Why Some Systems Endure — While Others Collapse Last week, I visited CERN with a group of ten CEOs. I promised then that I would share more reflections — here they are.
We are living through a volatile moment: AI accelerating, capital concentrating, inequality widening, institutions under strain.
We talk about speed. But speed is not the real question. The real question is structural: What allows some systems to endure — while others collapse?
CERN is not just a laboratory. It is one of the world’s leading scientific institutions — and a living model of sustained international cooperation.
Talent density is extraordinary. But talent alone does not hold complexity together. Coordination matters. Institutional trust matters. And purpose is the glue that sustains high-performance ecosystems over time.
insight stayed with me.
Fundamental science — research not driven by quarterly returns — is not a luxury. It is a strategic investment in depth. Without depth, applied innovation eventually loses its horizon.
In the same city, conversations with young leaders from the Global Shapers Community of the World Economic Forum (WEF) echoed a similar concern.
Money and technology scale systems. Depth stabilises them.
My gratitude to the remarkable people at CERN — from senior scientists to early-career researchers — for their rigour and generosity. And to the CEOs who joined the visit for the quality of their dialogue and their long-term lens.
In a time of widening inequality and institutional fragility, what are we doing today that will still hold our systems together ten years from now?
I am asking myself the same question: what is the fundamental science I am building — the long-term investment in depth behind my own work?
I hope that question takes all of us much further than the next quarter. And May the Force be with us.