Fast Talk: What's the Biggest Change Facing Business In the Next 10 Years?

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"Over the next few decades, we think the capabilities of intelligent machines will evolve rapidly."
--Donna Dubinsky, Numenta Inc.

"A lot of my people [who read Dilbert] would prefer not to have any human contact, because they feel they work for and with idiots."
--Scott Adams, Cartoonist and entrepreneur

Malcolm Gladwell

Writer, The New Yorker magazine
New York, New York

Gladwell, 42, is author of the best-sellers The Tipping Point and Blink. His books and his articles in The New Yorker consistently offer fresh perspectives on issues businesspeople care about.
First appeared in Fast Company: January 2005

"Business has to find its national voice. It has to be engaged in the politics of this country in a way it's not accustomed to. Right now, executives are very good at saying, 'Cut our taxes, cut our regulations.' And they're really terrible at making far more important and substantive arguments about social policy. It's time they stopped banging this one-note drum and started saying that a lot of the things that have been relegated to ideology are, in fact, matters of fundamental international competitiveness for this country.

Take, for example, health care. We are ceding manufacturing jobs to the rest of the world because we can't get around to providing some kind of basic, uniform health insurance. Because of our strange ideological problem with nationalized health insurance, we're basically driving Detroit out of business--which strikes me as a very counterintuitive, nonsensical policy. The simple fact is that GM and Ford and Chrysler cannot compete in the world market if they're asked to bear the pension and health-care costs of their retirees. Can't be done. It's that simple.

I also think it's time that business stood up and joined the immigration debate. I think it has been--with the exception of some high-tech firms--shamefully silent on this, which should be one of its top competitiveness issues. Congress should not be shutting down the borders at a time when we're 10 or 15 years away from some very serious workplace shortages, skilled-labor shortages. We've shut the spigot off, and we're keeping out the very people who would drive our economy 10 years out when our workforce retires en masse.

We talk about these as equity issues, as cost issues, as ideological issues, but more than anything else, they're about competitiveness."
--Interview by Michael A. Prospero

Barbara Ehrenreich

Writer
Key West, Florida

Ehrenreich, 64, is a cultural critic and author whose book Nickel and Dimed exposed the dark side of the service economy. Her most recent book, Bait and Switch, reveals the underbelly of white-collar work.
First appeared in Fast Company: October 2002

"There is a profound discounting of experience going on that we're going to have to reexamine if we're going to keep up with the rest of the world. During my research for Bait and Switch, I was told again and again that the basis of hiring is not your skills or experience, but how likable you are. The rationale is that you have to be a 'team player' and conform, in great detail, down to the shape of your lapel pin. In what kind of team does everyone have to be the same?

There seems to be a growing culture of incompetence where who knows whom and who likes whom weigh more than getting the job done. This is the kind of thinking that got us Michael D. Brown heading up FEMA. Even more perverse is the constant culling out of the high achievers. If you get a raise, it's like having a bull's-eye painted on your back. You are just an expense, and a bigger expense, so let's get rid of you.

How will American business face the challenge of the rising economies of China and India? Those nations are emphasizing skill and a proven track record. We are not going to survive in a globalized economy if our business culture is so self-indulgently involved in preserving an internal comfort level. What did you hire me for? To keep you company in the office?"
--Interview by Jennifer Pollock

Avram Miller

CEO, The Avram Miller Co.
San Francisco, California

Miller, 61, was vice president of business development at Intel and a cofounder of Intel Capital. He played a critical role in launching broadband. He now consults on strategy and business development for consumer-focused Internet companies.
First appeared in Fast Company: June/July 1997

"The cornerstone for this millennium is the end of time and space. Most organizations today are run the same way as early-20th-century businesses. Everyone goes to his car, drives to work, has certain hours, has a certain job. It's all built on the factory model. Moving forward, it really isn't going to be important where you are in order to do your job. Ideas are being worked on 24 hours a day. Nobody seems surprised anymore if I wake up in the middle of the night and start IM-ing someone in Europe, because the fact is, they don't even know where I am. And it doesn't matter.