Larry Summers: ‘Smart Businesses Are Going to Maintain Flexibility’

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Communication, Marketing, Business, Business/management, Management, Business/marketing, Business/entrepreneurship, Innovation, Hbr, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Teams, Harvard

4.4 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 1 July 2025

⏱️ 27 minutes

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Summary

Lawrence H. Summers, former U.S. Treasury Secretary and President Emeritus of Harvard University, has seen the ups and downs of the American economy throughout the decades. As leaders today contend with fears of economic downturn, the growth of artificial intelligence, tariffs, inflation and more, he shares what he thinks we should—and shouldn’t—be worried about. He also discusses how he believes businesses can create stability through macroeconomic uncertainty, and how coming technological and economic forces will shift the labor market, policy agendas, and more.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just promoted, Wharton Executive Education's People Management for Emerging Leaders gives you tools to manage teams, projects, and performance.
0:11.5	Live online, six weeks.
0:13.5	Learn more at Whartonemergingleaders.com. com.
0:33.8	I'm Adi Ignatius.
0:37.3	I'm Alison Beard, and this is the H.Ber IdeaCast.
0:49.1	Alison, I know we talk a lot about how difficult it is these days to be a business leader.
0:58.8	And I'm interested in your conversations, what do you think is top of mind for business executives who are trying to manage these very uncertain times?
1:13.2	That is a good question because there are so many different things right now. I would certainly say shifting economic policies, artificial intelligence has to be incredibly high on the list, how to harness Gen. AI and agentic AI for the best use and not be disrupted by it. And then geopolitical instability
1:21.1	in Europe and the Middle East, I think there are plenty of things to keep CEOs up at night right now.
1:29.9	It feels like an unprecedented level of uncertainty.
1:32.3	You know, at the same time, there's a playbook for uncertainty.
1:36.5	And there are people who have something to say about how to manage a company when things are as uncertain as they are in all the areas you talked about.
1:41.5	So today's guest is somebody who I think can really talk at all levels
1:46.7	about how to think through all these challenging issues, but also how to cope, how to manage
1:52.7	the uncertainty in your own company. And that is Larry Summers, former Treasury Secretary,
1:57.7	former president of Harvard University, and an economist who is just generally
2:02.0	well respected. He's certainly someone that can connect all those dots I just talked about.
2:06.8	He's also currently on the board of OpenAI, so I'm very interested to hear what advice he has.
2:12.9	You know, businesses can't wait for these things to be resolved. Many of them will never be resolved.
2:16.7	So I think
2:17.8	there's some insights here into how to move forward, how to how to take action. I spoke to him as
2:22.3	part of our new HPR executive live series, and we decided to open this one up to the broader
	...

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