Can AI’s disruption of conventional jobs fuel innovation? This session at Davos 2026 highlights pathways for entrepreneurship in a rapidly changing work landscape.
At Davos 2026, panelists argued that AI is accelerating entrepreneurship, but the real determinant of impact is whether societies build “fertile soil” for founders. LinkedIn’s Daniel Roth cited a 60% year-over-year rise in members adding “founder,” alongside hiring shifts from fixed roles to hybrid skill sets and “no resumes… prototypes.” Yet Williams-Sonoma CEO Laura Alber warned against “AI everything,” urging founders to “solve a real problem” with domain expertise and proof, not buzzwords.
Government leaders emphasized policy as an enabler. Germany’s Dorothee Bär outlined a rapid “high tech agenda” spanning AI, quantum, biotech, microelectronics, fusion, and climate-neutral mobility, favoring sandboxes over protection: “We need less protection and… more sandboxes.” Bahrain’s Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa described a three-pillar model—regulation, infrastructure, and people—highlighting a data sovereignty law and large-scale upskilling through Tamkeen. He stressed culture change, including bankruptcy reform to “decriminalise failure.”
Bajaj Finserv’s Sanjiv Bajaj framed AI as another discontinuity: jobs will shift, but those who “adapt” can build “a single founder company… with 100 agents.” The session concluded that AI matters, but entrepreneurship hinges on resilience, implementation speed, and social conditions that legitimize risk and learning.
Hello, everyone on the stream. Hello, everyone. Into the in the room. This is a very exciting session that we have planned here on the future of innovation and entrepreneurship in the era of AI. So we've got a great panel here. First, I want to introduce myself, if that's all right. My name is Dan Roth. I'm LinkedIn's editor in chief. So I oversee all the content and creators on LinkedIn. We have a billion members in over a billion members in over 200 countries. One of the exciting things about this role is I get to have a front row seat to the world of work, how the world of work is changing. So we see incredible data from our members as they add skills to their profile and change jobs and connect with each other and post and share. And all of that turns into a roadmap for where the world of work is going and where entrepreneurship is going. So I want to just call out some of the things that we have been seeing on the platform globally that I hope will be kind of a base for what we talk about here today. First is that entrepreneurship is no longer limited to certain cities or certain degrees or certain types of people. We are seeing a broad range of people becoming entrepreneurs, and of adding new skills and new tools to their profile. They're doing this at an incredible pace. Two is that those tools are reducing the barriers to becoming a founder. So globally, year over year, we've seen a 60% rise in people adding the word founder to their profile. That is three x what we had seen since 2021. This is a there is a huge increase in people starting new businesses. And a lot of that is coming from these tools. You're able to prototype faster, reach customers easier, compete in industries that used to require deep capital or long timelines. And we're hearing from entrepreneurs that they are hiring differently. It is changing how people get jobs and how they get hired for jobs. So an example of that is entrepreneurs often now are not putting job titles, explicit job titles, down job titles that we would have recognized coming up. Instead of being a designer or an engineer or a marketer. These are combined titles because you can use AI to do all of that. And they're not asking for resumes, they're asking for prototypes. Come in and show me what you've built. Build something for me to prove that you should be. You should get this job. That is a total change. All of this means that how companies compete, how you start these companies is changing. Everything is getting faster. And the question I have for this panel is, does AI merely change entrepreneurship, or does it also expand who gets to be an entrepreneur and what does it mean? What are you seeing in your countries, in your industries? So we have got an incredible panel here. First, some housekeeping where there's a 45 minute session. We're going to save the last ten minutes at the end for questions. If you are on the stream and you want to post about this, use the hashtag f 26 for posting. All right. So I'm going to kick it off with some introductions. Let's start with Laura. Laura is the CEO of retailer Williams-Sonoma. Sanjeev, Bajaj. Bajaj, sorry, is the chairman and managing director of Bajaj Finserv, one of India's largest wealth management companies, also also a member of the International Business Council. Dorothee bar, Minister Bar is the Federal Minister for research, Technology and Space in Germany and His Excellency Sheikh Salman bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, Minister of Finance and National Economy of Bahrain and a graduate of Babson College, which is known for its entrepreneurship. So, all right, Minister, maybe we would start with you. You know, Germany is known for its deep technological and, its kind of leadership in the world when it comes to technology and sort of deep understanding of building machinery. As AI enables more entrepreneurs to start companies that could compete with the vast range of these deep tech companies in Germany, how do you think about staying competitive? How do you encourage entrepreneurship? What does innovation look like in Germany today?
