How to navigate an entangled future, with Ian Goldin

"Developing a mindset which prepares us for this entangled future is the intellectual journey that we all need to go on," says the founding director of the Oxford Martin School, Ian Goldin on The Web of Us. In conversation with Claire Wathen, Ian shares what makes him hopeful, four criteria for building a great organization, and why migration accelerates human progress.

Transcript

00:00 Introduction to the Entangled Future
00:18 Meet Ian Goldin: Economist and Visionary
02:32 Ian's Personal Journey and Hobbies
04:18 The Importance of Interdisciplinary Thinking
08:59 Transition from World Bank to Oxford
16:33 The Oxford Martin School: Vision and Impact
19:28 Migration: A Fundamental Human Trait
28:02 The Future of Globalization and Cooperation
31:08 Concluding Thoughts and Hope for the Future

Introduction to the Entangled Future

Ian Goldin: How we develop a mindset which prepares us for this entangled future is I think part of the the intellectual journey that we all need to go on. 

Claire Wathen: Welcome to the web of us, where we explore the visible and invisible connections that shape our world. I'm your host, Claire Wathen. 

Claire Wathen: For today's episode, we're looking at the world through the lens of an economist who brought his experiences at the World Bank.

And his time working with Nelson Mandela in South Africa into academia. Ian Goldin is the founding director and now professor at the Oxford Martin School, where he oversees programs on the future of work, technological and economic change, and the future of development. So yes, a lot of ground to cover in a 30 minute podcast.

But it's a great glimpse into Ian's world, what he calls an entangled future, where rising globalization, trade, and technology are increasingly connecting us all. We could have taken the conversation [00:01:00] in many different directions, though I've wanted to explore an area he specializes in, in light of networks, which is migration.

I've always been fascinated by how and why people move. The fluidity we can observe in networks such as people moving from one place to another, migration as a kind of social network where people connect across multiple places, navigate barriers and weave relationships in and out of communities. In our conversation, Ian shares the benefits of interdisciplinary thinking and research, how cross pollination leads to progress, and a historical lens on migration, as he calls it, a fundamental human trait.

And what makes him feel hopeful at the end of the day to explore our entangled future and possibly present. Here's Ian Goldin.

Meet Ian Goldin: Economist and Visionary

Well, welcome to The Web Of Us. Ian, it's wonderful to have you on the podcast. We could take this conversation in so many different directions. Um, you've had a [00:02:00] fascinating journey as the founding director of the Oxford Martin School, which of course is an interdisciplinary. Research Hub for Global Challenges.

You've written 25 books, 60 articles, and I'm excited to step into the world of global development and tease out some different themes as we think about how groups of people organize, how they move, how, um, that impacts our societies and how we function together, much of which is not as visible on the surface.

Ian's Personal Journey and Hobbies

Claire Wathen: But first, let's start with you. I'd love to first. Get to know you and bring our audience into your journey personally, and I'm curious, where do you call home? 

Ian Goldin: It's great to be in conversation with you, Claire. Um, that's a good question. Where do I call home? Uh, I do feel like I have many homes. Homes at the moment is Oxford.

Uh, I also feel very at home in London. I. [00:03:00] Where I spend 15 years, I feel very at home in, um, a number of other places in Cape Town where I was a student, where I go back quite regularly. 

Claire Wathen: And you have quite a prolific professional biography, but I'm curious if there's something that, um, we wouldn't find there If there are hobbies or things that you do outside of, um, the intellectual and, and professional realm.

Ian Goldin: So most of my life's been spent outside, uh, academia. Uh, I'm involved in lots of charities and I. Organizations, issues that don't appear in my bio. Um, and so I'm pretty active, uh, in sport. I do triathlon. Um, so I'm, I'm trying to keep up with cycling, running, and swimming. I love skiing. I love scuba diving.

I love hiking. I'm going to the Himalayas, [00:04:00] uh, for the second time in, um, about a month's time. So I'm very excited about that. Oh, 

Claire Wathen: really? 

