Dr David Cliff continues from last month's exploration of what our entrepreneurs may look like in 20 years' time.
Part Two:
Part one highlighted the shifting public perception of entrepreneurs, the merging of business and political spheres, and the ethical void exposed by globalisation, environmental degradation, and rising inequality. The question posed was: what kind of entrepreneur does the future demand?
The entrepreneur of the future will not succeed on profit alone. They will need to be thinkers-reflective, systems-literate, and ethically grounded. Leadership without foresight is no longer leadership; it is a liability. Innovation without accountability is simply risk passed on to others.
It’s not enough to sell a product if its packaging becomes oceanic debris. It’s not enough to scale a platform if its data is exploited, its workforce underpaid, or its long-term impact unknown. The future entrepreneur must operate in a world where the cost of ignoring ethics is no longer reputational but existential.
Cryptocurrencies and digital finance have already revealed this fault line. What began as an attempt to decentralise power has also become a playground for grift and speculation. Scams are rife, protections are weak, and ordinary people are too often left holding the losses. We have seen what happens when systems innovate faster than ethics can follow.
But perhaps the greatest disruptor ahead is automation. AI, robotics, and machine learning are already reshaping the employment landscape. As industries streamline, millions will be displaced. By 2027, driverless vehicles alone could render entire sectors obsolete. These are not distant hypotheticals-they are imminent restructurings.
Already in Silicon Valley and beyond, voices are warning of a future where structural unemployment is permanent. Universal Basic Income (UBI) has been floated as a necessary response. But handing people a stipend to survive while they remain outside the economic system risks creating a new obligate proletariat- disconnected from production, ownership, and influence.
This raises deeper moral questions. Are we heading toward a technological caste system, where some are born into billionaire status and others into lifelong economic dependency? Without ownership, opportunity, or influence, entire swathes of the population may be consigned to a digitally managed underclass. What does it mean to be born into a world where your value is pre-determined by your relation-or lack thereof-to technology?
This is not hyperbole. It is a scaledup continuation of trends we already see. Without ethical scrutiny, we risk hardwiring inequality into the very structure of society. And without systemic reform, this will not merely reflect a lack of social mobility-it will enforce it.
This is where ethics must return to the centre. Economic models must serve people, not the other way around. True entrepreneurship must now include social design: the conscious development of systems that sustain dignity, autonomy, and inclusion.
This imperative is echoed in Vic Lessem’s theory of the “metaphysical manager,” articulated in Global Management Principles. Lessem envisioned leaders who understood not only their enterprise but its interconnection with wider human and ecological systems. The metaphysical manager sees the organisation as part of a greater whole, with responsibility not just to shareholders, but to communities and the planet. It is a model of leadership grounded in vision, stewardship, and the courage to act beyond self-interest.
If we fail to integrate such thinking, we may find ourselves facing a world split in two: a tech-enabled elite with limitless power, and a mass of economically warehoused citizens-subsidised, surveilled, and structurally excluded.
To prevent this, future entrepreneurs must do more than innovate-they must lead. And leading means grappling with values. Ethics must not be an accessory to business; they must be its foundation.
So, who will the entrepreneurs of 2045 be? That answer will depend not just on what they invent, but on what they believe-and how deeply they honour the future they are helping to create.
www.gedanken.co.uk