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Tomorrow's Capitalist: My Search for the Soul of Business
In an era of political and cultural extremism, America’s corporate leaders have emerged as the pragmatic center of a movement for social and economic progress.
The core tenets of a capitalist system that dominated the world for more than a century are being challenged as never before. Narratives about the failures of capitalism, the greed of the 1 percent, and the blindness of corporations to public need have made their mark and are driving change. These aren’t the superficial cosmetic fixes that generated so much cynicism in the past, but a revolution in the way corporations are imagined and run.
Tomorrow’s Capitalist reveals how corporate CEOs—the ultimate pragmatists—realized that they could lose their “operating license” unless they tackle the fundamental issues of our time: climate, diversity and inclusion, and inequality and workforce opportunity. Responding to their employees and customers who are demanding corporate change, they have taken the lead in establishing the bold new principles of stakeholder capitalism, ensuring that for the first time in more than a half a century it is not just shareholders who have a say in how corporations are run.
Alan Murray vividly captures the zeitgeist of the real and compelling dynamic that is transforming much of the corporate world.
The core tenets of a capitalist system that dominated the world for more than a century are being challenged as never before. Narratives about the failures of capitalism, the greed of the 1 percent, and the blindness of corporations to public need have made their mark and are driving change. These aren’t the superficial cosmetic fixes that generated so much cynicism in the past, but a revolution in the way corporations are imagined and run.
Tomorrow’s Capitalist reveals how corporate CEOs—the ultimate pragmatists—realized that they could lose their “operating license” unless they tackle the fundamental issues of our time: climate, diversity and inclusion, and inequality and workforce opportunity. Responding to their employees and customers who are demanding corporate change, they have taken the lead in establishing the bold new principles of stakeholder capitalism, ensuring that for the first time in more than a half a century it is not just shareholders who have a say in how corporations are run.
Alan Murray vividly captures the zeitgeist of the real and compelling dynamic that is transforming much of the corporate world.
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Published May 10, 2022
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
April 28, 2022
This book, by the well-known business journalist and Fortune CEO Alan Murray, argues that corporate leadership has changed for the better. The old mantra that the business of business is to put money into shareholders' pockets is falling by the wayside. Today, many leaders of large corporations focus instead on stakeholder capitalism. That means they tend to the interests and needs of customers, employees, suppliers and the environment as much as to those of shareholders.
Murray has been a business journalist and editor for decades, working at CNBC, The Wall Street Journal and Fortune. He also was president of the Pew Research Center in the mid-2010s. He holds post baccalaureate degrees from the Stanford Executive Program and the London School of Economics. He is the author or co-author of five previous business books. He knows what he’s talking about when he talks about the business of business.
He’s also become a champion of stakeholder capitalism at Fortune. Just look at his Leadership Next podcast, which he co-hosts with Fortune Senior Editor Ellen McGirt. I’ve been a listener to the podcast since it began in early 2020. Most episodes are CEO interviews, and the focus of the conversations is often on the “changing rules of business leadership”.
In the book, Murray folds highlights from those podcast discussions in with other input from CEOs. He builds the case that the transformation of business leadership is real, good for both business and society, and here to stay. Over the last few years, events like COVID-19, the societal reaction to the murder of George Floyd, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have been accelerants. They have spurred businesses and their leaders to take positions and actions in the social arena. And those leaders say that these positions and actions align with the purpose of their businesses.
And there lies the heart of this move to stakeholder capitalism. It’s the idea that the businesses that do best are those that focus their actions around purpose. This shift in focus is partly generational Murray feels. Murray says of his father, born in 1923 and raised during the Great Depression, that “I’m fairly certain that [he]... did go to work to make money.” But Murray’s own children are of a different mindset. Millennials, he notes, are slower to get married, less likely to go to church, less likely to belong to social clubs. When it comes to work, many Millennials look to their jobs to give their life meaning, and respond to work that gives them purpose.
Murray’s book is engaging and has an optimistic tone. Reading the many examples he brings to bear can’t help but make you feel optimistic about the direction of business too. But the world around us tells us that it’s not as neat and tidy as the examples in this book, and Murray realizes that. The title of the book, after all, is Tomorrow's Capitalist, not Today’s.
