Klaus Schwab: The Compass

we do not have anymore the same opinion what truth really is. There are alternatives, so-called alternative truths, but actually we know there's only one truth. But it's today more and more interpreted in different ways, and people believe into those alternative concepts of truth. So, if you think it's true, you come to the conclusion, as long as we do not have a common understanding of what's happening, we cannot have a meaningful dialogue. because a meaningful dialogue, for example, requests that you have at least a good knowledge of what the facts are. And then the next step is, without truth, you lose trust. Welcome to Der große Neustadt with Sibylle Baden. With 2026, the platform enters its second series. Having been dedicated to pioneers shaping global transformation, we now move the conversation forward into the intelligent age. How do we shape our society when intelligence is no longer the monopoly of human beings? Der Gorse Neustadt will now be a space where leaders explore how to model a future in which we rethink our values and our value as humanity. We are starting the year 2026 with a very special guest. Professor Klaus Schwab is the founder and, for more than 55 years, the architect and chairman of the World Economic Forum, the global platform that shaped dialogue between business, governments, academia and civil society like no other institution in modern history. But today's conversation is not about Davos. It is about a new chapter. After more than half a century of institution building and global convening, Professor Schwab has entered what he calls a new phase of service, one focused on knowledge, reflection, lifelong learning, and human-centered leadership in what he defines as the intelligent age. With the launch of the Intelligent Age series and the Schwab Academy, he's once again doing what has defined his life's work. Naming a transformation, shaping a framework, and inviting the world to think ahead, together. Good afternoon, Professor Schwab. Good afternoon. Very nice to see you. It's a great pleasure to see you again, Mrs. Schwab. When I look at the last year, what strikes me is that while public narratives were collapsing into noise, you were writing, building, and launching something entirely new. Three books, a new academy, and a very clear articulation of what the intelligent age requires of leaders. Shall we begin there? Yes, of course. After my transition from the chairmanship of the World Economic Forum to the origins of my life, which are mainly academic. I, of course, preserved my natural curiosity of what's happening, not only of what's happening, but of what's really important in the world today. And here, what you mentioned, for me, the key word is the intelligent age. If I go back 200 years ago, we had the transition from the agricultural age to the industrial age. And it changed everything. It changed our lives. It changed industry. Just think of the locomotives and railways, which opened new horizons. Think of electricity, which opened new opportunities. Today, we are in a similar transition, the transition from the industrial age to the intelligent age. And we have to be aware that everything will change again. But there's a big difference between the earlier transition 200 years ago. At that time, we had about three, four generations to adapt to the change. Now we have a maximum of maybe 10, possibly 15 years. And so I was thinking, what should I do after leaving the chairmanship? And I came to the conclusion an important role I could fulfill is to explain to everybody what this transition into the intelligent wage really means. not to be a big philosopher and to talk about all the implications of artificial intelligence, but what artificial intelligence means today. And I should add, when I talk about the intelligent age, it's not just artificial intelligence. We have many other inventions like blockchain, like what we see in biotechnology, in human life sciences, and so on. So life in 10 years from now will be very different. How we live, how we communicate, how we work and so on. And I felt a useful purpose of my life now would be to explain all those changes in a very understandable way to the general public. I'd like to stay here a moment. And in your upcoming book, An Agenda for the Intelligent Age, Restoring Truth and Trust, you do place extraordinary emphasis on truth and on trust. Yes. When I was analyzing what's happening today, and if you compare, let's say, the political, economic, social situation of today with maybe 20 years ago, we see the most important change which has happened is that we do not have anymore the same opinion what truth really is. There are alternatives, so-called alternative truths, but actually we know there's only one truth, but it's today more and more interpreted in different ways, and people believe into those alternative concepts of truth. So, if you think it's true, you come to the conclusion, as long as we do not have a common understanding of what's happening, we cannot have a meaningful dialogue. Because a meaningful dialogue, for example, requests that you have at least a good knowledge of what the facts are. And then the next step is, without truth, you lose trust. So for me, I'm planning a series of books, and I published the first one, which is a more, let's say, target-oriented book about people who are in retirement or prepare for retirement. But then