# Quote — Yuval Noah Harari, 21 Lessons for the 21st Century

> The race to obtain the data is already on, headed by data-giants such as Google, Facebook, Baidu and Tencent. So far, many of these giants seem to have adopted the business model of ‘attention merchants’. They capture our attention by providing us with free information, services and entertainment, and they then resell our attention to advertisers. Yet the data-giants probably aim far higher than any previous attention merchant. Their true business isn’t to sell advertisements at all. Rather, by capturing our attention they manage to accumulate immense amounts of data about us, which is worth more than any advertising revenue. We aren’t their customers – we are their product.

- Author: [Yuval Noah Harari](https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari.md)
- Book: [21 Lessons for the 21st Century](https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari/21-lessons-for-the-21st-century.md)
- Source: [Wikiquote](https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Yuval_Noah_Harari#21_Lessons_for_the_21st_Century_(2018)) ([CC BY-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/))
- Quote page: https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari/21-lessons-for-the-21st-century/the-race-to-obtain

## More from this book

> Drinking lots of will not make you young, will not make you healthy, and will not make you athletic – rather, it increases your chances of suffering from obesity and diabetes. Yet for decades Coca-Cola has invested billions of dollars in linking itself to youth, health and sports – and billions of humans subconsciously believe in this linkage.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari/21-lessons-for-the-21st-century/drinking-lots-of-will.md)

> The typical scientist doesn’t actually practise meditation herself. Rather, she invites experienced meditators to her laboratory, covers their heads with electrodes, asks them to meditate, and observes the resulting brain activities. That can teach us many interesting things about the brain, but if the aim is to understand the mind, we are missing some of the most important insights.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari/21-lessons-for-the-21st-century/the-typical-scientist.md)

> Can you name a great work of art inspired by the Old Testament? Oh, that's easy: Michelangelo's David, Verdi's Nabucco, Cecil B. DeMille's The Ten Commandments. Do you know of any famous work inspired by the New Testament? Piece of cake: Leonardo's Last Supper, Bach's St. Matthew Passion, Monty Python's Life of Brian. Now for the real test: can you list a few masterpieces inspired by the Talmud?Though Jewish communities that studied the Talmud spread over large parts of the world, they did not play an important role in the building of the Chinese empires, in the European voyages of discovery, in the establishment of the democratic system, or in the Industrial Revolution. The coin, the university, parliament, the bank, the compass, the printing press, and the steam engine were all invented by Gentiles.

[Quote page](https://www.leafyquotes.com/yuval-noah-harari/21-lessons-for-the-21st-century/can-you-name.md)