- The Open Secret: Designed to Fail
- The Myth of “Away”
- The Delusion of the Success Ladder
- A Call to Conscientious Leadership
Walk into any room in your house and look around. How many items do you see that you
genuinely need for your survival or basic comfort? Now, look closer. How many of those items
did you buy because you felt a sudden, inexplicable urge to own them—an urge manufactured
by a sleek advertisement or a carefully timed notification?
We live in an era where the line between “need” and “want” has not just been blurred; it has
been erased. We are no longer simply consumers; we are targets. Companies, particularly the
tech giants and fast-fashion moguls, have mastered the psychology of compulsion. They don’t
just sell products; they sell a cure for the very anxiety they create. You aren’t just buying a
phone; you are buying “connection.” You aren’t just buying a shirt; you are buying “relevance.”
The Open Secret: Designed to Fail
It is a harsh reality to digest, but the leaders of these industries have, at various points,
essentially confessed to a business model that thrives on our dissatisfaction. This isn’t a
conspiracy theory; it is an economic strategy known as planned obsolescence.
The term was popularized in the 1950s by industrial designer Brooks Stevens, who defined his
mission as “instilling in the buyer the desire to own something a little newer, a little better, a
little sooner than is necessary.” Today, this philosophy is the bedrock of the global economy.
Tech CEOs may not stand at a podium and admit to destroying the planet, but their actions
speak louder than confessions. When a smartphone is sealed with glue to prevent repair, or
when software updates slow down older devices, the message is clear: “Throw it away. Buy the
new one.”
They have successfully engineered a culture where durability is a flaw and disposability is a
feature. They are not merely fulfilling demand; they are manufacturing it, knowing full well that
this endless cycle of consumption is driving the “demise of consumers”—both financially and
environmentally.
The Myth of “Away”
The most dangerous lie we tell ourselves is the concept of “throwing it away.” We toss a broken
dryer or a torn pair of shoes into a bin and feel a sense of resolution. But where is “away”?
There is no such place.
“Away” is usually a landfill on the outskirts of your city, or worse, a shipping container sent to a
developing nation. “Away” is the Agbogbloshie e-waste dump in Ghana, where young men burn
our discarded electronics to extract copper, inhaling toxic fumes that shorten their lives.
“Away” is the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a swirling vortex of microplastics choking marine life.
When we discard these items, they do not vanish. They linger. The synthetic fibers in that fast-
fashion shirt will take hundreds of years to decompose, releasing methane and leaching
chemicals into the soil and groundwater. By treating the Earth as an infinite trash can, we are
contributing to atmospheric destruction that no amount of corporate “greenwashing” can
undo. We are buying our own destruction, one credit card swipe at a time.
The Delusion of the Success Ladder
Perhaps the most tragic players in this game are us—the early graduates and aspiring leaders.
We enter the corporate world with bright eyes, desperate to climb the ladder of success. But in
our rush to the top, we often develop a delusion: we equate higher profits with higher purpose.
We are trained to optimize, to market, and to sell. We celebrate when we exceed quarterly
targets, rarely stopping to ask how those targets were met. Did we convince people to buy
things they didn’t need? Did we cut costs by using cheaper, non-recyclable materials? In our
pursuit of the “success ladder,” we often become the very architects of the waste crisis. We
dissociate our daily work—the spreadsheets, the marketing campaigns, the product
launches—from the physical reality of the mountains of waste accumulating across the globe.
A Call to Conscientious Leadership
To the upcoming graduates and the new generation of corporate entrants: You are about to
inherit a broken system, but you do not have to perpetuate it.
As you step into the world of profit margins and KPIs, I urge you to keep your conscientiousness
alive. Do not leave your ethics at the door. When you sit in a boardroom and hear discussions
about “shortening the replacement cycle” or “cutting production costs,” be the voice that asks,
“At what cost to the planet?”
True success in the future will not be measured by who sold the most units, but by who solved
the problem of consumption without destroying the source of life. You have the power to
redesign products to last, to market responsibly, and to lead with a conscience. The corporate
world will try to mould you into a soldier of profit. Resist it. Redefine it. Because if we don’t,
there will be no “away” left for any of us.