Liz Hoffman

Business Editor

The old corporate maps no longer match the terrain. The rules of commerce have been rewritten by technological upheaval, geopolitical fractures, hawkish turns in global governments, and consumers who refuse to behave as predicted. Turbulence is the norm, not a tough spell in otherwise smooth CEO tenures, and companies are compressing innovation cycles that once took years into months, pivoting with a speed that would have seemed reckless a decade ago. Old-guard strategies — linear supply chains, predictable geopolitical alliances, and passive consumer bases — are gone. What replaces them is less clear. 

There are heartening trends: Look around and you’ll see ROI discipline replacing the “let a thousand flowers” bloom era of the 2010s, and long-term planning is starting to balance out the pressures of quarterly earnings reports (which may be on the way out anyway.) AI executives are thinking in centuries but moving at a lightning pace; can they take the rest of the market with them? 

But speed doesn't guarantee survival. Moving too fast in the wrong direction may well be fatal, or expensively unpleasant; just ask CEOs who went all-in on China, then a “China + 1” strategy, before being forced by Washington to adopt an “America First” playbook — or risk the threat of  a new, very large, very activist shareholder. The problems are global: The new growth markets may rely less on cheap outsourced labor than where AI-literate workforces are growing, where ships can move safely, and where populism — on the rise everywhere— is tamest.