Ian Goldin: Um, and so. Yeah, I love being outside. Oxford's great for that, of course, because it's mm-hmm. Uh, the environment around Oxford is beautiful and it's very easy to get out of the town into it.

The Importance of Interdisciplinary Thinking

Claire Wathen: It also speaks to something that comes through both in the body of work and the approach that is certainly clear through the Martin School of the Power, bringing different disciplines together and, um. Both through this podcast and the broader visiting fellowship I'm doing, there's always this pattern that emerges of, I do this thing, but I'm also all of these other things and I'm interested in these other areas.

And I think we often put ourselves in these. Very tight boxes or, or frameworks that don't really speak to us. 

Ian Goldin: That's right. And, and I think it's getting worse and worse because disciplines are, subdividing, journals are becoming more specialist. People are getting into their social media [00:05:00] silos. Um. Mm-hmm.

And, you know, if you had asked someone in the past, let's say, if you had asked Leonardo Da Vinci if he was an artist. One engineer, I think he would've looked as if at you as if you were mad. Um, because, because they didn't have that conceptual RAI jacket, um, at that time, uh, to call yourself something and see yourself as something.

Uh, so people were much more comfortable, I think with, with. Being interdisciplinary in their heads and in their knowledge and what they read and things now. And increasing specialization is great 'cause people are able to become hyper specialized in a very narrow field and mine that field very deeply in ways that others haven't been able to do before.

'cause they haven't been so specialized. But it comes with its limitations. Um, and it, the limitation is that it can be. At the exclusion of other things [00:06:00] and losing context, perspective, uh, and how these fit into the, so that's been a, you know, even as an economist, that's been a big revelation for me. I've spent my entire career as an economist, um, including head of policy for the World Bank Group, um, and then coming to Oxford and finding out through the Oxford Mountain School about demography.

About the importance of spatial geography, about the import, about what's happening in medicine, what's happening in climate change, um, AI technology, and, and, and thinking through how all of these things would change the way I used to think. About some economic questions. Um, and that's been wonderful in terms of a journey of discovery.

Um, and, but also very humbling because you recognize. That we've really gotta be very careful about thinking. We know what's going on when we [00:07:00] don't know 99% of what's going on, on the things that will impact on our fields. And that's why it's a tricky balance, uh, between being interdisciplinary and being specialist.

I think both are necessary. But how and when in your career and how you teach it or how students grow is important. And, you know, the, the US you can do a degree in physics and photography. Um, you can't do that in the uk. 

Claire Wathen: Hmm. Yeah. I'm curious how you, do you guide students towards particular directions or what, what advice do you have as.

People are not getting well. I've, I've, 

Ian Goldin: I've become convinced that actually one does need to specialize first before you become generalist. It's sort of a bit like an hourglass. You need to start broad at schools. I think it's better to do a broad range of subjects, but then I think you do need to specialize.

Um, you do need to really concentrate on a small number of subjects. [00:08:00] Uh. And then grow an awareness of others. Well, and the reason is that you, I don't think you can usefully contribute to really tough questions unless you've thought very deep and long, um, about where you can contribute to those. And that comes from.

A deep knowledge and it's getting deeper and deeper that each subject area is becoming more complex, is more written and things. And that's why if you look at the average age of, for example, PhDs, you see they're getting older or the number of collaborators on papers is growing. It's partly 'cause it just takes longer to learn.

Um, learn Now maybe new technologies like, uh, Gemini Chat, GBT will help us with this. I hope so. Um, but, um. I think one needs an hourglass. One needs to start broad focus and prove that you can contribute intellectually to something or physically or through a craft or an art. 

Transition from World Bank to Oxford

Claire Wathen: Well, I'd love [00:09:00] to bring the conversation back to you and I.

The decision to come into academia. As you said, the bulk of your career has been outside of academia. Um, and we could go into that a bit if, if you're interested, but I'm really curious how you made the transition into academia, into Oxford, specifically, what the environment was like for you to come into that coming from the World Bank.