suddenly I thought, before I write all those books related to changes in geopolitics, in the economy, in business, in health, and so on, I look at what is really crucial today. And it is the fact that we will not progress as humankind if we do not re-establish a common notion of truth and in such a way also creates a base of trust. But I have to say, it's not enough just to cry about the loss of truth. I think my task is to, what I'm doing in the book, is to investigate. Why did we lose truth? And here we come back again to technology, I think a major factor are the social media and the whole change in the media landscape, where you do not have any more many media which strive to, let's say, be based on realities, but which strive to create as many clicks or as much echo as possible, which means to adapt the truth to the appetite and to the taste of your audience. What does it mean for identity? Who am I in the industrial age, and who can I be in the intelligent age? Actually, this question requires two answers, because identity is questioned now on two levels. First, you have to find who you really are, and this cannot come only from the inside of yourself. This comes also from the interaction with your environment, with other people and so on. And through interaction, you form your identity. But if your interaction now with other people is disturbed by non-truths, by, let's say, fictions, by aspirations, by political pressures and so on, you have much more difficulties to find your identity. And, I should add here, the traditional transmitting bells for identity, like families, like schools, like churches, and so on, do not have anymore today the same importance as they had before. So young people are much more forced to search for their identity and to define their identity themselves compared to older generations, which absorbed a lot of their identity from their parents, from role models and so on. But there's a second, there's a second dimension today in the intelligent age, which has, or which creates a big question mark related to our identity. We define our identity by the fact, in principle, that we are human beings. And then we ask ourselves what makes us different from other creatures in the world. and we come back and say, yes, we are human. But what does it really mean? Some people say it's intelligence, but suddenly we have a competitor. We have artificial intelligence, we have algorithm, and this competitor, I wouldn't say necessarily can be more intelligent than we are because at least now the intelligence of bots and so on still depends on our input. Some may change one day. But coming back to intelligence and identity, we have lost, let's say, natural ways to transmit identities as we had them for a century, actually since the beginning of humankind. And this is also one of the reasons why we have this polarization in the world, because people believe in different facts, which means they absorb different identities. Saying that, your first book of the three books, you wrote about how leaders can thrive in the intelligent age. What does it take a leader today to thrive? It's probably coming back to what I just said. We have to emphasize much more our human dimension. If I were an optimist, and actually I'm an optimist, I would say this new situation forces us to define better who we are as human people. And if we cannot argue anymore, it's our intelligence which distinguishes us from, let's say, my dog. It's my humanity. And then we have to think, what does it mean to humanity? It's empathy, it's love, it's passion, and so on. So, we have to, and that's possible, if we steer this revolution from the industrial to the intelligent age in, I would say, in a prudent way, Then we could even enter a new phase of humankind where we become more human, where we become more oriented towards the values which suffer so much today, the values of empathy, the values of love, the values of social service. So does the intelligent age need a new governance model? The intelligent agents are, again, different, let's say, question marks. First of all, there is the technology aspect. Let me explain. At least in our liberal democracy, you entrust a government through a democratic election. and you elect someone who takes over responsibility for governing you according to the law and so on for the next four years or whatever. But in the new situation where the world is changing so much, a government which is elected today can lose perspectives and trust after a very short time. So that's, again, one of the big problems and challenges, because then you have a government where people feel it is not representing you anymore. And it creates this situation of polarization, of people not being interested into governments or elections. look at some countries, half of the population not going anymore to an election and so on. So what this new age means for governments, I have to say we haven't figured out yet. We haven't figured out, I feel personally, and of course I'm influenced by living here in Switzerland, I feel personally the institution of referendum of popular votes, I find a very good way to make sure that the government, even if the situation changes, always keeps very well track with the majority of people, what they feel and what they vote for. because through the referendum, they can express a different opinion compared to what they may have expressed when they elected