Consultant management: McKinsey loses its shine
Economist Podcasts
The Economist
4.4 • 4.9K Ratings
🗓️ 5 August 2025
⏱️ 23 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The world’s biggest strategy consultant has smaller rivals nipping at its heels. As it nears 100 years old, we ask how it will navigate a tricky AI-inflected future. It is already hard enough to fiddle with travel plans to get the cheapest flight. A new thing to consider? Whether you’re flying solo. And in America, women’s-sports bars are proliferating.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey, it's Adam Grant from Worklife, a podcast from TED. |
| 0:05.3 | This episode is brought to you by FreshWorks. |
| 0:08.0 | FreshWorks believes the complexity is the enemy of efficiency. |
| 0:11.2 | So stop wrestling with bloated expensive service software that takes forever to implement an update, |
| 0:16.4 | where ROI is someday, not today. |
| 0:19.1 | You've been overcharged and underserved for way too long. |
| 0:22.7 | Uncomplicate with fresh service for IT and fresh desk for customer support. |
| 0:27.9 | And with FreshWorks AI-assisted service software, you'll work smarter, not harder. |
| 0:33.0 | FreshWorks uncomplicates. |
| 0:34.6 | Learn more at freshworks.com. The Economist. Hello and welcome to the intelligence from The Economist. |
| 0:53.6 | I'm your host, Jason Palmer. |
| 0:55.9 | Every weekday, we provide a fresh perspective on the events shaping your world. |
| 1:04.9 | Everybody knows that airlines have wildly complicated algorithms that set their pricing. |
| 1:10.6 | Staying through a Saturday tends to be |
| 1:12.2 | cheaper, for example. But big American carriers now have a new wheeze, and solo travelers should beware. |
| 1:21.0 | And you can probably picture an American sports bar. Lots of beer, lots of televisions, lots of men drinking beer and watching televisions. |
| 1:29.2 | We look at a growing trend that makes one |
| 1:31.2 | crucial change to this scene. |
| 1:33.5 | There are a lot more women. |
| 1:42.2 | But first... |
| 1:43.3 | But first... I don't have to tell you that it's a period of great global and technological change. |
| 1:55.5 | It's exhausting and confusing. |
... |
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