Ian Barkin – Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of Symphony Ventures

"Disruptive Innovation", a term coined in 1995 by Harvard scholar Clayton M. Christensen, can wreak havoc and displacement upon markets, organizations, and product lines. New technologies such as Cassette Tapes, CDs, and MP3 files, are examples of innovations which disrupted the music industry, upending the existing order. Many people are predicting that automation, artificial intelligence, and machine learning could generate the same chaos. However, Ian Barkin Chief Strategy Officer for Symphony Ventures, preaches a contrarian viewpoint of positive disruption to his clients. In Ian's view, existing infrastructures should not be replaced by innovations like AI, but rather melded together, creating a new digital operations reality. He's found numerous instances where the "non-cashable" benefits alone from this approach outweigh the "cashable" ones, and often in unexpected ways. Ian talks with us about positive disruption, the "extra hour scenario", and why we must reform our education practices starting at the pre-school level in order to prepare our youngest generation for a future of work which will rely much more on creativity than doing routine tasks.