Ian Goldin: Yeah, I'm a great believer in, um. In basically embracing change as it happens. You know, a lot of people say to me, what should I do for my career? Or what should I do in, and, and I thinking like five, 10 years. And that I never think in that way. Uh, and so I'd never had a job for longer than five years when I left the World Bank.

The longest I've ever been anywhere is Oxford, which speaks to how flexible and comfortable it is. Yeah. Uh, um, so, but also the changes of the time. I mean, I worked for Nelson Mandela for five years in the World [00:10:00] Bank, but the reason I left the bank was basic. 'cause like now there was a regime shift in the US government.

The World Bank has many strengths, but a great weakness, um, is that the US president appoints the head of the World Bank. Uh, so I had been a. Uh, recruited by Jim Wolf and Sin who had been the appointed by Clinton, uh, who had been the president of the World Bank. And the reason I went to the World Bank because when I was in South Africa, I was very involved in negotiations with the World Bank, uh, wearing the South African government hat.

And, and the World Bank was really terrible. You know, the, the terms and conditions and its policies we could not accept. So in my five years I was there, we barely accepted money, any money at all from the World Bank. And they, and they, I think we accepted some, like 15 million and they wanted to lend us 2 billion or something.

So, [00:11:00] um, but we accepted lots of money from other people. Uh. This had been a tussle with Jim Wolfson, in which I kept telling him that he'd been a change the bank, uh, uh, because it, it is, it really was out of date and, and very arrogant and there were lots of issues with, so that, so he said, okay, well when you leave South Africa, come and join me and be ahead of policy basically, which is what I did.

Uh. Then he retired, um, and was replaced by Paul Wolfowitz, who was a Deputy Secretary of Defense in the Bush administration. Uh, a very different sort of person who had been very involved in the Iraq war. And I, I felt, you know, I wasn't comfortable with that, but I felt I was a technocrat, not a. And that as long as he didn't interfere in the principles, that would, it might work.

But it very quickly became apparent for many reasons [00:12:00] that I could not report to him, uh, and, um, that I was not comfortable. So he basically opened the bars of the golden Cage for me, uh, and forced, forced me to leave. Um, I see. And at the same time, more or less, James Martin. Had given a hundred million dollars to Oxford.

Uh, I was unaware of that, but a friend in Oxford sort of sent me a note saying, have you seen this advertisement? They're looking for a director for the Oxford Martin School. So, um, it was in the Economist magazine actually. I applied, it was a very competitive, it was extreme. I hadn't done an interview for a very long time.

Oh, interesting. It was a very intimidating process, chaired by the. The, uh, vice Chancellor at the time, John Hood and, um. Miraculously for reasons I don't understand. I got the job because I really wasn't an academic and I think they were looking for one. But, um, that [00:13:00] was really fantastic. I met Jim Martin after I had been offered the job that Oxford handled it very properly and we really got on fantastically.

Uh, he was a visionary guy. Who was giving a big chunk of his money to try and solve world problems by bringing great people together. And so that was my job. There was nothing there in Oxford developed the governance structure for the Oxford Martin School. The criteria we'd use to select, um. What issues, what people, how much money to give to them.

Uh, and then I set about, um, fundraising. He gave another chunk of money if I could match it, I more than matched it. And we raised money from another 40 institutions and individuals. Um, so it ended up being substantive. And then, you know, amazingly enough for those that have visited it, we managed to get. A building, which, which I think is absolutely wonderful, which is at the heart of Oxford, is our, it's a beautiful building as [00:14:00] our hub building.

And then we rent lots of space around the university for the labs and for, uh, groups. Um, so that, but that hub building. It's fantastic. And, uh, Andre ili, uh, very generously gave us a cafe as well, so it's like po I wanted it to be a, a hive or a center for pollination, but it's, it's been a fantastic journey.

I did that for 10 years, uh, and in 2016, uh, I stepped down director and raised some more money. I'd never raised money for myself while I was director because I felt that was inappropriate. I raised money for other programs on pandemics or uhhuh, you know, nanotechnology or whatever, but not, um, for economics.