Well, thank you so much, Dan. Thanks for having us. And thanks for the opportunity to introduce, the new government in Germany and our new topics, because as you pointed it out correctly, everyone has to change. And so the governments have to change too. And if you always ask the people, is change important? Everyone says yes. Do you want to change? Everyone says no. So for our new government, it was very important that we not only that we are going to change, but that we implement everything very quickly. So we were we started the government at the 6th of May last year, and only 80 days later we adopted in the cabinet our high tech agenda Germany. And we figured out what are the six key technologies, what is the most important thing? And the most important thing is that not only the Ministry of Commerce is working on that, but the Ministry of Science. That is very important. So our big key technologies are, of course, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, biotechnology and microelectronics, and then climate neutral energy fusion and climate neutral mobility. And so we are working on that not only in my ministry, but from the chancellery with all our ministries. And that means combining economy and science. And this is something new, because, all the years when the economy was way better back then, it was not as important as is. It is does something come out here from science or is it important or not? And now the new combination is very important and we are very fast now. So one third of our goals we already adopted last year and we already reached last year. And we need way more speed. I think that's the most important thing.
So and maybe this is a question for you and Your Excellency, how do you think about the role of government policy then? If you're talking about very serious, these are the six areas we want to win in. Those are very explicit. AI is, is, is enabling people to be able to start companies at the fringe, maybe combine some of those areas for both of you, what's the role of policy here in a world that's moving so fast?
So I think that in Germany and in Europe as a whole, we always think that human centered, human centered is very important that not the government says so. We have all the right solutions and not big tech companies rule the world, but we make it out of the society, for the society.
All right.
Thank you very much, Dan, and it's a pleasure to be here with you today. And we view the role of government as as being critical to create the fertile soil into which entrepreneurs can plant their seeds. And when it comes to technology and the changes that we're seeing in technology and the transformational changes with the vision of His Majesty the King, with the day to day follow up from His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and Prime Minister, we put in place very clear government strategies that are focused on creating that fertile soil. For technology, you need three main pillars. The three main ingredients of spurring technology investments. Number one, you have to have world leading regulation. And Bahrain has led the world world in regulation. We are the only country in the world with a data sovereignty law, which has allowed for data centers to be established for a German company to host data in Bahrain, for example, and that data would be subject to German law and only accessible by a German court order. This is groundbreaking stuff, and we issued it in 2017, and we continue to be the only country in the world with a data sovereignty law. So you need to have laws and regulations that are ahead and a regulatory environment where it's easy to do business. You can get a, you can get a commercial registration in Bahrain today in minutes. Go online, fill in the form, press enter. You get your, commercial registration. You can get a building permit in a couple of days. So we really accelerated the pace. So world leading regulation and friendly business environments. The first pillar. The second pillar is you need to have world class infrastructure for technology. It's extremely important. So we are linking Bahrain with dark fiber cables from Bahrain to Singapore, from Bahrain to Marseille, really moving the global data highway and make it run through Bahrain and make sure that the internal infrastructure and externally linked infrastructures world class. So first regulation, second infrastructure and third people, extremely important to have people with the right skills and very importantly give people the ability to upskill. And His Highness Sheikh Isa bin Salman is with us here today. He's the chairman of the Labor Fund in Bahrain. He was also Bahrain's signatory for the Board of Peace Today Charter. So we're proud to for that. But Sheikh Isa chairs the labor fund. What does the labor fund do? It funds upskilling opportunities for Bahrainis. Why is it so effective? Over 90% of Bahrainis in the private sector have received some sort of support from Tamkeen, either wage support or an opportunity to to to upskill themselves. And I'll give you an example. When we worked with Amazon Web Services to establish the data region in Bahrain, Temkin the labor fund provided free cloud certification classes to any Bahraini. So instead of a group of friends getting together at a coffee shop in the evening, the social activity for that year and a half became let's go do a cloud certification course that put a lot of, it puts a lot of focus on the technology sector into this ecosystem. It led later to today for AI. You have AI ready technologists in Bahrain ready to work. And we have met the three pillars. And as a government, it's our job to continue to expand those pillars and continue to provide the opportunities around the three pillars and ensure that we have the fertile soil in which entrepreneurs can thrive.
