Decoding the World: A Roadmap for Our Times

Find out where our world is headed with this dazzling first-hand account of inventing the future from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of What Should I Do With My Life? and the founder of science accelerator IndieBio.





Decoding the World is a buddy adventure about the quest to live meaningfully in a world with such uncertainty. It starts with Po Bronson coming to IndieBio.




Arvind Gupta created IndieBio as a laboratory for early biotech startups trying to solve major world problems. Glaciers melting. Dying bees. Infertility. Cancer. Ocean plastic. Pandemics.




Arvind is the fearless one, a radical experimentalist. Po is the studious detective, patiently synthesizing clues others have missed. Their styles mix and create a quadratic speedup of creativity. Yin and Yang crystallized.




As they travel around the world, finding scientists to join their cause, the authors bring their firsthand experience to the great mysteries that haunt our future. Natural resource depletion. Job-taking robots. China's global influence.




Arvind feels he needs to leave IndieBio to help startups do more than just get started. But as his departure draws near, he struggles to leave the sanctum he created. While Po has to prove he can keep the "indie" in IndieBio after Arvind is gone.




After looking through their lens, you'll never see the world the same.

Po Bronson is Managing Director of IndieBio. His science journalism has been honored with nine national awards, and cited in 185 academic journals and 503 books. He's the author of seven bestselling books, including the #1 New York Times bestseller What Should I Do With My Life?

Arvind Gupta is the founder of IndieBio, the world's largest biotech accelerator, and a partner at Mayfield. Previously he was design director of IDEO in Shanghai. He has a degree in genetic engineering from University of California, Santa Barbara. In the past two decades he has been a BASE jumper, big wall climber, and jiu-jitsu grappler.