the representatives to the parliament. And today, I should add, in the electronic age or in the intelligent age, you can facilitate those type of referenda much more compared to before. I should add one other thing here You asked me about the governance of the future I think the governance of the future is much more stakeholder If you want that a decision is afterwards carried out by a majority of people you have to engage the people And you have to engage the people already into the decision-making process. And you do it not only by, or you cannot do it so much anymore, by delegating the power to politicians who afterwards takes the decisions. I think you have to engage into the preparation of relevant decisions. You have to engage all those who will be affected by the decision, which means all stakeholders. Coming to your stakeholders, you were always an advocate for cooperation, responsibility, multi-stakeholder approach. How do we realize it now? How do we really make it work? Because at the moment, it can go either way. Yes, the multi-stakeholder concept, particularly related to companies, is under attack. And coming back to your question, how to measure, let's say, multi-stakeholder effectiveness, I think people have, and I was very much personally involved, have developed the so-called SDGs, which means social and environmental governance criteria, which allow to measure the performance of a company, similar to measuring the economic success by financial criteria. Now, what we have seen is that the SDGs have been misused in certain cases. Companies making big announcements which were not followed up at the end, or it was difficult to follow it up because it was not always the fault of the company. It was sometimes the fault of the circumstances. So that's one challenge which SDGs had. The second one was that it was used also, I would say, as an ideological fight. When I wrote my book in 1971 and I propagated the stakeholder concept, there was, on the other hand, Milt Friedman, who also in 71 said the business of business is business. This is a fight, a cultural fight, which is not really resolved until now. For me, it's clear. A company is not just an economic unit. It's a social organism. And as a social organism, it also has social responsibility. So I am sure that in the long run, the stakeholder concept will prevail. Why? Because if I look at the young generation, they will not work anymore with a company which really demonstrates how it is neglecting environmental principles, the principles of safeguard, of trusteeship, of stewardship for our future, but also customers may not anymore buy products of companies whom they see as socially not responsible. So in the long run with the young generation, I'm sure the stakeholder concept will not only survive, it will be essential to be even financially, at least long term, successful. Yeah, two things. I remember when we first spoke in 2020, and you explained what ESG is and what SDG is in quite some length, because it was not very well known. then you together with the forum you shared did so much work and we saw suddenly institutions coming up like the international sustainability standards world for example who did all very good work and right now i think everybody in business certainly knows the esgs the sdgs and has certainly in Europe more or less committed to it. Which brings me to the next point, which is a new language. When we talk about the intelligent age, we go into a new age with a new language, and you use quite a bit of new language in your books you have written now. First, I think if you look at our vocabulary today, you would find so many words which didn't exist 100 or 200 years ago. So, I mean, locomotive, if I take a German word, or even a plane and so on. See, a new age will bring new subjects, new objects, and we have to attach to those other new names. because if we would call, just to make a very simple example, if we would call a plane still a bird, because that was the old perception, something would be wrong. So to make people really understand that change has happened, that there's something new, you need also a new vocabulary. And that's what I'm trying to do very often. I have done it in the past to, for example, with the notion of the fourth industrial revolution to create or public-private partnership or social entrepreneurship, to create, if you may say, those slogans, but some to explain very well what I mean. That helps to introduce this new thinking into our traditional thinking. That's the reason why I use partially new words. When you wrote your book in 2015, the fourth industrial revolution, which was also very successful. And you look now back. How much has come real already? And what has evolved, which you didn't foresee? I would say in general, we are now in the exponential phase of technological development. So, it's going, in principle, faster than what I have anticipated. In my book, The First Industrial Revolution, I had in the appendix a number of technologies which I described. And if I look at the book, the development was actually faster than what I had foreseen at the time. With one exception, I have to be frank. I underestimated the evolution, or I rather should say the revolutionary appearance of artificial intelligence. We have a completely new dimension since we have chat-GTP, which is only a little bit more than three years ago. Of course, we had artificial