And I want to get back to this because there's some difference between what you're talking about. It sounds like one is lay a foundation for anyone, and you're sort of saying, in Germany we have these bets, these are the areas where we want to see growth. So I'd love to hear how that changes, how people start new companies and become entrepreneurs. But first, Laura Sanjeev, I'd love to hear from you both on what you're seeing when it comes to AI created businesses or new entrepreneurs that you might not have seen before. So particularly in India, where we're seeing incredibly fast growth and people starting new companies at a rapid pace, and then in your world, seeing so many different companies across, you know, small businesses in design, in areas that you might not have reached before. For Williams, Williams-Sonoma might not have partnered with before. Are you starting to see maybe we start with you, Laura. Are you starting to see a difference in the companies that are bringing ideas to you? Has AI changed at all the partners that the people you're partnering with?
I mean, I think that a lot of people are using this popular word AI incorrectly.
Okay.
And it's become, you know, the tagline on you, you walk down the promenade and AI everything. Companies are trying to reinvent themselves. They think that we're going to not realize the difference. And so you have to be very careful.
What do you mean? We're not going to realize that?
Well, I mean, there's a lot of people trying to sell you things that don't work, right? Right. They may have an idea. They want me to be the one who figures it out with them. And frankly, we're too big. I'm not interested. So we're working with people who actually have already proven that they are leaders in the area, and then making it specific to Williams-Sonoma versus some small startup. Now, I have taken a few meetings at Davos with very cool companies, robotics. I'm very interested in robotics and what that might do in manufacturing and in warehousing logistics. But even still, when I took those meetings, I knew that they were already working with some very big clients. So, you know, I think there's always amazing entrepreneurs, right? It is really hard to compete, I think, against the big tech. And so my suggestion would be, you know, you don't have to just connect yourself to this new buzzword called AI, right? I think you have to have a great idea and solve a real problem and be an expert in what you're doing, versus just call it AI for the sake of calling it AI. I mean, you know, you watched whether it was the.com boom, and everybody thought all the brick and mortar stores would go away. And I'm here to tell you that is so not true. Shoppers around the world love stores. Women love to shop. We love to go into all the beautiful stores around the world. And that is not changing with your technology. I'm so sorry. I'm going shopping and that's what we're doing. And that may sound shallow, but it's you have to realize like what stays the same and technology at its best solves our problems and makes things easier in the real world. And so I'm all about IRL, as the kids say in real life, and how you make your IRA better. And how do we live longer?
And but you're saying that expertise. Yes, the technology is interesting, but expertise still matters. A proven track record. The argument with AI is it gives people answers that they wouldn't have had before. I know Mark Cuban, US Shark Tank fame and Broadcast.com other companies have said, you know, you can ask AI anything you want. You get the answers right away. You don't know how to do a business plan. It tells you how to do a business plan so people can start these companies faster. I'd be curious to hear, are you seeing this where younger people are starting companies? And is Laura right that we shouldn't take everything that they say and say? This is like this, this. They still need to learn how to create these companies first and how to, you know, learn this industry.
So the short answer is yes. And like an AI tool that looks into past data to generate for the future, let me answer. Using history to think about the future each time when we've seen significant discontinuity through innovation right from the industrial age, moving to automotive, moving from steam to electricity, internet, digital and now AI, we have seen significant discontinuities. If you are a horse car carriage driver and Ford introduced the model T, you are out of a job unless you reskill yourself to drive a car, right? If you were used to being a traditional accountant that you worked on a normal worksheet to doing accounts, and once the computer came, you lost your job. Unless you learned how to reskill, the same is happening with every time there's discontinuity in technology. Yes, some jobs get lost, many new jobs get created. And history tells us eventually productivity, prosperity increases. The world is always become a better place. But it's important for us to take conscious decisions, to see that those jobs that are going away or there's a threat of them going away, they are reskilled. We provide opportunities to those same individuals. They happen to be doing those jobs. They can do the next set of jobs coming more to AI. And today, and at least what we see in financial services, I think in financial services, if you don't adopt AI, both at the front end, engaging with customers at the back end for productivity and efficiency, you're going to be dead in five years time. We are early adopters. We can see tremendous benefits. And that's when when you come to AI entrepreneurism, you can be a large, established company like the big tech companies. You need internal entrepreneurism even there, cutting through your bureaucracy so that you can leverage AI for the future. If you're a small business, you very often lost out because of scale. AI, in at least certain businesses, allows you to bypass the lack of scale because it gives you reach, the digital world gives you access. You can be an architect, you can be a lawyer, you can be an accountant. You can create 100 agents, and you can then be a single founder company, but with 100 agents using your experience, which is effectively your own small language, model your data with Llms to create 100 agent company and work with a compete with 100 man law firm. So there is significant change that's happening. How do we adopt? How do we adapt will make the difference to us as individuals, whether are we in the success camp or the failure camp?