That brings us to one of the final chapters in the book, where the focus is accountability. If we as a society believe that corporations have obligations to their customers, employees, and the environment, then we must find a way to hold them accountable to those obligations. I’m not talking about overly nosy governmental regulations. I’m talking about a framework of accountability like the SEC has for corporations' fiduciary obligations to their shareholders.
Murray points out that, to their credit, corporate finance officers attending Fortune’s CFO Collaborative last year supported SEC action. At least on climate, the SEC is now actually proposing a formal, standardized set of disclosures. Such disclosure requirements are also under discussion within the EU. (See this Forbes article for a good discussion of the arguments for and against the SEC proposal.)
This book captures the dynamic that is transforming corporate leadership. But we are only at the start of this transformation. We still have a long way to go.
If you have an interest in business leadership, and the obligations of corporations to the rest of society this is very much a book for you.
NOTE: I received an advanced copy from NetGalley and PublicAffairs. I am voluntarily providing this review. The book will be publicly available on May 10, 2022.
Murray has been a business journalist and editor for decades, working at CNBC, The Wall Street Journal and Fortune. He also was president of the Pew Research Center in the mid-2010s. He holds post baccalaureate degrees from the Stanford Executive Program and the London School of Economics. He is the author or co-author of five previous business books. He knows what he’s talking about when he talks about the business of business.
He’s also become a champion of stakeholder capitalism at Fortune. Just look at his Leadership Next podcast, which he co-hosts with Fortune Senior Editor Ellen McGirt. I’ve been a listener to the podcast since it began in early 2020. Most episodes are CEO interviews, and the focus of the conversations is often on the “changing rules of business leadership”.
In the book, Murray folds highlights from those podcast discussions in with other input from CEOs. He builds the case that the transformation of business leadership is real, good for both business and society, and here to stay. Over the last few years, events like COVID-19, the societal reaction to the murder of George Floyd, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have been accelerants. They have spurred businesses and their leaders to take positions and actions in the social arena. And those leaders say that these positions and actions align with the purpose of their businesses.
And there lies the heart of this move to stakeholder capitalism. It’s the idea that the businesses that do best are those that focus their actions around purpose. This shift in focus is partly generational Murray feels. Murray says of his father, born in 1923 and raised during the Great Depression, that “I’m fairly certain that [he]... did go to work to make money.” But Murray’s own children are of a different mindset. Millennials, he notes, are slower to get married, less likely to go to church, less likely to belong to social clubs. When it comes to work, many Millennials look to their jobs to give their life meaning, and respond to work that gives them purpose.
Murray’s book is engaging and has an optimistic tone. Reading the many examples he brings to bear can’t help but make you feel optimistic about the direction of business too. But the world around us tells us that it’s not as neat and tidy as the examples in this book, and Murray realizes that. The title of the book, after all, is Tomorrow's Capitalist, not Today’s.
That brings us to one of the final chapters in the book, where the focus is accountability. If we as a society believe that corporations have obligations to their customers, employees, and the environment, then we must find a way to hold them accountable to those obligations. I’m not talking about overly nosy governmental regulations. I’m talking about a framework of accountability like the SEC has for corporations' fiduciary obligations to their shareholders.
Murray points out that, to their credit, corporate finance officers attending Fortune’s CFO Collaborative last year supported SEC action. At least on climate, the SEC is now actually proposing a formal, standardized set of disclosures. Such disclosure requirements are also under discussion within the EU. (See this Forbes article for a good discussion of the arguments for and against the SEC proposal.)
This book captures the dynamic that is transforming corporate leadership. But we are only at the start of this transformation. We still have a long way to go.
If you have an interest in business leadership, and the obligations of corporations to the rest of society this is very much a book for you.
NOTE: I received an advanced copy from NetGalley and PublicAffairs. I am voluntarily providing this review. The book will be publicly available on May 10, 2022.