intelligence already integrated in some way into robots and so on. I would call it machine learning. So I come back to another essential point here. Since this book was a success, the editors came back to me and said, why don't you write a new edition? and that actually caused me to create this notion of the intelligent age because I was asking myself should I label my new book the fifth industrial revolution or should I call it fourth industrial revolution plus and I came to the conclusion if I use the word industrial I just provide the wrong framework because we are not anymore in the physical world of the industrial age. We are now in the intelligent age, which means it's not so much physical, it's much more related to thinking, to intelligence. So that's the reason why I coined this new expression of intelligent age. To stay that moment, when did you realize that we are moving from one age to another, not just another phase, but an age? And followed by the question, how do we protect ourselves? How does society can protect itself from all the incoming technology? It wasn't a click or a moment, I think, when you are so much as I am in touch with what's happening in the world. And when you have, I mean, by origin, I'm an engineer. When you have this technological mind, system thinking, you ask yourself what is actually behind. and that's why I felt I have to find a new definition. Now, what can we do to prepare ourselves? There is one big issue which we have today. Like in any revolution, the world is in tremendous turmoil today. And when you are in a world which is polarized, which faces a multi-crisis, so many challenges simultaneously, everybody is absorbed by crisis management. And nobody thinks really about how to shape the future. That was to a certain extent always my task to see with the world economic reform, how can we be not just a meeting place, but a compass for the future? And I think today, much to little time, political, but also business attention is given to how will the world look like in 2035. And what do we have to do in order to make sure that the world in 2035 is a better world and has mastered this transition? One way how I try to do it is in my book, my forthcoming book, Trust and Truth in the Intelligent Age, I have at the end two scenarios where in the first scenario I describe a world where we do not repair our notion of trust and do not repair, let's say, the basic elements which create truth. what would be the worst scenario and what would be, not necessarily the worst, what would be the most likely scenario. I could have written a much more utopian scenario with war and so on. So I have the most likely negative scenario and I have the most likely positive scenario, also not to be too utopian about the potential. Realistic. And I hope we learn the lesson and we see that if we do not actively shape the future, we will run into a situation where it might be too late to regain control. One of the reasons leaders have always been drawn to you is your ability to make sense of complexity without reducing it. You offer orientation, a compass. You often say, as you just did, we need to shape the future. When you say that, who is shaping it? how is it shaped in practice and what role do law and regulations play? You touch upon a very sensitive point because there's no clear answer to it. But there are several dimensions which could provide the elements to an answer. First of all, we do not know exactly how is the future and particularly how technologies evolve. there might be surprises. So if we create, for example, regulations, we are not completely sure whether in three, four, five years, when the regulations finally have been accepted by the parliaments and so on, whether they still correspond to the real needs. Here, I think we have to move much more into the direction of adaptive legislation, which allows us to correct continuously our legal frameworks, our regular frameworks, to see developments on the ground. There's also something which people call sandbox, which means you have a specific situation and you try it out. You see if you do such and such a thing, what will be the consequence? It's like a small child building a castle in the sandbox and the castle breaks down or doesn't break down. It will learn and it will probably add a little bit more water in the future to make sure that the castle doesn't break down. So that's one. But the second one is to take the time and now and to think about future scenarios, future developments. We have now a situation where the population is very alarmed because, of course, there are certain gurus, let's take artificial intelligence, who tell us that it will solve all the problems in health and environment as the one which we have to bear. There are certain gurus who will say robots and machines will take over and will enslave humankind. So the normal person is lost. So we need a factual dialogue. And here I come back to the need of truth. We need a factual dialogue with some assumptions of the future to shape the future. And then I come back to the need for stakeholder discussions, because today political, economic, technological, social, environmental issues are so interwoven that you cannot create a solution for major global issues without not taking into account all five dimensions. And this means you have, when you prepare regulations, you have to already integrate representatives of all those