Well, I guess there's then a question for all of you, which is, is this time different? Is this are we just repeating the same excitement that we heard during the.com boom? And oh my God, the world is totally different now. Anyone can create anything. Or do you feel and are you seeing in your economies, in your companies, anything that this time changes how people start companies or how they compete with some of the large companies?
Let me jump in quickly over there. Big difference of what's common time. And now differentiate value from valuation. Valuation can go crazy and sometimes much ahead because everybody is trying to be the first in the race. But if you are focused on creating value, you will make sure that you're creating a lasting opportunity.
I would definitely say it's different this time and it's different this time because the, the technology and.com boom connected the world. This time there's a transformation happening in a connected world. And therefore, when we are looking at fostering a culture of entrepreneurship and building that culture of entrepreneurship, we are doing it at a time where people are feeding ideas off each other on a global level. An idea that's good in Japan, is good in South America, it's good in Bahrain. And that means that today we are working on on fostering entrepreneurship and having young entrepreneurs, older entrepreneurs, whatever age they may be, starting companies that are good ideas, not just in Bahrain, but good ideas for a global application. But one of the things that's important here is that what we should not forget is that we have to foster that culture of entrepreneurship. We always think of entrepreneurship as a very organic thing. And yes, that is important, but you have to create the culture and environment. That does not happen organically. Yeah. And first you have to check the laws and make sure that the laws work. We had to work a lot with the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, for example, to decriminalise failure, because it used to be the case that if you had a failed company, you would end up having criminal action against you. Wow. Now you can have criminal behavior in a company that should be prosecuted. Do that. But the fact that you have a bad idea that goes under is not a crime.
So and you used to go to jail if your company failed.
Absolutely. There was no bankruptcy in countries in countries where there are no bankruptcy law.
Yeah.
You are personally liable for a business failure. I see so so so so think of that. Right. You are criminally you're held criminally accountable for a failed business idea. And because you don't have a bankruptcy law. So in Bahrain, we had to introduce a bankruptcy law. That was a very important step in fostering a culture of entrepreneurship. But then we did more. We worked with the labor fund Tamkeen. We worked with the private sector, and we said, you know what we're going to do? We're going to start monthly pitching competitions for the whole country, and we do a monthly pitching competition. And the finalists from those monthly pitching competitions go to the final pitching competition at the end of the year. And the winners of that get seed funding from our sovereign wealth fund. And now this year we said, let's build a bigger pipe. And we went into Bahrain University and I was at Babson College. Our Minister of Commerce was also at Babson College. So we're entrepreneurship runs deep in Bahrain. We went into the university and we said, we will make it, and we announced this. We will make it a college requirement for the College of Business, a graduation requirement for the College of Business to submit a business plan. And we said, we're going to get a lot of business plans. Some of them are going to be quite good, but all of them will go into the monthly pitching competitions. And then so you have to you have to kick start an entrepreneurship culture. But the difference this time is that the ideas that are being generated are not just ideas that are local in their application, they are global from their inception.
So they could compete, say, with incredible companies in Germany. So how do you think about this?
I think that the point is really great because in Germany you still get killed, but not by the government or by law, but by society. Oh yeah. If you have a failure because a failure, it always means, oh my goodness. He tried to establish a new company and then there's a failure or you, you, you put all your effort in one of your key technologies. And then let me take the example, fusion. So we have so many experts in the society. They all tell you it will never work. So there are two possibilities. Either you say, oh, I believe you because you are the expert of everything, or you say, just give it a try because if you don't do it, then on the other side, other countries are winning the race or are not winning the race. And I'm always wondering what's the worst thing, what can happen? The worst thing is it's not going to work. So what? And so we have so many different societies in other countries of the world that they think if someone failed like three times, oh, he has to have a really good experience. So that's a great badge of.