Claire Wathen: How did you find the, the fundraising experience when it was your own area versus, well, it, it, it 

Ian Goldin: seemed to be, I, you know, I managed to raise money very quickly and very easily, and, and so now I have three research programs. Or, or funded by additional [00:15:00] money one's on the future of work, um, and technology.

So artificial intelligence and its impact on work and others, on broader questions of technological and economic change, including why technology isn't needing to higher levels of growth, uh, why it's leading to growing income inequality and questions like that. Uh, and the third is on the future of development, which is the biggest program and in a way, the most, uh, intellectually difficult because.

I'm concerned that the middle rungs of the development ladder through which all countries have historically developed, which is repetitive rules-based jobs, are being, um, basically taken out by ai. So there will be no call centers in the future. There'll be no manufacturing production lines like employed people historically in Europe, in the us, um, and of course in in Asia.

So. This intersects with demography, which is another thing I've learned while being at the Oxman school. The, the basic [00:16:00] exam question is for this research group is. Where will the 25 million people coming onto the labor market each year in Africa get their livelihoods from? Uh, and that's a tough question.

Not only because of the technology, but also of course tariffs, climate change, lots of other things happening. Um, and so that's, that's basically what I'm doing. Um, I've got these. 27 docs and postdocs and pre-doc and um, and it's just intellectually very stimulating. And that's why I'm still at Oxford. 

The Oxford Martin School: Vision and Impact

Claire Wathen: I'm curious about, at the very core of the school, certainly the importance of interdisciplinary approaches, interconnectedness of the systems, the complexities, and how.

It's not one or the other. And how that has evolved or maintained, it's centering. How does that practically look in the setup of how the schools run and how the researchers work together? 

Ian Goldin: [00:17:00] Yeah, and I can, you know, speak about the, mostly the, the, the first 10 years when, when I set this all up, the first thing is to be clear about why the school exists, I think, and what we're trying to do that's different.

So we, you know, four criteria we have to work on issues which are of global significance. We call it scale. The second is we only want the best people in the world to be working on it from whatever stage of their career. They are from, you know, doctorates to senior people. So. Unless we can attract the best people, if other people are gonna do better, we shouldn't be doing it, basically.

Mm-hmm. Um, so that's sort of the excellence criteria. The third is impact. We are not really, we weren't founded by Jim Martin with his funding in order to win Nobel Prizes or get journal audit because we want to be solutions oriented. And so what is the conveyor belt or the relationship between the work we are doing?

And the solution space, whether it's in the private sector or the public sector. Uh, and that has to be demonstrated by all the [00:18:00] applicants to the school. Uh, and the third is additionality, which is why if you so great and you're working on such big issues with such big impact, uh, do you need to do this at the Oxford Martin School?

And that's really about interdisciplinarity. It's because, amazingly enough, Nobel Prize winners. Find it very difficult to find money for interdisciplinarity. It's very, very difficult to get, uh, serious money for interdisciplinary. The funding, um, system tends to be very siloed. So you have the different research councils with different specialties.

Um, you have. Funders who have passions in different areas. You have businesses that want to invest in things, but they wanna invest in 'cause they wanna make money out of them, um, in, in specialist areas. So if you wanna put a physicist and a philosopher together, I. Um, you're gonna have a tough time raising money for it.

Claire Wathen: Yeah. Good luck. Interesting. 

Ian Goldin: Uh, or, you know, a historian, [00:19:00] uh, and an economist or whatever. Uh, and so that's one form of additionality. The other form of additionality. If the question we ask is, what difference would you make to the school by being a member of it? We want the sum to be bigger than the parts.

That's, we don't want like lots of little research teams doing their own thing, but also that they're sparking off each other. That they're pollinating. Uh, and it's the combination of those four criteria that's important. 

Migration: A Fundamental Human Trait

Claire Wathen: Well, an area that you have written about and specialized in for some time is migration.

It's been clear in your work as. Naming migration as a fundamental human trait. You know, many different historical drivers of migration spanning economic opportunities, conflict, persecution, um, environmental changes, cultural and social factors. Um, I'm really curious how this emerged as an area that you've wanted to delve more [00:20:00] into.