October 15, 2023
On the 3rd of December 2016, the crème de la crème of the corporate world assembled at the Clementine Hall in the Vatican for a private audience with Pope Francis. These torch bearers of twentieth century capitalism committed to a Social Compact in the presence of one of the holiest of men, vowing to make the world that bit better. This meeting was organised by two of the biggest beacons of capitalism in the world of media, Fortune, and Time magazines. Tomorrow’s Capitalist is Fortune CEO Alan Murray’s Panglossian trust in capitalism and its practioners. Corporate chieftains about whose societal and social exploits Murray waxes lyrical in the book comprise not just those who made the hallowed papal visit but have also lent their unvarnished approval to the content of the book in both the back cover and the initial few pages.
A substantial portion of Tomorrow’s Capitalist is based on learnings gleaned from the podcast Leadership Next. At one point in time sponsored by the audit, accounting and consulting services giant, Deloitte, Leadership Next is jointly hosted by Murray and Ellen McGirt, a senior correspondent at Fortune magazine. McGirt also helpfully writes a stirring foreword for the book. So, in many ways than one, this is a book, by, of and for Fortune!
Interviews with who’s who of the business world, lauded academics and Ivy League professors punctuate Murray’s Panglossian work. Significant emphasis is placed on rhetoric more than actual deeds. Murray is of an unshakeable conviction that the age of stakeholder capitalism is in for the long haul. The bastion of the acolytes of Milton Friedman, ‘shareholder value’ is being surely although slowly eroded as millennials, Gen Zs, and everyone in between are suddenly becoming overtly conscious about the environment, social and governance (ESG) aspects.
Expectedly, tremendous emphasis is placed on the 2019 Business Roundtable open letter titled “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation”. 181 signatories to this letter 181 signatures unanimously published a one-page declaration whose conclusion was straight out of a book of moral aphorisms: “Each of our stakeholders is essential. We commit to deliver value to all of them, for the future success of our companies, our communities, and our country.” The fact that some of the signatories such as Apple continue to engage in tax evasion with impunity and others such as Amazon have made a habit out of egregious worker mistreatments, is a totally different story altogether.
The book is divided into small and well readable chapters. Every Chapter described either a person, process or a particularity that has worked stunningly well in dragging back society from the quicksand of chicanery and deceit. Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are eulogized for being at the vanguard of vaccine development during a time when the COVID-19 pandemic was wreaking havoc across the world. Sworn competitors became seraphic collaborators in a bid to dramatically reduce the otherwise prolonged time taken in developing a vaccine. Murray takes especial delight in quoting Alexander Hardy, the CEO of Genentech: “…but we decided to give over a large proportion of our manufacturing and our largest biologic site to manufacturing one of our biggest competitors, monoclonal antibodies. And this is a competitor whom we compete very very fiercely against”.
Excellent! But Murray also have devoted a few pages to the reprehensible vaccine apartheid practiced by these very angels of hope. According to the famed medical journal Lancet, the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility (COVAX) promised equitable vaccine supplies for all countries. However, far from achieving such proclaimed equity, COVAX failed to meet even half of its 2021 target of delivering 2 billion doses. In fact, an open letter to G20 leaders in October 2021 illustrated how 133 doses per 100 people were administered to recipients in High Income Countries compared with an appalling four doses per 100 people in Low Income Countries. The WHO Director-General termed this disparity a “vaccine apartheid and making explicit comparisons to the South African system of institutionalised racial segregation. But Murray prefers to give a wide berth and safe passage to this inequity.
Similarly, when it comes to the menace of climate change, Murray is nothing but gung-ho! Asserting, or at least attempting to in a wholehearted manner, that even the usually intransigent CEOs heading the fossil fuel industry are forced to amend their entrenched ways, Murray lays out a plethora of real-life examples to corroborate his claim. Activist shareholders dismantling climate-hostile board members at Exxon, shareholders at Chevron, voting to recommend potential emissions in reductions etc are all alluded to by Murray to prove his point with panache. But at the time of this review, one of the world’s largest Oil & Gas producers, BP, publicly announced a “pivot” back to its core business of Oil & Gas after having boldly declared an ambitious foray into achieving some audacious climate targets. The reason – a fall in BP’s Price Earnings Ratio. The irony of stakeholder capitalism died a thousand deaths. Murray could not have predicted this volte face however, since BP’s latest announcement followed much after Murray’s book was published.
