Thank You for Being Late cover art

Thank You for Being Late

An Optimist's Guide to Thriving in the Age of Accelerations

Preview
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free
Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.
Prime members: New to Audible? Get 2 free audiobooks during trial.
Just £0.99/mo for your first 3 months of Audible.
1 bestseller or new release per month—yours to keep.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, podcasts, and Originals.
Auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly.
Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically.

Thank You for Being Late

By: Thomas L. Friedman
Narrated by: Oliver Wyman
Get this deal Try Premium Plus free

£8.99/mo after 3 months. Cancel monthly. Offer ends 29 January 2026 at 11:59PM GMT.

£8.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £16.99

Buy Now for £16.99

LIMITED TIME OFFER | £0.99/mo for the first 3 months

Premium Plus auto-renews at £8.99/mo after 3 months. Terms apply.

About this listen

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Thank You for Being Late by Thomas L. Friedman, read by Oliver Wyman.

From the Pulitzer Prize winner and No.1 international bestselling author of The World is Flat, an essential and entertaining field guide to thriving in the twenty-first century.

We all sense it - something big is going on. You feel it in your workplace. You feel it when you talk to your children. You can't miss it when you read the newspapers or watch the news. Our lives are speeding up - and it is dizzying.

In Thank You for Being Late, a work unlike any he has attempted before, Thomas L. Friedman exposes the tectonic movements that are reshaping the world today and explains how to get the most out of them.

Friedman's thesis is that to understand the twenty-first century, you need to understand that the planet's three largest forces - Moore's law (technology), the market (globalization) and Mother Nature (climate change and biodiversity loss) - are all accelerating at once, transforming the workplace, politics, geopolitics, ethics and community. An extraordinary release of energy is reshaping everything from how we hail a taxi to the fate of nations to our most intimate relationships. It is creating vast new opportunities for individuals and small groups to save the world - or perhaps to destroy it.

Thank You for Being Late is a work of contemporary history that serves as a field manual for how to think about this era of accelerations. It's also an argument for 'being late' - for pausing to appreciate this amazing historical epoch we're passing through and reflecting on its possibilities and dangers. He shows us how we can anchor ourselves as individuals in the eye of this storm, and how communities can create a 'topsoil of trust' to do the same for their increasingly diverse and digital populations.

Written with his trademark vitality, wit, and optimism, and with unequalled access to many of those at the forefront of the changes he is describing all over the world, Thank You for Being Late is Friedman's most ambitious book - and an essential guide to the present and the future.

21st Century Economics Environmental Economics History & Culture History & Philosophy Modern Philosophy Politics & Government Science Technology & Society Technology Capitalism Socialism Computer Science Africa

Listeners also enjoyed...

Ninja Future cover art
Startup Rising cover art
Global Warming cover art
The Measure of a Man cover art
The Gen Z Effect cover art
Peers Inc cover art
AI Superpowers cover art
The Industries of the Future cover art
Two and Twenty cover art
Give Work cover art
The Righteous Mind cover art
Present Shock cover art
Why Nations Fail cover art
The Demon-Haunted World cover art
The End of the World Is Just the Beginning cover art
Raising the Floor cover art

Critic reviews

We need Tom Friedman ... a major interpreter of the confusing world we inhabit - Joseph S. Nye
A global star ... given his track record as a zeitgeist thermometer, we should all pay attention
Friedman is a green who's good fun, a scientist who tells stories, a poet whose lyrics are pure logic, a missionary whose zeal doesn't depress you. Phenomenal
The guy is a one-man think-tank: his writing is punchy, opinionated and pungent
All stars
Most relevant
Friedman has a very interesting balance between technologist and humanist, from western (US) upbringing and a life spent reporting from the middle east to grasp the contrasts and trends happening around us.
This book provides an up to date description of our ages key exponential growths (accelerations) which we may understand intellectually but not really grasp intuitively but are shaping our World for the good and the bad.
His personal account of the ecosystem he grew up in serves as an inspiration to "making things right" at a community level in a time where diversity and its consequent integration are a topic du jours.
Finally, Oliver Wyman does a wonderful job of adding texture and life into the reading.

A faithful and hopeful portrait of our (Western) times

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

some great points and examples. way too centered on the US. the author talks about diversity and justice, and then surprisingly and hypocritically goes on to describe how to make America great again at the cost of other nations and the planet.

Excellent beginning and middle then downhill

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

Well written stories and collection of information from many other sources. It's a great read if you are a nascent explorer of the tech and social changes.

Well written

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

As expected from the wonderful Mr Friedman. A learning experience at all levels and should be required reading (listening) for us all.

Brilliant

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

This book is fascinating and excellent. It simply explains what has made the world into what is is today and what influences has and continues makes it so. It has changed my thinking, what a brain opener!

Wow, what a brain opener!

Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.

See more reviews