Conversation with Gerd Leonhard: Most Important With/Post-Corona Future Senarios -Audio

One is the. Yes, it is really a great pleasure for me to have the opportunity to speak to you in this really interesting moment. I remember that the last time we met in Madrid here last year, you told me that one of the most challenging parts of your life was that you had to travel actually virtually every day. For someone who has been on the road, I don't know, 300 days last year, how is the situation currently? How is your experience of being contained at your home currently?

Yeah, it has been a very strange couple of months, primarily because, you know, I traveled like 350 flights in 2019. I was trying to make a change to that anyway. But now it has changed by fate, you could say. It has been very strange. So we've been moving online with most of our keynote speaking, and that has been a really interesting experience. I've done at least 20 webinars and doing keynotes remotely, but I foresee that basically most of the year will be stuck in mostly local arrangements rather than traveling internationally. So that's quite a change in the plan here for me. But adapt or fail, that's really what's happening.

Yeah, it's strange, isn't it? It somehow feels that our world has come to this dramatic halt, that we are contained at home, but at the same time, we are probably changing our behavior faster and more radical than ever before. I think it's fair to say that our societies maybe have digitalized in the last weeks more than in the whole decade before. You also said that. I remember that you said that humanity will change more in the next 20 years than in the previous 300 years. So you should be quite happy. We are, in a good way, I would say.

Absolutely. I think that really what's happening is technology is the winner in this crisis, clearly, because technology is everywhere now, including use for tracking and tracing and of course, biotechnology and so on, but also helping us to communicate. And I have to say for myself, I've never talked so much to people as I have been in the last three months. It's like we're constantly connecting, do stuff online, doing free things rather than, you know, constantly dealing with paid keynotes and those kind of things. That's been very good. We also realize, I think, that how important the human contact is. You know, I think it's coming to us now that it's technology is a very good sort of a tool or an aid. Right. But in the end, we want to meet. Right? And that that's coming back in the front. I think it's also going to come back but will we ever meet like we used to do, you know, 2,000 people in a very narrow conference room? I think that's quite unlikely for the foreseeable future. And the other thing that's happened, of course we see great amounts of solidarity so that people are saying, we can do this together. So clapping to the medical personnel or putting up a posted note that you will help your neighbors and all these kind of things are happening pretty much everywhere. And of course the big solidarity discussion right now is what's going to happen to the future of Europe? That is the number one question about solidarity. But yeah, we're seeing that as a central topic emerging.

You have talked about that great transformation we are in and that we need to reinvent ourselves and stay human at the same time. At Telefonica, we had already, before the crisis, now taking a very similar approach. And we talked about that in previous location when we asked for what we call the new digital deal that assures that this digital transformation is human, centric and based on our values. I suppose that these questions are now more relevant than ever before. How do you see that and what values do you think can guide us really in this transformative journey? What is at the end of the tunnel for us?

Yeah, I talked about the great transformation before the COVID crisis, of course, in a slightly different context, but it is really a perfect fit to describe what we're doing right now. So I've launched in the meantime my sort of hub website. Great. With an8transformation.com to talk about this. But when I originally talked about it, I basically said too much of a good thing. Technology can be a very bad thing. So basically saying that technology is a tool, it's not the purpose of life, it's not God, it's not a religion, it shouldn't be a drug, it is just something that we use to achieve something else. So technology is not what we seek, but how we seek. And I think that was the concept of before the crisis, of also regulating technology to still remain good, to remain magic without becoming the determining factor of our life. And now in the crisis, you can see the technology is used for great things such as tracking and helping each other to identify where there is Covid hotspots and those kind of things. But then we have to worry about if observing everybody with an app, for example, like in Israel or, or Korea or Singapore, if that's going to be the new normal. So as Harare says, we're going from monitoring the outside to monitor the inside with technology. And I would agree that we have to really keep a very good eye on this. This is primarily the challenge with technology is too much of a good thing, basically coming out of control and subverting us in so many ways.