There are many key and indispensable spheres which are totally neglected by Murray. An absolute reluctance on the part of the CEOs to revive or rather resuscitate the lost clout of unions, the blind eye turned to the wreckage that is being left in the wake of the reprehensible practices of Private Equity – acclaimed author Gretchen Morgenson terms PE firms, ‘plunderers’ in her trenchant polemic These are the Plunderers – and a tech cabal that has polarized the world by preying and feeding on the gullible susceptibilities of a vulnerable social media obsessed population, all find absolutely no mention in Murray’s book.
While stakeholder capitalism is no doubt a reason to be optimistic and a cause to look forward to, it is still a long way away from acting as a panacea for ameliorating some of the woes birthed by its more egregious version.
A rising tide does not lift all boats uniformly.
A substantial portion of Tomorrow’s Capitalist is based on learnings gleaned from the podcast Leadership Next. At one point in time sponsored by the audit, accounting and consulting services giant, Deloitte, Leadership Next is jointly hosted by Murray and Ellen McGirt, a senior correspondent at Fortune magazine. McGirt also helpfully writes a stirring foreword for the book. So, in many ways than one, this is a book, by, of and for Fortune!
Interviews with who’s who of the business world, lauded academics and Ivy League professors punctuate Murray’s Panglossian work. Significant emphasis is placed on rhetoric more than actual deeds. Murray is of an unshakeable conviction that the age of stakeholder capitalism is in for the long haul. The bastion of the acolytes of Milton Friedman, ‘shareholder value’ is being surely although slowly eroded as millennials, Gen Zs, and everyone in between are suddenly becoming overtly conscious about the environment, social and governance (ESG) aspects.
Expectedly, tremendous emphasis is placed on the 2019 Business Roundtable open letter titled “Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation”. 181 signatories to this letter 181 signatures unanimously published a one-page declaration whose conclusion was straight out of a book of moral aphorisms: “Each of our stakeholders is essential. We commit to deliver value to all of them, for the future success of our companies, our communities, and our country.” The fact that some of the signatories such as Apple continue to engage in tax evasion with impunity and others such as Amazon have made a habit out of egregious worker mistreatments, is a totally different story altogether.
The book is divided into small and well readable chapters. Every Chapter described either a person, process or a particularity that has worked stunningly well in dragging back society from the quicksand of chicanery and deceit. Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson are eulogized for being at the vanguard of vaccine development during a time when the COVID-19 pandemic was wreaking havoc across the world. Sworn competitors became seraphic collaborators in a bid to dramatically reduce the otherwise prolonged time taken in developing a vaccine. Murray takes especial delight in quoting Alexander Hardy, the CEO of Genentech: “…but we decided to give over a large proportion of our manufacturing and our largest biologic site to manufacturing one of our biggest competitors, monoclonal antibodies. And this is a competitor whom we compete very very fiercely against”.
Excellent! But Murray also have devoted a few pages to the reprehensible vaccine apartheid practiced by these very angels of hope. According to the famed medical journal Lancet, the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility (COVAX) promised equitable vaccine supplies for all countries. However, far from achieving such proclaimed equity, COVAX failed to meet even half of its 2021 target of delivering 2 billion doses. In fact, an open letter to G20 leaders in October 2021 illustrated how 133 doses per 100 people were administered to recipients in High Income Countries compared with an appalling four doses per 100 people in Low Income Countries. The WHO Director-General termed this disparity a “vaccine apartheid and making explicit comparisons to the South African system of institutionalised racial segregation. But Murray prefers to give a wide berth and safe passage to this inequity.
Similarly, when it comes to the menace of climate change, Murray is nothing but gung-ho! Asserting, or at least attempting to in a wholehearted manner, that even the usually intransigent CEOs heading the fossil fuel industry are forced to amend their entrenched ways, Murray lays out a plethora of real-life examples to corroborate his claim. Activist shareholders dismantling climate-hostile board members at Exxon, shareholders at Chevron, voting to recommend potential emissions in reductions etc are all alluded to by Murray to prove his point with panache. But at the time of this review, one of the world’s largest Oil & Gas producers, BP, publicly announced a “pivot” back to its core business of Oil & Gas after having boldly declared an ambitious foray into achieving some audacious climate targets. The reason – a fall in BP’s Price Earnings Ratio. The irony of stakeholder capitalism died a thousand deaths. Murray could not have predicted this volte face however, since BP’s latest announcement followed much after Murray’s book was published.
