In 2013, two University of Oxford professors published a study analyzing 702 different occupations. Of those, they determined that the role of chief executive fell within the 10% they deemed “not computerizable.”

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There’s reason to think twice about that. Here’s why. Anti-Hierarchical Headwinds Broadly speaking, the push toward democratization is arguably one of the most potent social, technological, and economic forces today–one of the few, in fact, that runs powerfully through each of those fields. And while the motives and manifestations of this trend necessarily vary, examples abound. Consider, for example, 42, a tuition-free coding school originating in France and now in Silicon Valley. 42 is essentially a university without instructors where students learn through what the founder calls “collaborative education.” Then there’s the U.S. Army’s recent science and technology Futures Project, “aimed at leveraging the collective wisdom and ability of the American public,” to help influence how the Army will use research and development investments to prepare defense forces for the world of 2040. What few still seem reluctant to question in any practical sense is how much better the “executive mind” really is at even those higher-order challenges. Another example is the “new breed of human organization” that the blockchain-governed Decentralized Autonomous Organization, or DAO, model propounds. In these organizations, token holders vote on which proposals to accept from contractors that build products and services on the DAO’s behalf. No elite decision-makers required. It’s far from clear whether these ventures, in all their diversity, are exceptions to the rule or harbingers of more anti-hierarchical approaches to business, innovation, and governance to come. Certainly from last week’s Brexit to the passions roused by the Trump and Sanders campaigns in the U.S., Western governments are facing waves of anti-elitist sentiment that may not prove a passing fad. While a recent Hewlett Packard Enterprise study found that 79% of teenagers today want to lead a company by the time they reach 29, it’s genuinely worth wondering what kinds of C-suite roles might be left for them by then. After all, the belief that certain problems required “an executive type of mind” was itself the product of a distinct historical moment. In the early 20th century, the management theorist William Henry Leffingwell applied his day’s Taylorist obsession with efficiency to the practice of office management.

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