Yeah, I would agree to that. And I also think that today technology and connectivity is maybe essential for us to have this kind of personal contact. I mean, it's not replacing what the real, not virtual, personal contact would be, as you said, but nevertheless, it kind of allows us to connect with our loved ones and be in contact and not be totally separated. Just imagine for a second this whole crisis without any good connectivity. And the tools we're using right now to have this interview, for example.

Well, this has been the saving grace, of course, clearly. I mean, like 350 million people are now doing online conferencing and meetings, and every second there's a new one. And that has been great. And imagine without connectivity, we were really in bad shape. Right. But if we take a little bit further out, the look of next 5 to 10 years, connectivity is great, but it's not what we seek. What we seek is who we connect with, what we talk about, what the purpose is of our discussion. Right. So this is not about connectivity being the holy grail by itself. It's a purpose to something. And I call that People Planet, Purpose and Prosperity. Right. Where we have to cover all those angles. And so we need to be sometimes more careful and say what we're trying to achieve is to make a personal connection, not to connect to 5,000 strangers saying nothing. That's kind of like the antidote of the social network is we have to make sure it's still good and it's going to give us, take us to a goal which is much more about ourselves rather than about big data or what kind of app we use or what kind of device we have.

Yeah, I totally agree. And I think it's fair to say that it's maybe the first pandemic we are fighting with smartphones, big data, artificial intelligence, and all these technologies. And we need to make most of, of the technologies. But how can we do that? You mentioned already the downsides. You mentioned that there is a lot of concern that we can kind of somehow slip into this surveillance, constant surveillance, and all these kind of really dystopian scenarios. So how do you see, how can we guide this fine line between the need to use technology, but at the same time make sure that we don't lose our values in that way?

Well, I think it's quite clear that looking at what we had before the crisis. But even now in the crisis, there's a pre corona world and there's a post corona world. Basically even before this crisis. It's about supervision, accountability, responsibility, collaboration, and in the end, regulation. I mean, this is what happens with all powerful things, whether it's an airplane engine or guns or smoking or alcohol or technology. So as William G. Says, technology is morally neutral until we use it. And now we're using it everywhere. I mean, now this crisis is going to lead to a huge boom. Look at all the stocks of tech companies are exploding while everybody else's stocks, oil and marketing, and they are declining because of the crisis. Clearly technology is coming out the window as the winner. Biotech is coming out as the winner. Devices, camcorders, what have you, coming out as windows. So here, what we need to do is to say, well, it's, you know, this is a good thing for us and let's think about how we can keep it magic and good without going way over the top. It's kind of like, you know, drinking alcohol. Many people don't drink alcohol for the obvious reasons. But if you do drink alcohol, you regulate in some way your own social contract and your own understanding. You don't drink a bottle of wine before you go to work, but you could. So I, and this is something I think we have to do about technology, social contracts, norms, accountability. We need to keep those accountable that maintain networks and systems and portals and platforms. And that we really haven't done because we've been happy that they are there. Right. And that's been enough. But that's not enough now. And I think in this world, clearly we're going to have roughly 9 billion people on the Internet by 2030. And at 5G and above. Right. Imagine what kind of things, good things and bad things, we are looking at then.

Yeah, I mean, and even some economists like Thomas Piketty and others, they suggest that this crisis may be even a turning point for global capitalism. How do you see the future of our economic system, of capitalism, of globalization, of what we have maybe built over the last generation? How do you think this will be impacted by that crisis?