Honor of entrepreneurship. And we really have to foster that.
Yes. So I think that's a really important point. And and your question, just to answer your question, I would say it depends. Is it a big success? Is it just a big bubble? The most important thing is how to use it and where to use it, and everyone can use it, but not everyone is using it smartly. So it's not a new Google. It's not that you put the same questions in there. And when I see how kids are prompting now, it's unbelievable. So, I know it's not a very sufficient answer, but it really depends. And not the one who wins, who has the best ideas. Ideas are great, but only the ones who implement it. They are going to be the big winners.
Do you think are there things that you feel that you or the government are doing to protect, industries and companies from AI driven, AI powered entrepreneurs, or are you trying to empower these companies, or is that not even a fair question?
You are very good in protection. I think we need less protection and we need more sandboxes and let them try. So in my ministry, we have our own company called called sprint, and they are allowed to do everything so they are faster. They are not thinking in years or in months. They are thinking in days. And that's working. It's working only for really small and fast creating industries. Of course not with billions and billions of money, but to get them started, seed funding and then going from startups to scale ups. But I think.
This is a program that exists that funds.
It's like it's like, one of our own government companies. Yeah. And they are allowed to do different things. They have their own law and it's the sprint law. And that's why, yeah, it's like a sandbox law and that's working very good.
Interesting. Hi, Laura. You're hearing all this. It sounds like you're very dubious.
No, no, no, I'm not. I don't know where you get this from. You're wrong. I think this is the biggest technological change that we're ever going to see in our lifetime. I think that.com was the same. I'm just saying, don't fake it, right. Like you got to know what you're doing. And I think, you know, I mean, I'm American. Let's let me just claim that proudly. That's the great place of entrepreneurship where failure is every day for so many people. And I think so we have a boldness, a courage to start new things in the United States. I'm very lucky to live very close to Silicon Valley. I see it all the time. And, people have no money. People have lots of money starting new things. I think that it's about the person mostly. And I, have been very lucky. I've been at Williams-Sonoma for 30 years. Okay. I've been CEO for 15. Longest standing female CEO in the fortune 500. Okay. I've started a lot of the companies in Williams-Sonoma. Thank you. But I'm a survivor.
We can see.
And so, you know, I worked for a wonderful man who is now dead. And he was the company's leader. Founder wasn't what he called himself, but I call him our founder, even though he. So anyway, when he was dying, I was. So it was like, you know that book Tuesdays with Morrie?
Yeah, sure.
Anyone read it? Yeah. I was going to him and saying, what do I need to know? What am I missing? What is important? And most importantly, my question almost every time I met with him was, how do you create a culture of entrepreneurship? And he would just change the subject and, you know, talk about something else, latest business issue, whatever, and got by the time I don't know how many times I've asked this question, he got so frustrated with me and said, Laura, it is not about that. You know what it's about. It's about hiring entrepreneurs. Your job is to go find them, find the people who have ideas, who you cannot stop and who will do it. No matter what someone says in your company. And then make sure that they can flourish in this company. And so you talk about fertile ground, right? And I think, well, ideas and entrepreneurship can come because both hostile environment like job loss, AI taking out young people's jobs. No one knows where the kids used to. You want to make some money? You sure thing. Have a job. You become an engineer. Well, now you better not become an engineer. You might want to learn how to, you know, be an electrician.
Yeah. Dentist.
Right. Or something? I don't know, maybe a psychiatrist, but even that could be I'd out. So there's no answer to what you should be when you grow up, right? That's very confusing for people. And then when they can't find jobs, then we're all like, well, I thought if my kid went to this great school and did this and this, they'd have this job. Well maybe not.
No, it doesn't work, I think.
So. Maybe they start companies.
Yeah.
Because they see an opportunity. Maybe they're better. Maybe there's more entrepreneurs now. Not because of the good, but because it's tough out there to get a job. And they think, well, I'm, you know, I'm not working for you. I'm going to start my own company.
Right.
And that's exciting. But it's not exciting for you as a parent or the kid at the moment. But I think if you look around the corner and you see the whole thing for what it is, it is a great time of disruption and potentially distraction. But if you can stay very focused on solving problems, I think we're going to see a lot of incredible companies come of this and amazing people who find their way. And, you know, I think you put me in this box of I don't think it's about young people. It's always about young people. By the time you get here, you're like, been there, done that, and that's not going to work. It's not like the freedom of a young mind. The beginner's mind is the most amazing thing, and that's why we need them around us all the time. Talking to people who have not had the failure or the success for that matter. And they they just have that raw courage.
