Many economic players around the world are exploring new business models for the next generation with focus, passion and stubborn determination on leveraging digital technologies, especially AI.
The market capitalization of the world's top 100 companies will reach $40 trillion by the end of March 2024, a record level for the first time in five years. Technology giants have recorded the highest growth of all companies and account for nearly a third of global market capitalization. Particularly because of the excitement surrounding AI, but also of themselves.
Paradoxically, the more our society engages in the exploration of new business models, the more we truly become It keeps us away from inventing what could be innovation. A company's business model.
In this all-digital and now all-AI frenzy, a series of business creations is relentlessly perpetuated, and the model is actually nothing new, despite what can sometimes be believed to the contrary. The company's business model remains essentially the same, built on the same references, the same types, and the same models. This model is called “profit and loss.”
This model, inherited from capitalism and at the heart of most of the world's business value systems, often relies on unsustainable consumption of the earth's resources and has been a source of horrific value destruction for centuries. , which today is proliferating at an exponential rate. This is due to digital technologies that are at risk of being further accelerated by AI.
This model, which aims to create wealth and succeeds over time, is, on the contrary, the main cause of the blind impoverishment of the most precious things human beings have, such as air and water. Innovate itself.
It has culminated not only in creating irreconcilable inequalities in the dignity and right to a decent life for many human beings, but also indiscriminately causing global pollution, which is necessary for all human life on earth. natural resources have been depleted to a critical stage. An extreme and almost irreversible situation.
At its pinnacle is a hegemonic platform built by some as a model for entrepreneurial success, often cited as an example of this new digital economy that so many seek to emulate.
Moreover, other such business models where AI increases productivity and efficiency are undesirable.
Too many companies are so irresponsible that their value creation models destroy precious resources, accentuate our society's handicaps, finance this one-sided value with debts to humanity, It's not even recognized on the balance sheet, and no bank comes to claim it. They never redeem themselves.
Everything happens as if all the entrepreneurial ingenuity that humanity is capable of possessing, all the intelligence that characterizes human genius, has been confiscated, mostly for a single purpose. . It is about getting more profits for more money, and providing more money to more people. More profits, more profits with more money, more profits, repeating in a loop without any other priorities or considerations.
Like generations before us, we continue to move in every way along this model and pass it on to ourselves as a genetic disease. Digital technology, now amplified by the multiplier of AI, and globalization as well as the unconscious technologization of our world have allowed the counter-effects of these anti-sustainable business models to reach record highs. I am.
Growth for the sake of growth, that is, anything that does not involve the growth of the weakest in our society, profit for the sake of profit, that which does not benefit those who need it, in fact, the illusion of having value. but does not create any value.
With the rise of corporate social responsibility and sustainability trends, you might think we're making progress, but we're not there yet. All these trends and concepts actually do not change the way companies are listed on stock exchanges at all.
As social pressures increase, corporate responsibility and sustainability are emerging as prerequisites to protect a company's reputation, but only because anything more is seen by many as embezzlement on the backs of shareholders. However, it is still generally treated as a necessary expense.
There is no change in the way products are evaluated in the market.
It just changes nothing in the way a company has to be run to produce what defines profit.
It's a way of somehow staying trapped in this business model as we know it, while the purpose of actually addressing social privilege is not at the core of the business and has a life-or-death impact on a company's reputation. They are adding complementary social privileges that they do not have. At the end of the day, this is just a peripheral thing.
And while you might think this is a “David vs. Goliath” type of issue, a conflict between short and long term, a never-ending tension between shareholder value and stakeholder value, this is not the case.
The difference between long-term and short-term does not necessarily turn them into opposite paths. Both must become one.
As long as there is profit and sustainable development as defined in business today, value for shareholders and value for stakeholders, apart from what defines profit, as defined in business today. Insofar as this definition of value prevents us from building the cement of an economy that contributes to the progress of society and humanity.
Steve Jobs said: “You can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect the dots looking back. So you have to believe that the dots will somehow connect in the future.”.
Steve was wrong. What is important for humanity and the world is that we need to understand in advance how the dots are connected, and that we do not have to wait for the results to realize later what we have done. I can't stay there.
When it comes to creating value for the greater good of humanity, we can and must look forward and connect the dots. Because we cannot act by simply looking back and connecting the dots, we just trust that the dots will somehow connect by chance. We take the future into our own hands.
The two most important things in any business don't appear on the balance sheet: reputation and employees. Henry Ford said it right, especially when it comes to people. And it's time.
In this era of artificial intelligence, more intelligence needs to be accessible and available, and it is of paramount importance to leverage it to build value creation for companies. It is the positive impact that companies have on the societies in which they operate and live.
That humanity. This is the most important thing on a company's balance sheet.
Market capitalization is very important from this perspective. Although it plays an important role in reflecting the value of a company's social contribution in evaluations, the main focus is still overwhelmingly biased towards financial performance.
Without responsible, trustworthy, and accountable companies to society, there would be no so-called responsible, trustworthy, and accountable digital technologies (including AI).
Without a human economy, there will be no human-centered AI.
The economic value of a business should only be valued by the value it creates for society. Because the values ​​we choose to create today and how we create them will determine the values ​​of society tomorrow.