Well, I think everybody's asking the question now, what is the role of the state? You know, the invisible hand, the free market economy? Clearly we're not in the free market economy now. We're helping people to survive. That's the primary purpose of our economy now. And the state is mingling at everything now and we're accepting it. The state is telling us when we can go out, you know, how much money we can get. And it's fine, it's emergency. Right. But I think if we have a look as to what a survivable business model in terms of economics is, it's really quite clear that sort of corporate capitalism and extreme capitalism as practiced in the U.S. for example, is not sustainable in the world. That has complex issues. So that's healthcare for everybody. This kind of concern about security and safety and also surveillance about technology and inequality. You see, the biggest issue in this crisis is that the people that were already at the bottom, they're going to be even more at the bottom because they are not capable to do what I am doing here in Switzerland, which is to hunker down and ask the state to cover for my employees. I think we're really seeing that in this crisis that this kind of state capitalism, I mean, corporate capitalism or state capitalism as in China, is ultimately not so suitable. You know, I'm talking more about what Al Gore has called sustainable capitalism, or call it social capitalism, if you want to use an even older term, and some economists call it post capitalism. So what we need to figure out is what do we want, right? Do we want people to be together in a collective society, which is what European pertains to be, or do we want it to be a society of Darwinism, which is what America really is, or a society of autocrats? You know, like other countries have aptly proven that they can do pretty much anything anytime, and especially now. So the question here is really, what kind of society do we need to fight those kind of things that we have now? And then, you know, the next pandemic isn't necessarily going to be a virus. It could be something of the technology side, like an AI pandemic, so to speak, failure of machines, and of course, climate change. So to really agree on our future, we're going to have to rethink what we want. And it can't just be profit and growth and jobs because it doesn't work. That system has proven not to work, especially now.

Yeah, And I think that also in the public debate, at least some governments are perceived to handle that crisis. The challenges we have currently than others. I mean, there are even people predicting or saying that democracies have maybe shown less capable of handling this crisis than more autocratic regimes or strongman regimes or whatever you might call them. Would you agree to that? I mean, for example, Europe, I mean, it's much criticized in many regards and there's constant news and opinion about that. We've seen the end of unification in Europe that basically it has failed during this crisis. It's failing people, it's not doing the right thing, it's criticized a lot. And it's also fair to say from a sanitary point of view, maybe the region most affected by the virus. How do you see that? I mean, how do you see the impact of this crisis on politics in the general sense and specifically on Europe?

Well, I would say that the crisis has proven that culture beats pretty much everything, right? And culture is not just about democracy, it's also about the financial system and it's about your location. Every country has had a different response because of the unique situation. And it would be wrong to say that democracies are worse off than tyrannies just because a tyrant can make fast decisions. But what if a tyrant makes a wrong decision that is just one person. So, I mean, if you look at what happened, for example, in New Zealand, which is an isolated country to begin with, everybody moved together and Jacinda Ardern immediately came up with the right concept and they've overcome it completely differently than, say, what's happening right now in Brazil or here in Switzerland, where the country where the government has said we have to help everyone to get through this crisis and mobilize large amounts of money to reboot the economy and things like that. So the primary issue really for us is we need to have trust in the government. And if you look around worldwide who trusts their government, then you come up with a pretty short list. The Brazilians certainly don't. The Americans, yeah, big question mark depending on who you are. The Germans, kind of. The Swiss very much trust their government. The Kiwis, New Zealanders trust their government. So this is a key question, and ultimately it's about personality and leaders that can lead into this sort of really complex world. As we've seen, most of the good leaders right now are women, right? I mean, it's. Yeah, most of the bad leaders are guys of my age or older. Right. So you have women like Jacinda Ardern, you have Marina, Marina up in Finland, you have people in Belgium, Iceland, Finland, you know, who are leading the pack. And clearly, of course, what happened in Taiwan and Korea, South Korea, we can say, well, you know, that's probably a good combination of a democratic approach, but very much based on technology. So I would say the jury is out on this. I'm personally convinced that any sort of populism or backwards looking strongman will not survive this crisis, because no matter how you look at it, their performance is dismal. And I mean if you're completely blind to reality, which some people in some countries are, and this is why you have presidents like that in the beginning in the first place, Right. Then, of course it's one thing. But now people are saying, you know what, what actually has this person done for us that was good? So I think we're going to see a lot of people rethinking what they expect from a leader. And this is kind of like when you look backwards. In the 50s and 60s, a lot of our parents would ask the question, so what did these guys do during the war? And we look back and say, oh, these guys weren't good during the war, they're not going to be good now. And now we're looking backwards and saying, what have companies done during the crisis? Like say, Airbnb, Great question. Have they done the right thing or have they done the wrong thing? And we're going to ask the same of government and we're going to say, have they done the right thing? Or have they done completely the opposite? Or maybe they took too long to do the right thing, but in the end, have they done the right thing? And on that note, I'm convinced that the European government, the European Commission will do the right thing. It is currently debating too many things here. I think this is just flat out solidarity, no matter what the financial consequences. That's our best bet, right? Saying this as a German, but I think they will do what is the right thing to do. And hence I have hope that we can unite as part of this effort.