And there's certainly many different. Parallels and connection points as we think about networks more broadly, how groups of people move and connect and go through both physical and more invisible barriers when it comes to movement. 

Ian Goldin: Yeah. Yeah, I, um, I am very interested in migration. I think it's a much misunderstood topic, and so I've just, my last book was my second book on the topic.

Hopefully it'll have a bigger impact than the first. Um, 

Claire Wathen: it's a great book. The Shortest History on Migration. I actually, I. Happened to find it right when it had come out in Blackwells, in Oxford, so, okay, great. I stood ran into one sitting. 

Ian Goldin: That, that's great. Um, at least I've had an impact on one. No, I think it's, I think it's been bigger.

Um. Yeah, there's lots of different things to say. Uh, firstly, we would not exist as a species without it. So, you know, going back. And secondly, uh, we [00:21:00] certainly wouldn't have advanced at the speed we have evolutionary wise without it. Um, and it's the coming, it's the network of fact. It's the, it's. Uh, firstly, we people, the world, um, but then we reconnect.

Um, and it's that reconnection that allows for leapfrogging people who had taken literally thousands of years to develop an idea like the wheel or pottery or whatever. Uh, suddenly you, you know, you're there and you, you learn immediately about it and you take it back with you and that continues to be the case.

Uh, we can learn a lot remotely. But there's no completeness to it and one doesn't learn in the same way, uh, as physical, which is why we still see that dynamic cities are double or triple the productivity of other places. And the reason dynamics cities are so productive [00:22:00] typically is because they have a much higher share of migrants.

In other words, people coming from elsewhere. They also have a lot higher level of interdisciplinarity. They have more specialists. Connected, uh, in a single geographical space that bump into each other and that use each other. 

Claire Wathen: What are some examples of dynamic cities? I. 

Ian Goldin: Well, London's a very dynamic city.

Mm-hmm. Sure. 40% of Londoners are foreign born. Um, Vancouver and Toronto are very dynamic cities. Similar or higher percentages, Melbourne and many. Of the cities in, uh, around the world who are the most dynamic, have the highest shares within their countries of foreign-born people. Uh, now there are lots of issues, but it's also the case that the places with the highest share of foreign-born tend to be the most friendly towards migrants.

We, we create these myths of national identity. So I'm interested in migration for lots [00:23:00] of reasons, but I'm mainly interested in it, uh, because I think. It, it of the innovation and the dynamic dimensions to it. I'm mostly interested from a survival point of view and that continues to be the case now. It's mainly refugees who are in legitimate fear for their lives or of persecution.

Uh, and I feel we have a moral and ethical obligation to them. This is different to. The economic arguments for migration, then we need to keep the categories very, very separate. Um, economic arguments about. It's good for us. Uh, the same way as I think we should have more foreign students because it's good for us.

It's good for Oxford that we welcome foreign students. We'd be, we would no way be the top university in the world if we didn't, uh, embrace foreign students and faculty. But that's a different argument to refugees where I think we have a legal and moral and ethical argument. And of course, the fact that I [00:24:00] wouldn't exist, um, because.

Both my grandparents, uh, sides were refugees. Um, sort of focuses the mind on this. But I've also been a refugee. I was a refugee from Apartheid South Africa and couldn't go back. Um, and then went back to serving the government of Nelson Mandela, which was a, a dream come true. But I, my interest in migration is pretty personal as well.

Mm-hmm. And also I've worked in lots of countries, um, and feel that that rotation. Is not only good for me, but I think, I think hopefully it's benefit of the countries I've worked in too. 

Claire Wathen: Well, and there's a range of examples of how migration and just the consistent movement of people over history, both current and past, um, can be an engine for social progress.

And as you've said, innovation. I'm curious if. Some specific examples come to mind and, um, it's the continuation of this theme of cross pollination and [00:25:00] bringing those different specialties together, the, the magic and possibilities that's possible. 

