What Risk Managers Can Learn from the Roots of Modern Technology
by Aaron Brown
Risk managers who want to take advantage of technology cannot simply have access to it. Whether we’re talking about, say, cybersecurity or machine learning or blockchain or digital currencies, to truly benefit from technology, you must understand how and why it was developed.
By now, we all realize the interconnectedness and the effects – both good and bad – of the global technology ecosystem. The latter was on full display with last week’s faulty CrowdStrike cybersecurity update to the Microsoft Windows operating system, which caused a worldwide IT outage that impacted some large banks, among many other businesses.
This event drove home the need for risk managers to better understand the “how and why” of modern technology. Knowledge of history and of the evolution of innovation can, of course, help with this pursuit – but risk managers who are fortunate also learn valuable lessons from advisers. It was almost exactly 50 years ago that I met the first of four people I consider my mentors: the mathematical sociologist Harrison White, who recently died.
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