Yeah. So basically what you're saying is that you are not so skeptical about the future of democracies, of European democracies, that you rather see that this crisis might be a turning point in focusing people on what's important from a government and maybe not following as much any more populist movements, but rather look for this kind of more, you know, long term, foresighted leadership based on facts. Call it intelligent and fact based leadership. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, I think I'm convinced that social capitalism of one form or the other is the best way forward, period. Especially in the crisis, you know, because if we apply this correctly, then we're covering all four bases, right? People, planet, purpose, Prosperity, and we have the free market economy in there, but the free market economy isn't helping us with the crisis. It's not going to help us with the, with the shift away from climate change and global warming as we currently have, is not going to help us in the issue of AI and geoengineering. Or whatever else you have out there, like extraterrestrials or whatever people are talking about in the future. So we're going to need balanced way. And I think it's quite clear that I think Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple, said months ago, you know, technology can do great things, but it does not want to do great things. It doesn't want anything. So I think this really applies to our society. We need to figure out what we want and I think we have to get on the same page. And so I am with the UN nation, United Nations General Secretary Antonio Guterres, who said that the biggest problem right now is we have a dysfunctional community of helping each other to go into the future. And that's what we have to fix. And that's also what the economic prosperity will come from once we're at that point. Yeah.

And to a certain degree it's very fair to say that the crisis brings on the worst and the best in us. As you also mentioned before, so to speak a little bit about the positive sides. What do you think are the good developments you see from your point of view?

Yeah, I mean that's first not belittle the hardship that we're going to see. This is significant hardship I'm experiencing myself, of course, but all around me, even though Switzerland is a very well off place and hardship in Brazil and India is going to look quite different with 35 million people being near poverty just in Brazil. So that's acknowledged that right now the primary objective for most people has to be simply survival. That's the first thing. And after survival we can say now we're talking about transformation. Now we're talking about using that as a jumping board. And I think there's many, many good things. Okay, first we are going to take this opportunity to reboot the entire energy and sustainability question. If we are going to subsidize the airlines to come back, they're going to be subject to carbon tax, they're going to be subject to changing how they do things because they're going to receive money. If we do this right, we can reboot that entire conversation and saying, you know what, COVID 19 was a huge issue, but climate change, you know, we're talking about the effects of climate change in the next 30, 40 years. That's a thousand X of what we have now, like literally a thousand x. So now that we've practiced how we can take a step back and maybe not travel so much or change our behavior, we can adapt that to climate change, which is sort of a good model for what we can do if we all agree. And of course, climate change is a great example. Government and the U.N. and so the global government concept, we're going to have to mingle with people's liberties if we're going to solve climate change. I mean, it can't be capitalism. If you're going to say that a carbon tax is going to be put on every flight, on the airplane, every car trip, cruise ships, finished. That's not called a free market. That is basically an action you take in a state of emergency. And that is coming. I think that's the good news. The second good news is we have learned that we can work remotely, we can live remotely together, we can collaborate. I see a huge jump in augmented reality, virtual reality, mixed reality, communicating virtually. And as part of that, we have learned how important other people are for each other. And that's going to lead to more social contact that will eventually also become embodied again, you know, in real life. Of course that's not going to go away, but so many, many good things. I think, you know, before this crisis, like 3 or 4% of the world was working remotely or from home. Now it's 30%. Going forward. Yeah, going forward, I think many of us will work exactly like this because it has proven to work. And you know, many companies that were reluctant to allow people to work from home, they're going to say, well, you know, we tried it through the crisis and it worked fine, so let them stay at home. That's going to be a huge benefit. It's going to rewrite everything. The city, what the city looks like, our energy problem. And of course, last point here before I stop my diatribe here. Telehealth and healthcare biotechnology are going to get trillions of dollars in boosts because clearly we have a problem. And that's the neglected part of the research is going to get a giant fix on the arm, and a lot of money that used to go into oil and gas is going to go into healthcare. So that's also very good news for researchers, for doctors, and even for social workers and healthcare workers.

