In a recent tweet, the CEO of Airbnb, Brian Chesky, stated that "people no longer go on vacation to an Airbnb, but now people can already live in Airbnb". This example is an illustration of two macro trends traveling in opposite directions. On the one hand, we live in a world where supply chains are deglobalizing. Covid, Trump, Johnson and Xi Jinping, not to mention Putin, have redrawn us a new, less interconnected world map. However, another much more global and ubiquitous world has emerged, in which people can work in a more decoupled way from the central workplace (and thus also be able to work from an Airbnb). Things are localized, while talent (people) is relocated.
According to Gartner, 50% of employees today apply some hybrid work formula (remote/face-to-face) and, according to Mercer, 90% of companies say that their productivity has improved as a result of this new scheme. Instead of a centralized, stock-like talent model, we're building a new, much more fluid, distributed talent model. Silicon Valley exports talent to Austin and Miami, while Meta places Spain at the center of its global growth plans, partly due to the possibility of attracting remote talent.
It was the bad experience of covid that forced us to rethink almost everything, but Andy Grove, co-founder of Intel, already said that one has to force oneself to disrupt oneself from time to time to avoid going into decline. To a large extent, the fluidity of talent has disrupted the traditional city model. It is no longer about managing hardware (buildings and museums) but an operating system (connection between things and talents). Nicolas Colin, a scholar of entrepreneurship, says that there are two major barriers that limit the growth of an ecosystem: the fragmentation of the market and its actors (silos), as well as the difficulties of experimenting, since every moonshot starts with a small step.
The city today is more of a start-up than ever, and therefore needs new entrepreneurial local leaders, who eliminate barriers and incorporate a more exploratory view of the city, opening themselves up to experimentation. We have created an index, the MBA City Monitor, to predict a city's ability to attract global talent and create future well-being. The global relevance of the Barcelona-Madrid corridor is clear from the ranking, a connection that has not been studied objectively. If we add to this the growth of centers such as Malaga and Valencia, we are facing a window of opportunity of great magnitude to attract the best global talent in this part of the world.
Ivan Bofarul. Chief Innovation Officer, Esade
Natalie Olson. Plug Director