dimensions to ensure that you have a systemically viable approach and not just a one-sided solution. Because you mentioned the multi-stakeholder approach, you gave stakeholder capitalism a global home in 1971. You were carrying it through more than five decades, holding on to it, and now you're saying we move into a new age. How does the stakeholder capitalism move into the new age? I first concerned much more about another issue And it the issues that the last 50 years were let say dominated by what was called the end of history, which means that we in the world all share the same concept of a liberal, rules-based, globalized world. And this ideology or this reality, it was reality, has broken down. Today, in a world which has become much more competitive on the individual, but also on the institutional and national level, this notion of liberal globalization has broken down. So, before we, because every regulation, every solution for matters like artificial intelligence, like environmental safeguarding, have to be of a global nature. But if we do not have a platform anymore to determine our future, then, of course, our future, if I may say so, breaks into different pieces. And then we will have later much more difficulties again, if we even are able to do so, to clue the different pieces again together. So a new phase in global development asks for a new platform, a place for systemic thinking, governance, ethical intelligence, multi-stakeholder leadership, and so on. You have created the Schwab Academy. And from what I saw, I saw you work with universities. We talked already about your books. And it is intergenerational. Yes, of course. So Schwab Academy, I set up in order to have a framework for my future activities. I think what is very important is to, like with the World Economic Forum, to create credibility and trust by demonstrating that you have an organism which is not necessarily profit-oriented. it. So you serve the public. And that's what I want to do with the Schwab Academy. At the moment, the Schwab Academy is, let's say, charged to take care of publishing my books. But at a later time, I see the Schwab Academy also as a vehicle to do what I have done my whole life, which means being a platform for global cooperation. But in the Shwaab Academy, contrary to the World Economic Forum, which I established as a multi-stakeholder platform, integrating particularly governments, business, but of course also NGOs, young generation, cultural leaders, academic leaders, in the Shwaab Academy, and the names, stance also to a certain extent for it, I want to focus mainly on global cooperation of universities. We are today in a situation, and that will be, by the way, the title of my next book to be published in later this spring, which will be called Universities, Professors and Students in the intelligent age. And I show in the book that our universities do not fit anymore as they are structured now into the intelligent age. We have to move from learning for life to lifelong learning, because in certain areas like artificial intelligence, cyber security, quantum computing, Everything you learn today will be outdated five years from now. So if I hire someone who has left universities five years ago, his knowledge has no value for me anymore. If he cannot prove that he has updated his knowledge during the last five years. So what I intend to do with the Schwab Academy is to create a broader framework which allows people, like it's the case already in certain professions, particularly in the medical profession in certain countries, to show that you are always at the latest level of knowledge. And it shows, once again, what I find so compelling in your thinking. Your understanding that ideas only matter when they travel between business, academia, society and governments and across systems and generations not only top down or bottom up but also sideways yes i believe i believe that a common learning platform is essential if we want to re-establish the truth if we want to keep up with the latest developments I think we need new types of learning platforms. And here you are completely right. It's not anymore the old principle where some professors transfer knowledge to young people. Today it's much more common learning because the development is so fast. If I have a problem with my digital devices, I would go to my grandson, who would fix it immediately. So it's not anymore the old saying, let's say, the young have to learn from the old. No, it's today more, very often more, the old have to learn from the young. And that's the reason why I attached so much importance at the World Economic Forum to integrate the young generation. First, by creating this community of young global leaders, which means leaders between 30 and 40 years old. But then I came to the conclusion you may be old already today when you are over 30, at least in terms of having understood the latest developments. So I created this community of global shapers, 10,000 global shapers or more than 10,000 global shapers in over 500 cities around the world, in order to make sure that those people have a voice. Just imagine if you take any parliament, and the average age would be usually probably 60 and above. And they take decisions which affect the lives of the young people. Today, this is not anymore appropriate. You have to make sure that the young have their own voice. Now, in learning, and what I intend to do