No, I agree. And I think what you're saying is basically that some of the tendencies we've seen happening before we went into this extreme situation are somehow, you know, kind of. They are. It's like a catalyst, so to speak. You know, we are now seeing a reaction going on which is kind of speeding up these developments. We are maybe, as I said before, digitalizing ourselves, our lives more than we have done in Years before, in very short time. Because, you know, and you quoted Milton Friedman, I think it's a terrible thing to waste a crisis, this crisis. Only in situation of crisis, human beings move and change and we are maybe changing. So the key will be to use this kind of energy of change to move it into the right direction. And that will mean what you just said, you know, thinking about the longer term issues we face here, which are of course, climate change and in general, a change of our economic system towards a more sustainable way of life. So I would agree.

I think it's clear that we must use this opportunity to reboot things as much as we can before going back to business as usual. Right. And business as usual wasn't normal and it wasn't good. It was just temporary. And now we have a chance to reinvent so many things. And after we go through the rebuilding effort, I think we're going to emerge stronger, we're going to emerge with new ideas and we're going to emerge more ready for the next big challenges which are coming to us.

Yeah. And is it not true as well? I mean, everyone is speaking about technology, of course, and how it helps us. And that's very true. And working in a technology company which gives connectivity to millions of people, I mean, I would fully agree. But is it not also true that collaboration is the great new kind of theme, Is it not that we see that the collaboration between countries, between people in science, for example, what's happening currently, which might be the biggest effort by humanity ever to kind of in very short time find a solution on the science side, on the health side for the situation, all this collaboration going on. Just think about how also companies have tied up with public administrations to help in situations which have been very much outside of their comfort zone. I mean, some car manufacturers have stopped doing cars and they switched productions line to do respiratory equipment for hospitals in a very short time, other companies have put themselves to help to the governments, administrations to help with Telefonica has brought to Spain and to other countries equipment, health equipment. Because we just had, you know, maybe the possibilities in our supply chain to do so in the context. I mean, there has been so much collaboration going on. Is that not also one of these kind of megatrends?

We see clearly, I think that's unprecedented collaboration that we've seen in this emergency. Also solidarity and kind of forgetting about the other angles of having to get paid for X, Y and Z or trying to make a buck or so these things are. That's what we do with each other. Now this collaboration thing is going to stay on and we're going to expect people to be more collaborative in the future. That's clearly a question also that relates to globalization. And this is one of those discussions where you can say, well, globalization has kind of, if you're global now, you're in deep trouble. Whether it's your supply chain or your engagements that you do around the world. If you are global, you're having more issues now. So I think globalization is here to stay, but it will change. We're going to look also to be more self sufficient, like food and water and supplies. That's clearly an outcome of this. But we have found that on the large issues that are facing us, and that's clearly pandemia epidemics, AI, employment, automation, water, food. On the large issues, we have to collaborate or it will not work. And I think this has proven to be the case now. And I really do hope that we take this opportunity and say collaboration is more important than closing the walls and making sure you're in your safe bubble. China is a great example. They collaborated a lot in the beginning sharing medical research, and now they're kind of closing that a little bit. And I think we need to keep that going also by providing money for incentive of sharing of this kind of thing without looking for patents at every single corner. Again, this is a question of the economic system. So the pharma companies are more collaborative now, but will they in the future be more collaborative with their patents? That's a big question.

