The Belgian Who Predicted Tomorrow's Business—And What He Sees Next

Dr. Niklas Richter · 2026-09-24

### The Man Who Saw Tomorrow First Peter Hinssen has been predicting the future of business for three decades. And he's been right. Every single time. He started his first company back in 1995. Since then, he's built multiple businesses, took one public, and authored six bestsellers. He teaches at London Business School and MIT. He's keynoted for CEOs at Apple and Proximus. Through Nexxworks, he leads innovation tours to Silicon Valley, Shanghai, and Hangzhou. But here's what makes him different: he doesn't just talk about what's coming. He lives it. ### Why AI Isn't Just Another Tech Buzzword According to Hinssen, AI isn't hype. It's a fundamental shift that touches everything—from how a roofer in Ohio writes an estimate to what the job market looks like a decade from now. > "AI is not a tool you add to your business. It's a new operating system for how business gets done." He's not guessing. He's seen it firsthand. During a recent trip to Chinese factories, he watched AI-powered systems run production lines with almost no human intervention. The efficiency stunned him. And it made him ask hard questions about what Europe—and America—need to do differently. ### What He Learned From Chinese Factories Hinssen walked through factories where robots and AI worked in sync. No wasted movement. No downtime. Just relentless output. He realized that the West is still thinking in terms of "adopting" AI. China is already living it. That gap, he says, is the real competitive threat—not tariffs or trade wars. - **Speed of implementation**: Chinese factories deploy AI in weeks, not years. - **Integration mindset**: They don't treat AI as a separate department. - **Scale**: What starts in one factory spreads to hundreds almost overnight. ### His Own Entrepreneurial Journey—And What He'd Do Differently Hinssen is refreshingly honest about his own path. He's built startups, made hard calls, and had exits. But if he started over today? He'd focus less on perfecting the product and more on understanding the customer's real problem. He'd hire slower and fire faster. And he'd embrace uncertainty as a feature, not a bug. That last point is the core of his newest book, *The Uncertainty Principle*. He wrote it using Claude and ChatGPT as sounding boards. What surprised him? How the AI started to learn his own thinking patterns. It became less of a tool and more of a mirror. ### The 100-Slide Rule and Other Unconventional Methods Hinssen uses 100 slides in a 10-minute keynote. That's 10 slides per minute. Sounds insane, right? But it works. Each slide is a visual punch. No bullet points. No reading from the screen. Just rapid-fire ideas that stick. He also takes entrepreneurs and their kids on a Youth Tour to China. Twenty families. One goal: see the future through younger eyes. Because kids ask questions adults are too polite to ask. ### Why He Chops Wood Every Summer Every summer, Hinssen retreats to his farm. He chops wood. He drives tractors. He disconnects. It's not a vacation. It's a reset. A way to clear the noise so he can hear what's next. And that's the lesson for every entrepreneur: you can't predict tomorrow if you're too busy surviving today. ### What This Means for You If you're an entrepreneur—whether you run a roofing company in Texas or a SaaS startup in Berlin—Hinssen's message is simple: - AI is not optional. It's the new baseline. - Speed matters more than perfection. - Uncertainty is your friend, not your enemy. - Step back regularly to see the bigger picture. The future doesn't wait for anyone. But if you pay attention, you can meet it head-on. And if you want to hear the full conversation—including his thoughts on Europe's biggest mistakes and why he still believes in the power of small teams—you'll want to listen to the whole episode. It's a masterclass in thinking ahead without losing your humanity.