Thinkers & Ideas

In The Irrational Decision: How We Gave Computers the Power to Choose for Us, Benjamin Recht argues that the optimization and mathematical rationality we apply to every corner of modern life—from dieting to hiring to strategy—often fails when encountering the messy realities of life.
Recht is a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at UC Berkeley. In his new book, he traces how a narrow conception of rationality, born from 1940s wartime computing, came to dominate decision-making across society—and shows that this approach works brilliantly in closed, controlled systems like microchip design but breaks down in the complex, unpredictable domains where most real decisions are made.
In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses the origins of mathematical rationality, why optimization works for microchips but not for diets, why game theory fails to describe how humans actually behave, and how leaders should think about the boundary between human and machine intelligence in the age of AI.
Key topics discussed:
01:02 | What is mathematical rationality and where do we encounter it?
02:49 | The origins of rational thinking in the 1940s
07:18 | Where optimization works: microchips, logistics, controlled systems
09:13 | Where it fails: Chernobyl, Waymo, and the limits of control
13:17 | When human “qualitative irrationality” is the right answer
14:59 | A framework for assigning decisions to machines vs. humans
17:45 | How the boundary between human and machine decision-making will evolve
19:14 | Why game theory fails to describe how humans actually behave
22:07 | Kahneman vs. Klein: two views on human decision-making
24:30 | What we risk losing as we outsource more decisions to AI

In AI Needs You: How We Can Change AI’s Future and Save Our Own, Verity Harding argues that AI governance is too important to be left to technologists alone—and that the rest of us need to join the conversation to shape this technology’s future.
Harding is the director of the AI and Geopolitics Project at the Bennett School of Public Policy at the University of Cambridge and the founder of Formation Advisory. She spent more than a decade at Alphabet, first as head of Security Policy at Google, then as DeepMind’s first global head of Policy. In her book, she draws on historical case studies to show that democratic societies have successfully governed transformative technologies in the past.
In her conversation with Nikolaus Lang, global leader of the BCG Henderson Institute, she discusses why the nuclear arms race is the wrong analogy for AI, what the 1967 Outer Space Treaty can teach us about cooperation between rivals, how Britain’s regulation of IVF became a gold standard by depoliticizing the technology, and what business leaders get wrong about their own role in shaping AI governance.
Key topics discussed:
01:56 | Why the framing of AI as “too complex for nonexperts" is harmful
07:46 | Why the nuclear arms control analogy is counterproductive for AI
12:25 | The Space Race and the 1967 Outer Space Treaty as a model for cooperation
17:11 | IVF, the Warnock Committee, and why a philosopher led the regulation effort
20:38 | The internet: from open ideals to commercialization and surveillance
26:41 | What business leaders can do to shape AI governance
30:50 | Four principles for AI: peaceful intent, embrace limitations, purpose over profit, societal trust
35:25 | If you could mandate one thing for global AI governance, what would it be?

In Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great, Eric Ries argues that mission-driven companies face an invisible pressure that pushes them toward short-termism and conformity, no matter the intentions of their stakeholders.
Ries is the best-selling author of The Lean Startup, founder of the Long-Term Stock Exchange, and advisor to startups around the globe. In his new book, he traces a recurring pattern across two centuries of business: principled founders build something exceptional, only to watch it be corrupted—not by greedy individuals, but by systemic forces baked into how capitalism is structured.
In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, Ries discusses how corporate corruption starts, why shareholder primacy became the norm, the concept of financial gravity, and the structural protections companies can put in place to defend their mission.
Key topics discussed:
01:09 | How corporate corruption starts
03:50 | The rise of shareholder primacy
08:18 | Why mission-driven companies outperform but don’t dominate
11:06 | Are private equity and activist investors always destructive?
15:31 | Financial gravity: the invisible force that pulls companies off course
19:31 | Structural defenses: purpose, coherence, and integrity
27:06 | Can mature companies still be corrupted or still protect themselves?
31:14 | What Eric Ries would add to The Lean Startup if he could
Additional inspirations from Eric Ries:
The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses (Crown Currency, 2011)

In Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better, David Epstein argues that constraints—not freedom—are what drive creativity, clarity, and focus.
Epstein is a number one New York Times–best-selling author, known for Range and The Sports Gene. In his new book, he draws on psychology, economics, and case studies from NASA to Pixar to Dr. Seuss to show that our brains default to the path of least resistance—and that blocking that path is the only reliable way to force genuinely new thinking.
In his conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, he discusses why freedom is the enemy of creativity, how leaders can set constraints that unlock rather than stifle their teams, why creativity is not the same as originality, and how Herbert Simon’s idea of “satisficing” can improve both decisions and well-being.
Key topics discussed:
01:03 | Why constraints drive creativity and freedom doesn’t
04:06 | What kinds of constraints to use and when they backfire
09:30 | Constraints in innovation vs. execution
13:08 | How to set constraints that maximize creativity without killing autonomy
16:34 | Why creativity is not the same as novelty or originality
19:29 | “Preregistering hypotheses” and how it applies to business
23:19 | Herbert Simon’s “satisficing”: choosing good enough over endless optimization
26:13 | How Epstein applies constraints in his own life and writing process
Additional inspirations from David Epstein:
Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World (Riverhead Books, 2019)
The Sports Gene: Inside the Science of Extraordinary Athletic Performance (Portfolio, 2014)

In Genius at Scale: How Great Leaders Drive Innovation, Linda A. Hill argues that innovation fails not because companies lack ideas, but because they struggle to scale those ideas across the enterprise—and that the solution lies not in structure or processes, but in leadership.
Hill is the Wallace Brett Donham Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, faculty chair of the Leadership Initiative, and one of the top ten management thinkers in the world as ranked by Thinkers50. In her new book, co-authored with Emily Tedards and Jason Wild, she draws on deep case studies of organizations from Mastercard to Pfizer to Pixar to show that scaling innovation requires three distinct but complementary leadership roles: architects, bridgers, and catalysts.
In her conversation with Adam Job, senior director at the BCG Henderson Institute, she discusses why innovation labs alone don’t work, the ABCs of innovation leadership, how to build a culture of creative abrasion, and why even senior leaders need coaching to get innovation right.
Key topics discussed:
01:28 | Why innovation fails at the point of scaling, not ideation
03:59 | The ABCs of innovation leadership: architects, bridgers, catalysts
06:29 | Getting metrics and incentives right for innovation
10:42 | What bridgers do and why organizations don’t have enough of them
14:33 | Is innovation leadership a team sport or a solo act?
18:48 | How to know which role you’re best suited to and how to learn the others
24:04 | How incumbent leaders can create urgency without being the new CEO
Additional inspirations from Linda A. Hill:
Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation (Harvard Business Review Press, 2014)
Article: Why Great Innovations Fail to Scale, co-authored by Emily Tedards and Jason Wild (March–April 2026 issue of Harvard Business Review)