with Schwab Academy, in learning, it's not anymore a one-way process. I think professors and young people have to learn together. And I stay there. How do they do that? By using teaching methods. I mean, I remember when I started teaching 50 years ago, the usual practice was a lecture. And already at that time, I changed this approach, which did make me very popular with my other colleagues, but made me very popular, by the way, among the students, by saying to the students, here, you have a problem. Solve this problem. And then we learned together. What I usually did is to say, okay, you have now to design a strategy for a big company, let's say Shell or whatever it was. And then I forced the students with my relationships, I could do so. I asked the top management of the company to listen to the students. And I motivated my students because I said, you are McKinsey or Boston Consulting or whatever, or Baines, and you have now to make a presentation for the future of Shell. And at the end, everybody, at the beginning, people said, look, young people will not be apt to really, it will be trivial, they will not really understand. The management of those companies usually told me, it's not worthwhile to spend time with young people who have no idea of our business. And at the end, everybody felt that it was a worthwhile process. So we have in some way to institutionalize this common type of learning. And when they go, your students, when they go then into the business world and they look at how did Professor Schwab do it with the World Economic Forum or with the global shapers or the young global leaders. And they look at what you do. You name it. You shape it. and then you scale it. Would that still work for them? Yes, there is a but. The but is related to scaling. I think in the past you could take a relatively prudent approach and build on safe ground. You go step by step. Today's developments are so fast and also the competitive nature has become so intense that it's not necessary anymore or it's not sufficient anymore to go step by step. You have to run in order not to lose out against the competitor or against the development. So it makes it much more. I would say it's much riskier today. You have to be much more resilient. You know my concept of leadership, which I preach, if you may say so, since many years, because people always say leadership. I think we talked already in 2020 about it. Leadership is something very special and so on. I say, no, it's very simple. You just have to bring to the table five different aspects. soul, which means purpose, brain, which means intelligence, heart, which means empathy, and muscle, which means the capability to translate your ideas into action, and nerves. And I would say, to come back to your question, nerves play today a very important role. You have to have the resilience and you have also to have the courage to walk on untested grounds. So that's the difference today. By the way, you need also resilience because you are today much more confronted, not only with uncertainty, but also with animosity. When you are successful, of course, there are people who are envious. And today you can generate, let's say, a negative wave of news relatively easy with social media. And there are always people who believe in whatever you say. that I think if you are a real leader, you have to have today, unfortunately, the resilience to deal with such hostile situations. Which brings us back to what you said before, that we don't share a reality anymore. Yeah. Everybody shares a reality they choose. Exactly. And when you tell those young leaders how the perfect leader looks like. Have you come anybody across who could tick all the boxes? Very few, very few people. It's amazing when I have the habit now, whether it's enjoyable or not, it's a different question. But I have the habit when I see a leader, my own framework comes always immediately into my mind. I have to say, usually people are impressed by someone because he has a great vision or he is impressing you because he's very passionate about something and you feel he's a leader. No, he has one dimension of leadership possibly. But for me, a leader must have all the five in order to be sustainable as a leader in today's intelligent age. You have to have all the five dimensions. And there are very few people. You don't have to be, let's say, if you take a scale from what I usually do, I take a scale and I say, As far as soul, purpose, he is a seven or a six. And it's clear that not everybody will have everywhere a ten. But if I have made a mistake in my life, and I have made quite a number of such mistakes, was to be impressed by someone because in one or two of those dimensions he had a ten. and I didn't see that in other dimensions he had only a two or a three. So what protects one to do this mistake? So to do research, but I think the personal discussion and the personal interaction is very important to get the feeling and to see also the track record, but to get the feeling. And I think now we are coming back again to the intelligent age, where I said, it's intelligent age, the human dimension will be much more important than before, because that's what distinguishes us from, let's say, from other creatures on Earth. So, the human feeling I get in the direct interaction. And that's why I have to say why also Davos was so successful, because you could do learning, you could absorb