And what will look this kind of new capital look like? What would look the stakeholder capitalist model or the. I mean, you said before that this is a new concept, but then at the same time, I think we just said that in Europe, for example, the idea that you have some form of social market capitalism is there at least for a generation or two. So is that really something totally new? And if it's new, what is new about it?

Well, I called this last year, I started working on a new book and I called this last year the New Renaissance. When you go back to the 15th century, Leonardo da Vinci and this whole Renaissance and the Vitruvian man and all of these things, they kicked off this whole debate of saying, you know, what's more important? Is it the dogma and back in those days, of course, the church and all of that, or is it people and how people live? Right. And we had the shift towards people and now basically what we have now in the last 20 years, right, it's basically shifted towards technology being more Important than pretty much anything else. Also because it made a lot of money and it created lots of jobs. And now we're in a situation where we say, okay, what do we really want? We don't just want technology because it's cool. We want to go beyond this. This new renaissance says, here's the human. I call this the Neoluvian man or woman, of course, with all these game changers IoT and connectivity and AI around it. And we have to figure out how do we use that to our mutual benefit. And that again, I think the principle of that is people, planet, purpose, prosperity, the quadruple bottom line and the millennial development goals, of course, and the SDGs, that goes right into the same direction. If our intent is to build a world that has good things for people, keeps the planet safe, provides a purpose for us, and creates prosperity, then we have to change a lot of things. And that, you can call that social capitalism or post capital, whatever you want, but this is clearly the objective now. And this crisis will help us to think about that. For example, in many countries, we have, in fact, a basic income guarantee now because the government is paying for us to stay put and not go under. And that's, in fact, almost the same thing. It's like, you know, I'm getting paid, I'm not working, right? And so this is a very good model for saying, well, what does the future hold about this? You know, is this a sustainable model in the long run? And is it better to keep people happy than to keep them, than to put them out in the street unemployed? Is it better for the Germans to have happy Italians and to have broke Italians? Yeah, the answer is pretty clear. You know, it's like something that we want together. We have to pay together.

And how do you see, I mean, when you think about now people, you know, you know, in this situation, what you think will be kind of key characteristics. I mean, what, what can, what can we do? What can each and every one of us do to prepare ourselves for, for this kind of new future, which I think we all agree will come? And, and I mean, you, you mentioned in your book, and you called it these mega shifts happening where really history and our whole kind of development of society changed direction? And it's quite probable that we are right in the middle of such a shift. And so what do you think? What can we do as each individual to, you know, to be part of that and be successful? I mean, I think a lot of people will think now, what happens with my job? What happens with my work? You know, we have a dump in the economy, which is unprecedented in a century. I mean, so what can we do? There's a lot of like feeling of being lost in this change because everything is happening so far. Do you have some personal advice? Because your life has been disrupted a lot, as I said before.

Yeah, I mean, I'm 100% disrupted right now. Reinventing what I do with, you know, moving things online, which is completely different, but I think it's really about four things, right? Insight, imagination. Well, insight is really also foresight, intuition, you know, being able to see things that are coming in some sort of intuitive way. And last is courage. And what we need to do is to prepare for this, to say, well, can we get a good feel on what we see coming? Like for example, I get a very good feel when I look at the future of tourism that this, this crisis is resetting tourism in so many ways. But tourism is based on providing experiences, engagements, relationships. Tourism isn't going to end. But maybe this is a good chance for us to talk about local tourism, to talk about sustainable tourism, to talk about tourism under the four Ps, People, Planet, Purpose and so on. To talk about the larger tourism, balanced tourism. So that's my intuition that I would say, okay, I understand this. So therefore I see opportunity here. And I think this is really important for all of us that are looking at changing what they do and how they do things is to investigate and to start sort of, you know, having a developing intuition as to what may happen. Right? That's primarily called foresight. Right? And then acting on your foresight and say, okay, I see an opening here. So let me think about how I can participate in this. Like my major opening, of course, would be online and remote working and doing more television style shows, which I'm working on, rather than being the guy that speaks in front of 5,000 people every other week, which is unlikely to happen in the near future. So I think we're all looking at this kind of reinvention. I think if you have a job like a taxi driver or selling in a store or so, yeah, that's a tall order. And I think governments need to support that by providing visions and providing possibilities. Look what Portugal is doing and this whole digital economy thing is to find the path between tradition and the future. And countries like that. So there's many good things happening here, but it does require lifelong learning and thinking of yourself as constantly moving into the next window of opportunity. It's a mindset. That's why I say a lot. The Future is a mindset. It's not about tomorrow. It's already here. So either you have a future mindset or you won't be ready.

