Chief marketing officer
TWBA/Chiat/Day

"I think that what we might find is there's going to be this kind of inverse of the favorable parasitic relationship where you have people who invent, and rather than trying to get bigger or trying to do it themselves, they become the idea factories for the larger companies." More ...

The new economy paints a promising picture of the future: free agents shared by a community of companies; unorthodox marriages between companies, big and small, spearheading entirely new markets. And the biggest surprise of all, says Laurie Coots, is that traditional companies will finally get a pat on the back and reassurance that they're not total losers.

"They do know something about business," says Coots, who's CMO of TBWA Chiat/Day, one of the world's premier advertising agencies. "Big companies now know they have to change. But they can't change in an old-world timeline. They need to take these tools and move forward." The new economy is as hungry for experience as traditional companies are for innovation.

"There's a quest for grown-ups in Silicon Valley right now," she says. "We had an enormous number of companies go public in the last 15 months, and a lot of leaders found that it's easier to go public than be public."

The ability to manage the excitement of Wall Street, to keep a core investor group happy, and to inspire young, talented people is rarely intuitive. "The Valley needs seasoned business leaders who will give people a sense of confidence that these companies are going to last."

Employees will be drawn, not by money, stock options, or quality of life, but by the lure of broad experiences. "People want to add a depth of experience to their portfolio," she says. "They're looking for the opportunity to launch and manage new things, take on entirely new responsibilities. They want to earn autonomy and rub elbows with the smartest people."

The greatest challenge for companies right now is making the right decisions with only minimal time to analyze them. "You have to pick the one partnership, the one product launch, the one new initiative you're going to take on, and it's torturous to have to let go of all the other opportunities."