There are many key and indispensable spheres which are totally neglected by Murray. An absolute reluctance on the part of the CEOs to revive or rather resuscitate the lost clout of unions, the blind eye turned to the wreckage that is being left in the wake of the reprehensible practices of Private Equity – acclaimed author Gretchen Morgenson terms PE firms, ‘plunderers’ in her trenchant polemic These are the Plunderers – and a tech cabal that has polarized the world by preying and feeding on the gullible susceptibilities of a vulnerable social media obsessed population, all find absolutely no mention in Murray’s book.
While stakeholder capitalism is no doubt a reason to be optimistic and a cause to look forward to, it is still a long way away from acting as a panacea for ameliorating some of the woes birthed by its more egregious version.
A rising tide does not lift all boats uniformly.
July 15, 2022
Capitalism has come under severe scrutiny, with blame placed on corporate leaders who benefit from the inequalities of a global capitalist system.
Alan Murray, with over 30 years in business journalism, writes Tomorrow's Capitalist to defend global capitalism and corporations while acknowledging the concerns of the critics. He describes monumental changes in the last decade in order to illuminate a path forward.
In a collision of power and influence, he begins with a peculiar story of business executives meeting the pope, who charges them to lead with care and compassion rather than greed. The pope's words become the icon of the criticisms as well as the beacon of hope for what the future might hold.
The first section recounts the rise of the pure profit stockholder capitalism of Milton Friedman and the negative impacts of this business philosophy. These failures have led to a movement towards "stakeholder capitalism", which Murray portrays as corporate redemption.
The second section develops and narrates the shift towards stakeholder capitalism, which focuses on the needs of employees, customers, communities, investors, and ultimately the whole planet, arguing that this version of capitalism will solve the problems created by profit-only capitalism.
The book ends by providing a roadmap for CEOs and businesses pursuing stakeholder capitalism, highlighting some of the areas that require further development.
While the book is crammed with quotes from CEO's and at times reads like a self-serving defense, Murray accomplishes his purpose of documenting the shifting landscape and ongoing challenges of corporate business leadership.
Alan Murray, with over 30 years in business journalism, writes Tomorrow's Capitalist to defend global capitalism and corporations while acknowledging the concerns of the critics. He describes monumental changes in the last decade in order to illuminate a path forward.
In a collision of power and influence, he begins with a peculiar story of business executives meeting the pope, who charges them to lead with care and compassion rather than greed. The pope's words become the icon of the criticisms as well as the beacon of hope for what the future might hold.
The first section recounts the rise of the pure profit stockholder capitalism of Milton Friedman and the negative impacts of this business philosophy. These failures have led to a movement towards "stakeholder capitalism", which Murray portrays as corporate redemption.
The second section develops and narrates the shift towards stakeholder capitalism, which focuses on the needs of employees, customers, communities, investors, and ultimately the whole planet, arguing that this version of capitalism will solve the problems created by profit-only capitalism.
The book ends by providing a roadmap for CEOs and businesses pursuing stakeholder capitalism, highlighting some of the areas that require further development.
While the book is crammed with quotes from CEO's and at times reads like a self-serving defense, Murray accomplishes his purpose of documenting the shifting landscape and ongoing challenges of corporate business leadership.
October 29, 2022
Corporations in the capitalist system have evolved such that the voices of their CEOs now carry an expectation beyond profit & loss. Whereas shareholders of these companies were the loudest voice, social and cultural tectonic shifts place these CEOs, and often the market positions of these companies in a precarious position if they do not appropriately act on issues such as diversity and inclusion, climate, inequality in the workforce, and other related issues. Longtime business journalist Alan Murray describes these shifts and what they mean for the future of capitalism.
March 12, 2023
If you have faith that the likes of Amazon and Walmart will 'save the planet', 'protect workers', 'build communities', and '[insert your fave platitude here]' with zero government oversight because they signed a non-binding agreement to do so, then this one's for you.
September 30, 2022
More later.
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November 25, 2025schoollllllll
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