What Gangsters and Hackers Can Teach As About Thriving in the Modern Economy

In a world where the old 'social contract' has been tossed out the window, where AI is taking over human resources and the 'traditional' path feels more like a dead end - where do you look for the new rules of survival?

Do you look to the old school executive leaders or do you look to the fringes, the creatives, the disruptors? Perhaps there are still ideas and business models which come from well outside the norm that can offer unconventional ways we could move ahead and possibly even achieve unreasonable results?

In this episode, we’re looking back at my chat with economic historian and author of The Misfit Economy Alexa Clay, who spent years inside informal, grey, and black markets, talking to gang leaders, hackers, and pirates, and discovered that they weren't 'just criminals' - they were the most agile entrepreneurs on the planet.

And while the story we’re often told about great business leaders is almost always 'the lone genius with a venture capital war chest', Alexa noticed that the most radical innovation happens when there is zero safety net. So could this 'grey market' be the blueprint for an increasingly uncertain economy?

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