Yeah, that's very true. And just to tackle on an issue you mentioned before, but just to dive into that a bit more, you mentioned that there will be some form of new digital ethics. We have to develop. Our lives have already moved into becoming more digitalized. We are already much more digital economy and society than there have been only a month ago. And this, this will not go back. There will be no, the new normal will not be the old normal. This will continue. And I think that's what I mean. Most people believe that there's no way back. So what is that? Do we need a new kind of compass and all that? Do we need a new ethics? Or is it, you know, that we can build on something Here you mentioned also before, the strong state, the stronger state somehow impact on. On civil liberties, on freedoms of people. But that, of course, you know, clashes also with our view that, you know, people are free and have rights to. To take their decisions. And there's not a Big Brother telling them what to do or Big Brother watching them, what they're doing. So how do you see that going forward? That's something which I think makes a lot of people very nervous currently.

Yeah, that also makes me quite nervous. But. But I think ultimately comes down as to whether you believe that people are basically bad or good by nature, whatever that means. But I think it's quite clear right now that you can trust a leader, let's say the government as a leader in a larger sense, if they have fulfilled certain expectations, if they keep you informed, if they are open about what they're doing, if they make mistakes and admit them like happened in New Zealand, again, great example, if they're approachable. So the trust is really the number one thing when you talk about this whole landscape of what's waiting for us in the future. And part of that is that I can feel that this person has an ethic. It stands for something. The person, the company, the government, the organization stands for something. I know what Patagonia stands for, so I buy Patagonia because I want to support them. I know now what Airbnb does not stand for, so I will not buy from them again, just as an example of my personal experience. And so I think this is really important, that ethics in the sense of morality, that goes together with our expectation of the future. And I think we can always feel about whether we can trust an entity or the government or not, we get a good feeling for this and sometimes people violate trust and then we have to go back and fix it. But I think this is the ultimate question and this is why I brought up the topic of digital ethics for the last few years where I proposed that we should have a digital ethics council, an organization of wise people. Think ancient Greece, don't think Davos right now, even though that's probably not a bad thing there. But think about ancient Greece where we sit around and we say, okay, let's talk about if this is good for us or not. Because here's the number one question. I mean, it's hard to imagine now, but for our future there's only one question, right? The question is not whether we can do something, because the answer is we could probably do pretty much anything. Look at quantum computing. And I mean, it's mind boggling. Next 20 years, huge. We can genetically engineer humans and all these things. So question is not if we can do things, but what do we want to do and who makes those decisions? Well, that's obviously not a minor issue. But I think if we had an ethics council that didn't do anything else but discuss those top line issues, like for example, the Eurobonds now are an ethical issue, they're not an economic issue. And so we would have an entity, and that's a little bit United nations kind of concept that we have today. But that would basically say, okay, we believe this is the right thing to do for the purpose of humanity, which includes prosperity, I would hope, right? Then I think we would have a big leg up. And this goes for technology. Technology will become so powerful that just in a decade we won't know if it's me or if it's a copy of me. I mean, we're going there and giant steps, you know, being able to upload our brain and do all these things. And then the question is we have to say, well, what do we want and what is an aberration and what is normal? Is it normal to be transhuman? Is it normal to not wear an AR outfit? You know, big questions.

Yeah, but then you also say, and this is one of the most famous careers you have, I mean, embrace technology but don't become it. Are you not saying now that we are going to become somehow technology, that we are going to have these kind of twins? I mean, what is it then that makes us human actually?

