Too many leaders are still looking at 2026 through the lens of 2025. That’s incrementalism. Safe. Predictable. And it’s the fast lane to irrelevance.
Let me challenge you to flip your perspective. Start with 2030. Project what the world could look like if your industry was radically transformed. Now ask: what would you have to do in 2028, 2027, 2026 to get there?
Vinod Khosla, legendary venture capitalist and founder of Khosla Ventures, puts it bluntly: by 2030, AI will have reshaped industries across the board. From healthcare to automotive, entertainment to national defense, the cost structures, workforce dynamics, and business models we know today will be unrecognizable. That vision is a wake-up call. Khosla’s challenge? Stop working forward. Start architecting backward from the world you want to lead.
Because here’s the truth: disruption is already happening. Healthcare is on the verge of becoming an AI-driven service economy. Entertainment will be dominated by AI-native creators. Nations are already building sovereign AI infrastructure to protect their autonomy. This is what happens when you stop incrementing and start thinking like a disruptor.
This isn’t just about tech. It’s about leadership. You can wait for transformation to come to you. Or you can create it. In every industry, someone will step up and drive costs down, quality up, and rewire the value chain. That person needs to be you.
Don’t just assign this to an innovation team with a mandate to impress the board. Build a portfolio of high-impact, high-upside experiments. 10 projects. Half a percent of market cap each. If nine fail and one hits, you redefine your category.
Here’s how to build your Project 2030 plan:
- Pick Your Industry Moonshot: What breakthrough would redefine your sector by 2030? Start there.
- Reverse Engineer the Roadmap: Work backward—what has to be true in 2028, 2026, and now to hit that?
- Fund Asymmetric Bets: Allocate 5–10% of your budget to high-upside, high-risk projects. Limit downside. Maximize potential.
- Disrupt the Org Chart: Empower cross-functional “disruption pods” to drive execution without bureaucracy.
- Build Cultural Permission: Make radical thinking safe. Celebrate learning from failure. Encourage dissent.
- Set a Bold, Non-Negotiable North Star: This is not a side hustle. Your CEO should be the chief sponsor of this future.
Remember: Most companies fall out of the Fortune 500 not because the tech wasn’t there, but because they couldn’t let go of old assumptions. The rate of churn is accelerating. Khosla predicts up to 50% of today’s Fortune 500 could be gone by 2035.
You want to stay in the game? Build a Project 2030 vision. Align your org around it. Start from where the world is going. Not from where you are. This is your call to co-elevate, to lead without authority, to disrupt yourself before someone else does.
So ask yourself: what’s your Project 2030? And what’s the first bold move you’re making next week to build it?