You were going to say something.
I just wanted to say, because that's a very important point. Laura made that resilience is the most important thing to teach them because you can't tell them, study this, do this. And if you teach them, do whatever you like, because it doesn't matter if you're unemployed, in a job you like or in a job you're you are not liking. I think that's the most important thing. And I think it's very interesting, the perspective like from the Silicon Valley, because in Germany it's not in the German DNA that you really want to become an entrepreneur. When I'm in a school and I ask 100 kids, do you think you can build your own company? Do you think with your own vision, with your own ideas, you can become an entrepreneur? Maybe one out of 100 says, yeah, I can imagine that. It's the same when you ask them, do you want to be a politician? But that's, just the other case. And that's what I'm really admiring, that you most of the people who are doing a startup in Germany, they had the idea when they were abroad, when they had their year in the United States or in the United Kingdom, then they think, oh, yeah, I can do that. And that is some mindshift we still need to there,
I love this point that AI driven change in entrepreneurship might not come because AI enables you to be an entrepreneur. AI might be pushing you to have to be an entrepreneur is a really interesting point. The.
If I, if I, if I may.
Sure.
I just want to touch upon something mentioned earlier about job creation. One of one of the things that we've been focusing on is that through education systems for decades, and it's been a graduation of job seekers, that has been the aim. And one of the things that we have really been working on in Bahrain has been that you should be graduating job creators alongside job seekers and bring the entrepreneurship into the core. So entrepreneurial support and entrepreneurial development is not something at the margin of the economy that is done as a social good to empower, know, take entrepreneurial development into the core of economic planning. Put it into your job creation. Aims and targets. This year, for example, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince meets the top 100 employers of Bahrainis in Bahrain and it was wonderful to see that of the top 115 of them were established in the last five years, and they're already significant players in job creation. So it is important that when you are graduating college students, that you are really ensuring that entrepreneurship is there early and that they're graduating with an idea of starting a business early. Whether that business fails or succeeds matters less, but they will have learned how to ask for resources, how to put a plan in place, and that will then serve them, whether they go into the corporate world or will have. And then those job creators will create jobs for people with them in class. And so out of a graduating class of 100, you'd have 30 job creators or people that have created jobs for 30 people and 70 become job seekers. So the transition from graduating job seekers into graduating a significant proportion of job creators is an extremely.
Big right. I want to ask one more question. We're going to turn it over to audience questions. If you have them start getting ready. Get your hands almost raised. In past technological revolutions, we have seen a widening gap. It is not not everyone has benefited. Global north, global South. Big gap. Male female, big gap. Are you seeing any signs? Do you believe that this time will be different? AI driven entrepreneurship will enable all boats to rise? Or are the things that you are worried about as this new breed of entrepreneur starts, launching businesses?
Clearly, yes. For at least some attributes. As you said.
Yes. You're worried? Clearly. Yes.
You're worried. Yes yes yes yes there is. There is going to be this discontinuity, one scale is no longer holding you back. Second capital is no longer holding you back. So you I am worried because if you're a large, established company or a nation with a large, established way of doing things, AI can dramatically change that. On the other hand, if you're a company or a country or a set of people who were not part of that large ecosystem, AI can be a very positive difference. I think the challenge and the discontinuity, as I see over here is if you have if you're in a country with very strong social security systems like, say, Germany, people are not used to being entrepreneurial because they get their three meals a day. If in a country like India, you don't get your three meals a day. So you when you're a kid, you start the equivalent of throwing newspapers and, you know, getting that what Buffett used to do and get his $0.10 on his morning paper round, you become entrepreneurial. You you start doing various activities so it becomes a part of your DNA. And then if educational institutions like Babson, I went to another one next door called HBS. Keep inculcating that spirit of entrepreneurism with you. You can change, if you are a country like the US, large established companies, hundreds of thousands of employees, if you are doing a mundane day to day job, your job is a threat. But if you're in Silicon Valley, if you're on the right pockets where your brain is working, that is driving change. That's the entrepreneurism we are talking about. You are going to succeed. Your chances of success are significantly higher. So I do see this discontinuity over here.