Well, I think the question really is if we want that, not the question that we can have it. Right? I mean, you know, we have many examples. Today we have things like music and films, unlimited things. And now the question is no longer whether we can want it, but what do we want, Right? I mean, I can have, what, 35 million songs or so on Spotify, but do I know what to listen to? And so that shifts the issue from distribution to purpose. Right? And for me, this is exactly the same. When we talk about what we will be in the future, the big question is not that we can do it eventually. I think we can do most of those things. The question is, what would be good for us? Why are we doing this? Are we doing this to make money? Are we doing this to survive? And what is the right thing for us to do? In average. Not on every single minor issue. I think this is the key question. So what I say is that we should use technology to stay more human and yes, extend our lifespan to a certain degree. Live better. Yes, that's all good. Right. But fundamentally, become not human. I would say it's a very bad idea because we're going to lose things that we didn't even know we liked.

Yeah, I very much agree. When you think about, and to finish maybe this fascinating conversation, but if you think about traveling back from the future to today, would that be the time where values which you just described, like solidarity, like collaboration, like trust, has become the big winner of this whole crisis? Will we remember 2020, not more of, you know, because of the crisis, which always will stay there, and the tragedy on the human side, but will it also be seen as a start of a new area, of some new form of living together based on these values I just mentioned and maybe some others? Is that what you envision?

Yeah, I'm an optimist and I believe in the positive nature of humans and the ability to change and to adapt and to look at the common objective. I believe that's true for humans. And so therefore, I would say what we experience right now is the sort of setting the stage for a new way of looking at things that will have economic and social and cultural, technological consequences. And one thing I think that's really important for us, that even before the crisis, we primarily look at the future in fear. And where is that coming from? It's like, yeah, it's coming from Hollywood and it's coming from some sort of tech companies pushing things that may work in 50 years. And so I'm with this approach of say, okay, we have to be proactive and engage technology, but we also have to be a little bit precautionary and sort of Protect what makes us human. And that balance will be done in cities and countries and companies and around the world, hopefully in a collected effort, in a collective effort, where we're saying, okay, embrace technology, but don't overcome it. What does that mean? How can we slice and dice it so that we actually have a strong message here and that we find this way forward? I mean, clearly, I've said many times what we need kind of is like a protection agency for humanity. Like saying, okay, let's protect mystery, privacy, mistakes, serendipity, imagination, creativity, asking questions. And that clearly clashes with the philosophy of automating everything. Right. And so. But then again, automation is not a bad thing as long as we don't touch on the things that make us human. So that's why I say let's meet online, let's have conferences online that do all these things online. But let's not forget, you know, we are meant to commune in an actual way rather than a simulated way. Like, you know, when you're. When you're doing dating on an app, you're simulating, but then when you meet, you're back to humans. Right. And this is really what we want. You know, we don't want to meet an app like in the movie her, you know, that's virtual. That doesn't work for us.

Yeah. And thanks very much, Gerd. I can just say I'm looking forward to have exactly what you just said, to have a coffee with you in some tapas here in Madrid when some of that is over and we can again have the physical contact as well, not only digital one. It was a fascinating conversation and thank you very much for your time and all the best for you and for keeping that spirit of being an optimist. At the same time, also embracing the possibilities and the future and trying to see that as a way to become better as societies, as human beings, and not only become depressed because things are changing. I think that's the only thing we can do. And this is what kind of makes us human. And. And we are great in that, as we see when we look around the world currently.

Yeah, maybe, you know, as a final message, I kept saying a lot before the crisis, you know, the future is better than we think. And I think that would be really ironic to say in so many ways now, because right now it doesn't look very bright. Right. So I would put an asterisk there and say, the future is better than we think, provided that we collaborate to make it so. And this is the number one thing there's nothing here that we cannot address together. There's only a few things that we can drop when we're not together that may ultimately last. And not a very good future that could be the result if we forgo all the possibilities that we have. So that would be my call to people to collaborate to create that better future that we want.

That's a great final statement. Thank you very much.

You're welcome. Thank you.