knowledge easily via the Internet or chat, GTP, but to get the feeling about how someone is ticking. what, let's say, aura he has around himself, such you feel only the personal discussion. Coming from this leadership characteristics, if I want to set standards today, what do I have to do? Using your example, you were the youngest professor in Switzerland. You had five degrees already in the age of 27. You were an engineer. You went to Harvard. You set up the World Economic Forum. Everything was a success. Everything, you set standards. Even now, in the age of 87, you set up another academy. Standard setting today, what's your advice? I set up, I wouldn't call it standards. I set up new models of doing things We have to look at the notion of standards Standards means that you create rules collective rules for behavior And the standard makes on me a very cold impression It is like a law, it's a rule, and so on. I feel what is much more important than setting standards is to create in each individual the ethical attitudes which lead him to a behavior where he doesn't need standards, but he does himself out of his free will, not because he's obliged. He does what is best for society, because when we develop standards, what we are doing is to create a kind of protection against the collective against the individual. But actually, the collective should not be protected. The individual himself should be responsible for behaving in such a way that the collective feels he or she has taken care of our own needs, of our own objectives and so on. So, if I break it down, you talk about very much being purpose-driven? Not only purpose-driven, it's driven by ethical standards and by knowing, let's say, by creating the right equilibrium and relationship between the individual and the collective. I remember I had a long discussion. I was fortunate to meet him relatively early and during many years I met him for regular discussions which was Lee Cranew. And he, by the way, would be someone who fits the five dimensions. And we had once, I remember vividly, the discussion where we said in the West, based on history, French Revolution, and so on, there is a tendency to protect the individual against the collective. In the Easter tradition, based also on the much dense population of the soil, there was much more a tendency to protect the collective against the individual. We have to find, those are the extremes, what we have to do is to find the right equilibrium. I mean, there are certainly the need for regulations, but actually key is that the individuals feel part of a collective and they feel they have also duties towards the collective. And from what you understood over the decades, which system is relatively close to what you're saying? Is it more the Asian system? Is it more the Western system? Is it the stakeholder capitalism system? No, first we have to see each system embedded into the cultural values of a country. Of course, for someone having grown up in Switzerland or in Europe, we are deep believers in the values of democracy. But I may also remind you that all countries have committed to the UN job, which embodies human rights and so on. So actually, we have a base for how we create this equilibrium, a theoretical base, how we create this equilibrium between collective and individual rights. I heard you saying over time the words public servant. You see yourself as a public servant. Yes, to a certain degree. Of course, many people would say a public servant is someone employed by a government, and in extremes, he is a bureaucrat. For me, a public servant is an individual who has public welfare in his mind in what he is doing. He is not acting only to maximize his own interests, but he always sees also the need to serve a broader public. Now, unfortunately, what has happened in the last years, and I come back to truth and trust, we have lost the trust into the future. You see, humankind, since its beginning, developed because there was this narrative, we have to create a better future for the next generations. That was very much enshrined in the agricultural society because you planned for the future. Today, one of the problems, and it may have to do with the loss of trust and truth, one of the problems we have today is that the narrative doesn't work anymore. individuals become much more centered on their own well-being at this moment, at this particular moment. So you become much more selfish on an individual level, on a national level. So if we see now movements which say, our country first, or you have it also on the macro level, but you have it also on the micro level, where people say, me first. And that makes governing today so difficult. That this narrative, by the way, or lots of this narrative has another negative dimension. We have seen how the global population grew. Now we are faced that the population in some countries is fast shrinking. We still look at Africa, which I think one out of four people in 2040 will be African, so we still see. But we also have seen that countries which had an enormous population growth, like Egypt and some other countries, now are, let's say, not even producing sufficient children to keep the same population level. So that's for me an expression that we have a situation where people do not want to have children anymore. Of course, it's a choice I respect. But if I look at it from a theoretical, academic point of view, I have to say this