Ian Goldin: Yeah. I mean, if you just think about, um, academy Award winners, Booker Prize, or other top novelists or uh, Nobel Prize winners, what you'd find is that they are something like three times.

More represented by migrants than you would expect, or as migrants share the population. So about 40% of more of these people are migrants, whereas they tend to be 10 to 15% of the populations that they in, and only 3% of the world's population is migrant. So, you know, there's this way and then you look at other indicators.

You look at who the entrepreneurs are, small business creation, for example. Uh, and you see that something like 40% of the startups in the UK are from foreigners. I. Uh, are from migrants, uh, and, um, but they're only [00:26:00] 15% of the UK population. So very overrepresented in that. Look at patents and the patent literature and you see similar things.

Uh, so whether it's in the arts, uh, or whether it's in the sciences or whether it's in business creation, you see that migrants are. Overrepresented. And we need that obviously we, we want the cultural richness. We want the scientific breakthroughs. Um, not least the new cures for, uh, the new vaccines on covid, which we also migrant developed.

So the question is, why, why are migrants so, uh, overrepresented? And it's, I think the main reason is because they are basically selfless. Selected risk takers. They are exceptional people, which was the title of my first book on migration. Um, the exception in the size they come from and the exceptional in the societies they go to.

And that means that the people that decide to migrate are the risk takers. [00:27:00] But it's this, it's the also point about network effects and diversity. Mm-hmm. The management literature tells us that diverse teams. Are more effective than homogenous teams. 

Claire Wathen: Yes. Mm-hmm. Um, 

Ian Goldin: not only gender diversity, age diversity, discipline, diversity, perspective, diversity, cultural, and that's what migrants offer.

They offer. Mm-hmm. They see things in different ways to people that have always been in a system and grown up in it, and that is extremely healthy. Particularly as part of a team and the network effect is of course, they can also make connections. One of the things that, that migrants do extremely well and migrant diasporas, is that they seed ideas and investment and trade.

So if you look at like trade patterns, they're very related to migration patterns Now accident 

Claire Wathen: and as you. Look at the dynamic landscape that we're in and where we may be heading. What are the trends or areas that you are [00:28:00] focused on thinking about? 

The Future of Globalization and Cooperation

Ian Goldin: Well, I, I mean there's, there's smaller and sort of bigger picture issues.

The smaller picture issues is that. You know, I cut my teeth as a trade economist, uh, and I'm the professor of globalization and development at Oxford. So I am concerned about the future of globalization, the future of trade. Mm-hmm. What's going on, uh, with all of that, the bigger worry is, is a return to protectionism and nationalism, not only because it will be extremely harmful for the countries.

Themselves, but also because I think it undermines the will to cooperate. Uh, and I think the lesson of history is, uh, that if you wanna solve shared problems, you're gonna have to cooperate. Protectionism and nationalism are the antithesis of that. Uh, so I am. Concerned that it's not only that the world economy is gonna slow down and people are gonna lose jobs and income inequality is gonna grow and [00:29:00] create a vicious cycle of rising inequality.

I. And more populism, uh, because I think that's what's driving the populism is people feeling left behind by change. Um, and technological change will accelerate that sense, but it's also that that means we're gonna be less effective at containing the escalation, uh, of. Extreme weather, uh, other climate change events that, so this is extremely worrying time and I do think it's a crossroads moment for, for many people in the world.

The question really is gonna be how do you stop this? And there, I think we gonna have to go away from the old structures of the second World War period. Which have been incredibly effective. The United Nations, the Bretton Woods institutions, the World Bank IMF, and World Trade Organization, and think in more creative ways about creative coalitions of businesses, of cities, of [00:30:00] states, of countries that want to act and develop a much more, um, variable geometry.

Uh, which is a network geometry, uh, of effective networks. Yep. To, um, to address questions not to. Solve the world's problems because that will require much more unanimity, but to make major advances to, to advance the causes that I think have been so effectively advanced in the post-second World War period.

