Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity; second, motivation; third, capacity; fourth, understanding; fifth, knowledge; and last and least, experience.

We are now at a point in time when the ability to receive, utilize, store, transform and transmit data - the lowest cognitive form - has expanded literally beyond comprehension. Understanding and wisdom are largely forgotten as we struggle under an avalanche of data and information.

With the advent of genetic engineering the time required for the evolution of new species may literally collapse.

What will become compellingly important is absolute clarity of shared purpose and set of principles of conduct sort of institutional genetic code that every member of the organization understands in a common way, and with deep conviction.

People are not "things" to be manipulated, labeled, boxed, bought, and sold. Above all else, they are not "human resources." They are entire human beings, containing the whole of the evolving universe, limitless until we start limiting them. We must examine the concept of leading and following with new eyes. We must examine the concept of superior and subordinate with increasing skepticism. We must examine the concept of management and labor with new beliefs. And we must examine the nature of organizations that demand such distinctions with an entirely different consciousness.

The reason is still difficult to explain, but it is not complicated. That inner voice that will not be denied, once we learn to listen to it, had whispered since the beginning, "Business is not what your life is about. Founding VISA and being its chief executive officer is something you must do, but it's only preparatory."

Particularity and separability are infirmities of the mind, not characteristics of the universe.