Are You Worth More Dead Than Alive?

There’s lots of discussion about human-centered AI, which augments the human experience rather than replaces it. But aren’t humanoid robots a displacement technology? It’s a touchy subject for many. The fact is we’ve been building a pyramid scheme throughout mankind’s existence. Every generation banks on the next generation paying for the people that exist today.

A climate emergency is unfolding in real time—and those of us in the business community are largely to blame. As we deplete earth’s resources, we have hit the point of diminishing returns. In the U. S. alone, there were over $100 billion in economic losses in 2023 due to severe weather events, droughts and global heating.

Capitalism is a fetish. And when I say fetish, I mean the actual definition of the word: an obsessive preoccupation or attachment; a fixation. The word fetish is derived from the Latin factitius: imitated, opposed to the natural. And capitalism is unnatural—or human-made. Its power has been blown out of proportion precisely through the obsession, devotion, fixation through which it is regarded.

So much has, and hasn’t, changed over the past 10 years. We experienced the global collective trauma of a pandemic and deepening polarization, survived some of the warmest years on record, seen a record drought in the Amazon amid declining rainfall, and witnessed the weakening of women’s rights in the U.

When I talked to Borge Brende recently about what 2025 has in store for us, he started by looking not forward but backward. Seeking to understand our new horizons—the theme of this issue—the World Economic Forum president compared this year to 1918, 1945, and 1989. We are, in his view, living at a moment of seismic change.

It’s been a good run for Arm, the chip and software company you lead: your market cap has risen 2.5 times since your September 2023 IPO. Where do you see future growth coming from? We have two components to the business model: licensing to get access to our technology, and then customers pay us a royalty.