Tim Leberecht is the German–American co-CEO of the House of Beautiful Business, a global think tank and community of over 50,000 people that aims to make humans more human and business more beautiful. His 2015 book The Business Romantic was an international bestseller. He speaks to The Beautiful Truth about how businesses – and humans – can thrive in a world on the cusp of a new epoch defined by artificial intelligence.

Your mission is to make business more beautiful. What does that mean?

The Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa said: “Beauty is the name of something that does not exist.” In other words, it can be aspirational, stimulating our imagination to envision everything we want business to be – but isn’t yet.

Recently, we’ve been using the term ‘life-centred economy’. It’s the successor of the human-centred economy. Previously, putting humanity at the centre led to the issues we currently face in our late-capitalist system. Instead, we look to truly honour interspecies life, planetary boundaries and all forms of intelligence, including AI – the life around us and within us – all working against the toxic ‘Silicon Valley’ culture we’ve grown accustomed to.

AI is polarising and often viewed as either humanity’s doom or saviour, but you’re suggesting a more nuanced perspective.

Yes, all types of intelligence are crucial to decision-making. We need emotional, somatic, spiritual and cognitive intelligence. Artificial intelligence plays a role – it’s our new strange companion that we must learn to coexist with. Combining all these notions of intelligence will create a new form of confronting and shaping reality, moving beyond the narrow slice offered by purely rational, post-industrialist management mindsets of the past.