Ashton is an entrepreneur who was a pioneer in using radio-frequency identification (RFID) in business and who coined the phrase “the Internet of Things.” He has founded or led three start-ups, the most recent being Zensi, a technology company involved in energy sensing and monitoring that the electronics company Belkin purchased in 2010. He also co-founded the Auto-ID Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (now called Auto-ID Labs). His book How to Fly a Horse garnered an award for the “Best Business Book” by 1-800-CEO-READ. In addition to this book, he has written for the New York Times and the Atlantic, among other publications.

Ashton relates his own story in the Preface. He writes that he struggled with creating things, beginning with his university career. His early jobs did not go smoothly, and he admits he “was always in danger of being fired” (xvi). He bought into the myth that said creating was a dramatic event involving a mystical flash of insight, but at some point started to question it since it rang untrue. Then he solved a problem at a job with Proctor & Gamble. It was a simple thing that was nonetheless hard to solve: how to keep an accurate inventory of a certain lipstick in stores.