Simple question: Write, without thinking, the name of the company you would like to work for. I have asked this question in campfire discussions with groups of students in close to twenty locations in different parts of the world, including Detroit, Singapore, Chennai and Shanghai.

Almost universally, the responses have been Google and Apple.

What is it about the spirit of Google or Apple that has fired the imagination of students across the world?

It is after all the World Cup Season. But for those of us who would prefer the distraction of something else, the good news is that this piece is not about cricket. While it is about 2020 (symbolic of the future, a few years from now) it is about businesses and a fast-forward understanding of how today’s organizations would have evolved into enterprises that successfully leveraged a changing work-force in a changed work-place.

 God.

Nothing less. The power to make or break. The power to evaluate, pass judgement. Hold the future of a human-being in the palm of the hand.

Act superior. Look down upon. Condescending to agree, but ...yes; always with a 'but'.

The person across the table may be better-read, more qualified, proficient ..and is really sitting there because 'we need the talent' in the first place. Talent that we are losing. Talent that is hard to find. And we have also  done the 1st and 2nd short-lists ourselves.