just reinforces this notion we don't have to care for the future. Because I have to add, I think very often in what I'm doing, We are only the year 2025. But my grandchildren, who are already teenagers, they will, with all life expectancy we have today, they will still be around when we are entering the 22nd century. A year, how is it called, 2100. And if I think how the world will change from now on until we enter a new century. But that's not my grandchildren. They will still be alive. So what is the result? It means I have to do my best to make sure that my grandchildren have at least a life as good as I have today. I'd like to ask a question that goes a little closer to the core. We know the importance of your lifelong work. We have spoken about what you do and how you do it. You are a very private person. And still, I would love to understand why. Why do you do what you do? I am a very lucky person. I probably took the right decisions at the right time. But I didn't know how it would work out. When I was to come back to my age of 32, when I created the Forum, the World Economic Forum, I didn't have necessarily in mind the impact and the size it would have today. For me, it was to create a foundation to promote the stakeholder concept. I could have gone into the academic direction or into the business direction or maybe even into a political direction. But I think the key is when you feel you do something which is useful and you like it, stick to it. Stick to it. So, I had many other opportunities based on my education, on my experience, particularly when I was in my late 30s and 40s. I got many attractive propositions to take on the leadership of big companies. but I liked what I was doing in the forum so I stuck to it and I'm so happy so happy I just give you one example I was asked to become a member of the board of one of the largest companies in Germany and I was very much tempted because first I would have heard much more second there was a promise that I would take over the chairmanship of the managing board of that company. But then, after reflection and talking, particularly with my wife, because we always take common decisions, we said, no, I like it. I stay with it. And if I look back, it was a right decision because the company doesn't exist anymore since quite some number of years. And I'm very glad you didn't. What you created operates in a completely different dimension. Leading a single company for a period of time is one thing, but building an institution like the World Economic Forum, scaling it globally and shaping systems over decades is something else entirely, in my view. You have been married to your wife, Hilde, for as long as you have led the forum. How important is a strong personal partnership, especially for a life of responsibility at this level? My wife joined me on a professional ground and it developed into more. And we are now working together since over 55 years. I think she has brought a lot of dimension which I was missing, particularly or which I hadn't developed as much as she has. for example her cultural anchoring her interest for the arts and so on so it was a perfect symbiosis and i think this is the result of some luck and um some people do not are not as lucky as i have speed. And I also recognize that today, everybody has become much more egocentered to maintain a lucky, satisfied partnership over so many years. It's more difficult, probably, than it was in the cost. What struck me from the outside, you and your wife had all along a much bigger goal. You served a bigger purpose. You cannot run a place like the World Economic Forum as you did if you don't have a strong partner by your side who shares your goal, I think. I think the issue is, can you give yourself at 100% or are you absorbed with, let's say, other challenges you have in your life? And I was in the very lucky situation that except, and I'm here very frank, except a period where I was under the burden of a cancel. and the same happened to Hilde. We were always free from being absorbed by specific issues. We wouldn't have to worry about our material existence and so on. So that gives you also the lack and the chance And so it's a gift to spend 100% of your energy and of your time on your mission. You've done so much right in your life. And before I end, I would like to say something personal. My original plan was to speak with you about your concept of constructive optimism. But there is something closer to my heart. When I first came to visit you, when you were chairman of the forum, I had an exchange with Chet GPT, and it said to me, you are about to enter the most complex room on the planet. Today, I want to say something that I believe many listeners will feel as well after this conversation. It was never about the room. It was always about you. You are the compass. You are the visionary. And you bring your heart and soul to what you built. And I'm deeply grateful that we could have this conversation today. Thank you very much. Thank you. It was a pleasure. And I have to add, your presence made me more open than I usually am, because I'm very careful. I'm serving, and I always try to keep myself in the secret little hole which I have ticked out for me. Thank you for listening to Der große Neustadt with Sibylle Baden. Join us again when we next explore the people and the ideas reshaping our world. For more information, please visit zibilabarden.com. Thank you.