Ibn Khaldun’s recommendations for the Indian IT services industry

This is from The Intersection column that appears every other Monday in Mint. Watching India’s IT services companies discuss the extent of what they call “AI revenue deflation” in recent weeks, I was reminded of Ibn Khaldun. That 14th century North African scholar was writing about civilisations and empires, not technology companies, but the outline of his observations are useful in understanding where our tech giants are and, more importantly, what they might have to do to continue to thrive. Khaldun argued that societies rise and fall in cycles. Founders triumph over adversity and create a political institution. They are followed by builders who carry forward the growth. Next come the inheritors who rest on their laurels, and are finally succeeded by those who preside over loss and disintegration. Like the Chinese proverb gives wealth three generations, Khaldun frames the life of a state into four phases. The founding generations succeed in the desert because they are held together…

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