Data is the new oil and artificial intelligence is the new electricity upon which business empires are built. Today, every company HAS TO be a tech company or face obsolescence as more and more forward-thinking organizations follow Silicon Valley’s lead in embracing the value of data.

But becoming a data-first company and building a culture of creative innovation and data-driven insights and actions is not an easy task. …

San Francisco, New York, Berlin, London, Shanghai… If I asked you to list the top startup tech hubs globally, these established powerhouses would certainly top the charts. They produce the majority of the elite of tech companies and the lion’s share of venture returns. And every city is trying to become the “next Silicon Valley” — without the massive homelessness and extreme inequality, of course :)

But as an American expat (and serial entrepreneur, startup growth and strategy advisor, occasional investor, and aspiring VC) that recently moved back to Zurich, Switzerland, I must say, I was shocked at the rapid…

Is this the Death of Dirty Business?

Written by Matt Ward and Gerd Leonhard

Since the advent of the microprocessor, and even more so since the dotcom boom and bust cycle of the 90s, the economy has been transforming from one based on hard goods, assets, and rxaw materials to one focused almost entirely on digital technology and infrastructure. Once Fortune 500 companies have been reduced to ash as innovative startups have swallowed up ever larger portions of the economic pie, many like Netflix vs Blockbuster, online news, or AirBnb vs any hotel chain, simply by removing the real-world physical costs of real estate.

This trend is…

By Matt Ward and Gerd Leonhard

In 1943, Abraham Maslow proposed his now well-known theory of human motivation, ie, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs — starting with physiological things like food, water, and shelter, and increasing in complexity and fulfilment, culminating in self-actualization: the achievement of one’s personal and creative potential.

While that may seem a strange starting point for a conversation on the future of work and jobs in a post-automation world, it is not. The truth is, we are rushing into a future of mass automation where most manual labor and “left-brained” thinking becomes the domain of robotics and…

Written by Matt Ward and Gerd Leonhard

Adam Smith, with his landmark book The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776, is recognized by most as the father of capitalism. In 1970, Milton Friedman built upon Smith’s legacy with the Friedman doctrine, outlining the basics of what we recognize today as shareholder capitalism — which argues that a business’s primary (if not only) responsibility is to its shareholders, ie, making more money.

This has been the dominant operating framework for modern business that has driven the boards of big companies around the world. But today — as we are nearing the…

By Gerd Leonhard and Matt Ward and Gerd Leonhard.

Covid-19 has accelerated the demise of traditional corporate capitalism

2019 was a year of great prosperity and innovation, with stock markets booming, democracy largely thriving (well, apart from what went down in Trump’s USA), and unemployment at near-record lows throughout much of the developed world. But then, Covid-19 struck and changed everything as half the world went into lock-down, economies and supply-chains ground to a halt, unemployment skyrocketed, and the world suffered its greatest health/humanitarian crisis since World War II. All of a sudden, the future look bleak.

The myth that many people want to believe is that things will…

Why is self-acceptance so hard (for me)? Why is the very idea that we are not enough so prevalent in our culture, our afflicted society? And why do so many high-performers struggle with feelings of inadequacy? Not successful enough, rich enough, famous enough…

Many books have been written on the subject, and many more will be. But what about me? What about you? Self-help books are great for ‘the masses,’ but I’m different. I’m special, unique. Isn’t that what we’re all told growing up? And in many ways, it isn’t wrong. …

“Do things that don’t scale.” -Paul Graham

Worse. Advice. Ever…

Depending on the stage and size of your business, this mentality could spell disaster. The further along your business is, the less this applies to you.

Yet it’s something ALL entrepreneurs struggle with. We’re ADD. We focus on the things we like doing, or worse yet, the ones that are easy. We write the blog posts, share on social, make flyers, cold-call customers…

That’s called a job, not a business. If you’re essential to your company, you’re an employee, not an entrepreneur. There is nothing wrong with that. …