Location and hunger. What do.
You think? I wouldn't agree actually, because I think that the countries who are already, are enablers are creators. It's easier for them. And the other ones who are were consumers or the years before. I'm not sure. I wish it would be like you called it, but I doubt it actually.
Any other thoughts? Otherwise, we're going to turn it up. Okay. Questions from anyone here want to start here?
Hi, everyone. I'm Delfina, global shaper from Buenos Aires. Java. I want to go back to Laura's point. And you were saying that, the young people will be more encouraged to go run a business because it's very tough out there. Actually it is. My question would be, according to the youth reports, Youth Pulse report, sorry, from the World Economic Forum that was released two weeks ago. I think it stands that we are the loneliest generation in the world. You know? And to build a business, we need soft skills. We need to have empathy. We need to connect with people. So how can we ensure that we are equipping the young people with the right skills to have a business, not only for the technical and business skills, but also the social skills?
It's a great question. Thank you for asking that. I mean, you hope people like us recognize that as a problem, and are doing all that we can, whether it's internships, forums where you're bringing people up who are not experienced, as I said, like realizing the beginner's mind is so valuable, that you want to make sure you're talking not just to the people who report to you or your board or investors, but people have ideas. And so how do you create sessions for that, whether it's an idea day or however you're going to do it, or just walking around the hallway of your company and asking questions, because oftentimes those people are not in the same meetings with you. Right? Meetings are overrated. You must talk to people. And I'd say for you guys, put your phones down. You know, don't bring them to dinner with me. I don't want to see your phone at all. And I have kids 27, 25, 21 and it is a hard thing to have, you know, it's easier for someone else to say that to them than it is for the mother to say during dinner, no phones, right? But you have to train yourself to be able to communicate without a phone, without a crutch. And to really listen, because I think so many times no one's listening to each other, just like even I'm practicing that when he's talking. I'm not thinking about what I'm saying next. In fact, I have no idea what I'm saying. I'm thinking about what he's saying. And that is a really different thing than what we are being programmed to do, always in this performative state or like, you know, there's a lot of things to work on meditatively, to be present and to be, you know, really, work on your empathy and your communication, your clear messaging. And I think also you have to find people who do it well and study them because you can't. Like, they don't have time to talk to you that long, but you can watch how they do it and how they connect. And what is the difference between someone who connects and someone who doesn't, you know, no notes, no scripts. Right. And a little risky is interesting, right? I'm completely unhinged. I am makes it more interesting.
All right.
We have a whole government strategy versus loneliness because it's really a big disease. Not only for young people, for elderly people, too. And, I mean, you are in a generation who really got screwed up during Covid that was, really harmful too. And that's why, I totally agree. And, home office is a big problem too. So not only in my ministry, but I think everywhere in the companies. So yeah, go to work, don't.
Stay at home.
I'd like to say something to Delfina. You mentioned quite a few important things. And one of the things that is important is that at some stage, the overthinking needs to stop. Your business idea will not be the best business idea. The group of people that you're going to start it with will not be the best group of people. And they shouldn't be. Just do it. Start, start the best idea you have. Do it with the best people you can find and it will figure itself out. But don't you have to stop the overthinking at some stage? Close your eyes and jump and you're going to land well, but do that.
That's great. All right, let's take another question. Questions back here. I can't see back here anyone. If not, we'll go here. Oh. All right. Wait way back here. Sorry. We'll come next. If you mind just introducing yourself. Also.
My name is Rashid Oblea. I lead a construction talent creation company in Ghana. But in fact, I'm about to talk. I'm not going to talk about Ghana. I have a question about Germany. I had the luck to work with the German organization. I wouldn't name the company, but what I realized in terms of innovation and bringing ideas into established organization, you mentioned a little bit about the German culture. And in addition to that, there's almost established institution where there's this union, if you're going to bring in a new technology, somehow you need to justify to a support what the technology is going to do. So it's almost like an inbuilt resistance to this change. If you could just comment on how will your government approach that? Because this is something that's been very intrinsic in your system.
