Throughout history, the advantages and costs of technological innovations have been unevenly distributed between the powerful and the rest of society, assert economists Daron Acemoglu and Simon Johnson in their new book, Power and Progress: Our Thousand-Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity. In a Q&A, they discuss what's wrong with today's approach to automation, why machine usefulness is more important than machine intelligence, and what techno-optimists and -pessimists both get wrong.

Describes 37-year-old Ferit Sahenk's challenges in taking over his father's traditionally managed $14 billion Turkish conglomerate in a period of economic instability. Leading the large holding company into the 21st century will require the establishment of a more institutionalized structure as opposed to the highly personal style of Ferit's father as he grew the company over the past 50 years. Addresses issues of how to establish credibility as the company's new leader, how to motivate his board members to participate more in the company decisions, how to manage in a period of increasing international competition and Turkey's political and financial instability, and the complexities of succession in family-owned businesses.

In January 1990, with inflation at 50%, the newly democratic Polish government introduced a draconian plan for a market economy. Most observers expected the Balcerowicz Plan, sometimes referred to as shock therapy, to spur reform through the restructuring of large state enterprises. When it failed to do so, they criticized it. But the plan succeeded in encouraging entrepreneurship, which now appears to be the main force driving economic reform in Poland. It was as if the Polish economy started over in January 1990. The central mechanism for the reallocation of labor and capital from state to private activity has enabled the growth of hundreds of thousands of private businesses. The authors argue that, although state enterprises have proved too unwieldy for rapid change, the Balcerowicz Plan has not failed. If anything, it could have gone further to stabilize inflation and help private enterprise.