A recent report from New York City-based management and consultancy company Korn Ferry explained that “70 percent of chief executives say they expect someone from their level to be ousted this year over AI strategy. And 74 percent wager that the ousted executive could be them, if they don’t deliver measurable AI gains within the next two years.”
Plus, a Korn Ferry study (pictured above) found that seven in 10 CEOs have so-called imposter syndrome. Commenting on the KF report, former U.S. studio executive Blair Westlake said that “boards are going to be under immense pressure to evaluate their CEOs as never before. Technical skills have generally been pushed down in organizations. That’s all going to change. CEOs running a media company better possess skills way beyond finding the next ‘hit’ movie or theme park ride to survive.”
At the same time, The Wall Street Journal reported, “More CEOs head to the exits. Running a company isn’t so fun in a volatile economy, and fewer managers want to take over.”
VideoAge must ask: Since CEOs don’t seem to understand the future, but only predict it, is it possible that future CEOs need to understand the past in order to predict the future since the future doesn’t develop in a vacuum?
In a recent 60 Minutes segment on CBS, Demis Hassabis of Google’s DeepMind Artificial Intelligence lab, and 2020 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, said that today there is a need for “new way philosophers.”
Similarly, at a recent meeting with a delegation from the Italian Environment Fund at the Quirinal Palace, Italy’s president Sergio Mattarella, said: “We need generations that know how to find nourishment in the history from which they originate and, from it, know how to raise the horizon of our gaze.”
In this AI era, the past has become very important, as demonstrated by The Wall Street Journal, which also wrote: “Meet MAGA’s Favorite Communist,” referring to Italian Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), leader of the Communist Party of Italy (PCd’I) from 1921 to 1924, who is credited with making ultra-conservative Americans appreciate Communist ideology. In his writings, Gramsci developed the strategy, now appreciated by MAGA (Make America Great Again, Trump’s slogan) acolytes, for which culture — and not the economy — represents the basis for political and social victories. American conservative political activist Christopher Rufo summed up this philosophy for the Journal: “Gramsci provides us with the blueprint for how politics works.”
It is therefore possible that to understand the future implications of AI, the corporate world needs to embrace CEOs who understand the past.
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