Well, yeah, that's very important. And as I said, when I was asked before that we are very good in protecting things and bureaucracy really hits hard. I mean, you need some bureaucracy, but now bureaucracy is eating its own kids. So we have a new ministry established, really fighting bureaucracy and modernizing our state. And sometimes we pass laws even before a new technology or has the chance to rise. So you're totally right. So we try, as I mentioned at the beginning, with our high tech agenda, to be faster, to try out more things and then allow failure without being killed. But I hope when you come back next time that your experiences are more modern and more new. And thank you so much that you have maybe good memories to. Yeah.
Okay. I think we have time for one last question here.
This is for Laura. Thank you. I agree with a lot of what you said, but I think first of all, I'm Hany Abdel Hadi, I'm from Bahrain and I'm a co-founder of Ninja, one of the fastest growing unicorns in Saudi Arabia. I think that there's a challenge with people at the top, dismissing a lot, entrepreneurs. I know you talked about not taking meetings and all of that. We're an example. We're two and a half years old. We found it very hard to raise funding, but after two and a half years, we are $1 billion company right now in revenue. And we've been turned down by every VC government entities that are not support us. But we found a way. So I agree that entrepreneurs will find ways, but not every entrepreneur has that capability. And I think some of them have great ideas, support and helping them maybe couple with other entrepreneurs is quite essential. And I think that's the role for the government. And I think Bahrain is doing great job. Saudi Arabia is the same. But again, there's a challenge if you're not, a known person. It's hard if, you know, if you're not connected, it's really hard. So that's my point of view. And I'd like to hear how you how you look.
No, I completely agree with you. So don't mistake what I was saying about, I'm not. I mean, everybody has the thing that they focus on at work, right? And great ideas come from all sorts of places. I'm just saying. Implementation at Williams-Sonoma for a POS system is not going to be from someone who's never run a POS system, right? Because I have to take your credit card and do it fast, right? But that doesn't mean that there's not great ideas, and you have to find ways without getting spending too much time. Like, you know, you can meet with so many people and get nowhere. You have to figure out what are you looking for? And then how do you create space to be creative? And I think at Davos, you know, people walk around so scheduled. But the most valuable time I have found is the unscheduled time where you're, you know, you're waiting for something, you're uncomfortable, you're freezing, you're starving. And you talk to the person next to you and you find out what they do. And that's how I think how the magic happens. You have to show up in the environment. That's true. But, you know, I mean, I'm sure you figured it out. Look at you. You figured it out. So probably to her point, you have more resilience. You probably have a better idea and you got it done.
I agree. But again, I think, I was fortunate because I've.
Had multiple failures before and I was somehow connected. When everyone declined me. I went to families I knew, and I actually forced them to support us. But again, not everyone has that. So that's what I'm trying to say is basically.
If I, if I, if I may, I think that's one of the things that's important is, is it's it's great. I think resilience and stubbornness is actually is the greatest trait of entrepreneurship. And that's important to continue with. And that's what really drives entrepreneurial success. But it's also important that we continue to create channels that are that are not linked. So that you so that you, you, you gather as many people as you can. And that's why we created, for example, the monthly pitching competitions in Bahrain. The idea behind the monthly pitching competitions in Bahrain was to have access to anybody who can access it, merit based selection, and then start it from the universities. And we do the two big startup weekends, which I'm sure you're familiar with, that are just open applications, startup weekends, because the idea was you want to cast the net as wide as possible to build those supports, and some great ideas have come out of them and and continue to come out of them. And we've had some wonderful companies. And the cool thing with it, the coolest thing about this is that in less than two years of running these pitching competitions, the winners of Last Startup Weekend were.
All.
Winners were all companies that were using other companies from the ecosystem that had won. So it's already turning into that multiplier effect, and you're seeing it be transformational to the ecosystem in Bahrain and the wider region. But it is important to cast the net as wide as possible and keep it very merit based and open to applications.
This has been a great conversation. I'm sorry we're out of time. We could keep going on here. I do want to just sort of summarize this, this conversation. I will say that going into it, we expected this to be a conversation about AI and AI driven innovation. And the almost the entire conversation here was about putting together fertile ground for just making entrepreneurship happen. Connections, soft skills, reducing bureaucracy. All of those things are just required for entrepreneurs, no matter what they are doing. Technology Non-technology related. I just think it's super interesting to hear that from all of you deep thinkers, people with deep connections, that that's how you're considering making entrepreneurship grow in this world has nothing to do with AI, has to do with allowing people to go after what they see as big ideas. So thank you for this really terrific session.
Thanks.
For your business.