The future is where Paul Bassat says he lives too much. "The restless person thinks about the future, which is the mode I'm in," he says. "I'd like to be more in the present and less in the future."

He's not talking about a Jetsons-style future of flying cars, nor the "Beam me up, Scotty" imagined transporter of Star Trek. Rather, he dwells in a place where technology start-ups are offering real and novel ways to better arrange the world and the global economy. The start-ups that aspire to be the next Google, Airbnb, Apple, Facebook or SEEK.