster than Deep Blue. In short, this book is far from what the title projects to say. Little is talked about investment at all. The authors could have written a much better book with much fewer words. To make it better, the authors should have written much more on how complexity theory, a branch in Quantum Physics could really help market and investment analysis.
Rating:
Summary: Quite disappointed. Not an investment book at all.
Review: Though the authors emphasized that the purpose of the book was to pursue what Munger of Bershire Hathaway preached about the "lattice of models" approach to investing that successful investors should read as much as he could on as many diverse subjects as possible, and that development in Quantum physics would bring 2/3 of the existing 30 DJI stocks out of their places in the index in less than 2 decades. this book was far too repetitive and clumsy in elaborating the same idea of the importance of Quantum Physics. The amateur knowledge and so so writing skill of the authors would drive nearly half of the readers to confusion because they would still have close to nothing clue about Quantum Physics, whilst those who know Quantum Physics would be bored to coma. Perhaps the best part of the book was the definition they quoted from Feynman, that it was the description of the behaviour of matter and light in all its details and, in particular, of the happenings on an atomic scale. Besides that, the whole book read like a product of copy and paste here and there from science journals more than anything else. Despite the above, the authors were clever at choosing the right facts and figures. Some astounding items include:- 1. The only original DJI stock left behind after a century was General Electric.
2. In 1989, Intel launched i486, a chip that features 1.2 million transistors. In 2001, Intel launched P4 which contains 43 million transistors.
3. In 1997, IBM installed Deep Blue. It could evaluate 200 million chess positions per second, and defeated the world chess champion Gary Kasparov. In 2001, IBM installed ASCI White, which is 1000 times faster than Deep Blue. In short, this book is far from what the title projects to say. Little is talked about investment at all. The authors could have written a much better book with much fewer words. To make it better, the authors should have written much more on how complexity theory, a branch in Quantum Physics could really help market and investment analysis.
Rating:
Summary: Tremendous vision and a bold framework for new ideas
Review: Waite lays waste to the idea that the bursting of the NASDAQ bubble was the end of the technology revolution, and instead puts forth the idea that the "emergence" of nanotech (quantum) capabilities mean this is only the beginning. The book makes a compelling case for the non-linear nature of growth in a knowledge based (as opposed to resourse based) economy.
Perhaps, more importantly, Waite introduces the science of complexity and it's framework for understanding complicated systems (as are markets, mutli-celled organisms, weather systems, etc). Complexity theory, developed by the Sante Fe Institute over the last 15 years, is a mechanism by which investors in the modern era can develop a tool kit to read and react to a world of constant change, contagion, evolution and catalytic shock.
This is important stuff; well written, concise and comprehensive. It include both the raw information and the framework with which to manage it. It's a body of knowledge the well equiped investor needs in their arsenal.
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