And, um, so that's gonna, I think, place growing responsibility. On businesses, on cities, on the countries that are prepared to act on citizens organizations, uh, to step into this vacuum and potential rather dystopian, uh, scenario and, um, and make a difference to ensure that this is indeed our best century, uh, not [00:31:00] as is entirely possible, our final century.

Mm-hmm. 

Claire Wathen: Well, that's quite a picture. 

Concluding Thoughts and Hope for the Future

Claire Wathen: And where do you, where do you find hope in the midst of all these different dynamics and concerns? I. 

Ian Goldin: I find hope in, you know, every day in incredible things that are happening. Um, the, the breakthroughs in medicine, you know, we all have loved ones who've suffered from cancer or, uh, malaria, other things.

There's just extraordinary things happening, which I think will make, uh, it much easier to. To make these things history, uh, and to live longer, healthier lives. I think energy is extraordinary, you know, moving to almost zero cost energy, uh, unimaginable clean energy, solar, wind, eventually fusion [00:32:00] perhaps.

And the transition we're seeing now into electric vehicles associated with that is also extraordinary. So over a billion people have escaped desperate poverty over the last 40 years. Um, mm-hmm. That is extraordinary. My own personal experience in South Africa, uh, being able to go back and serve in a democratic, uh, government under President Mandela, I really do not believe that would happen in my lifetime.

So things happen that. Or surprising, not unexpected, but they don't happen by accident. They happen by struggle. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know, whether it's the struggle of scientists in the laboratory, um, of policy makers pushing through clean energy, uh, or the, the global anti-apartheid struggle, plus the sacrifice, south Africans made in it.

These things don't happen, uh, because you wish them, they happen because. Every day ordinary people are putting themselves on the line to make them happen. And that's [00:33:00] what gives me great hope. So there's lots of learning, uh, but there's a lot more to be learned and there's a lot of questions. We dunno the answers to the most difficult questions or these questions I think on cooperation.

Um mm-hmm. Um, how in a world which is totally entangled now, so what happens in the poorest village, in the poorest country? Is gonna affect my life potentially, but also also what happens in the richest lab. Everything I do, everything I say, everything I consume, everything I wear. Every transport form I take, this has an impact on other people around the world and will have for future generations.

That idea of entanglement, of hyper network and connectivity leading to the spread of brilliant things, but also to the spread of bad things and that all of us. As a result of being in a networked environment have an impact on others. So with that comes [00:34:00] liberation because we much richer, wealthier control our health and knowledge to do things, but also comes responsibility.

I. Now I must know that there are limits to my freedom. You know, the idea 

Claire Wathen: And it's not just about you. Yeah, it's not about 

Ian Goldin: me. I can't decide. I mean, I, of course I can decide what to do, but it's gonna have an impact. These are collective decisions. Uh, and I think we, we still living, many people are still thinking that they're like.

In an island that they can do what they want, make the decisions, whether it's at the individual level or the country level. And so how we develop a mindset, uh, which prepares us for this entangled future, um, is I think part of the the intellectual journey that we all need to go on. 

Claire Wathen: Mm-hmm. The entangled journey that we're already in and that what, what's ahead and all the short and long-term implications.

[00:35:00] Um, well, Ian, we could talk for hours. It's been so fascinating to get to know you as a human first and, and then see how the journey has emerged for you in these different, um, interconnected. Disciplines, sectors, uh, spaces, and the importance of crosspollination. Thank you so much for joining and sharing, and excited to continue the conversation.

Ian Goldin: Thanks Claire, for inviting me.

Outro

Claire Wathen: Thanks for listening to the Web of Us. The Web of Us is produced by Josie Colter and Ben Beheshty at Studio Goldstar, hosted by me, Claire Wathen, visiting fellow at the Said Business School in Oxford. Join us next week for a conversation with Premal Shah, a founder and a.

Executive leveraging technology for social and financial inclusion. We dive into the worlds of Silicon Valley Tech, global finance. Explore what crowdfunding can teach us about social behaviors and networks. Premal shares, how human wisdom still plays an incredible role [00:36:00] in the digital age. Welcome to the web.