Right now the institutional leadership in the US is (a) composed almost entirely of baby boomers, a relatively narrow age band, and (b) significantly worse than average (as compared to comparable institutions and leaders in other countries). When they start retiring, they won’t be replaced with people who are only slightly younger, but by people who’re much younger and spread across a larger range of ages, causing organizational competence to regress to the mean, in many types of institutions simultaneously.
I also believe—and this is much lower confidence—that this is the reason for the Great Stagnation; institutional corruption is suppressing and misrouting most research, and a leadership turnover may reverse this process, potentially producing an order of magnitude increase in useful research done.
Right now the institutional leadership in the US is (a) composed almost entirely of baby boomers, a relatively narrow age band, and (b) significantly worse than average (as compared to comparable institutions and leaders in other countries). When they start retiring, they won’t be replaced with people who are only slightly younger, but by people who’re much younger and spread across a larger range of ages, causing organizational competence to regress to the mean, in many types of institutions simultaneously.
I also believe—and this is much lower confidence—that this is the reason for the Great Stagnation; institutional corruption is suppressing and misrouting most research, and a leadership turnover may reverse this process, potentially producing an order of magnitude increase in useful research done.