"For a presidential campaign that has started so early," writes New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, " it’s striking how little most of the candidates want to engage with major issues of the day, let alone the future" This is unfortunate, and in the end, futile, argues Friedman, because we are, like it or not, living in the Age of Disruption. Technology, labor, climate, geopolitics. Everywhere you look, things are in flux — and not always in a happy, peppy way.
To demonstrate, Friedman quotes a March essay by Tom Goodwin, an executive at Havas Media, writing in Techcrunch: “Uber, the world’s largest taxi company, owns no vehicles. Facebook, the world’s most popular media owner, creates no content. Alibaba, the most valuable retailer, has no inventory. And Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation provider, owns no real estate. Something interesting is happening.” Indeed . . . And sooner or later, presidential candidates are going to have to start talking about it.
