---
id: "contrarian-corporate-planning"
type: "contrarian-insight"
source_timestamps: ["\\\"§ Inside the Firm", "the Same Fog\\\"", "§ Optimizing for the Unknown"]
tags: ["corporate-finance", "strategic-planning", "contrarian-insight"]
related: ["action-stage-gate-capital", "claim-capex-obsolescence"]
speakers: ["Toby E. Stuart"]
challenges: "The standard corporate finance practice of using 5- to 10-year DCF and ROIC models to justify capital expenditures."
sources: ["futures"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-futures"
originDay: 2
articleStem: "hbr-foci-72-future-ai-fog"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/04/the-future-is-shrouded-in-an-ai-fog"
sourceTitle: "The Future Is Shrouded in an AI Fog"
---
# Contrarian: 10-Year Corporate Planning Is Dangerous

**Contrarian insight (Stuart):** Most large organizations rely on 5- to 10-year ROIC forecasts to justify heavy CapEx. Stuart argues that in the [[concept-ai-fog|AI fog]] this standard practice is **actively dangerous**: because AI can collapse setup costs and destroy moats within 2–3 years ([[claim-capex-obsolescence]]), a 10-year forecast is *essentially fiction*. Leaders should abandon it for VC-style stage-gating ([[action-stage-gate-capital]]).

**Challenges:** The core corporate-finance practice of using 5- to 10-year DCF/ROIC models to justify capital expenditure.

**Counter-perspective — 'Living Plans':** Adjacent work ('Don't Trade Skyscrapers for Tents') accepts the fog but rejects the diagnosis. Capital-intensive industries (energy, transport, heavy manufacturing, public infrastructure) **must** plan on multi-decade horizons due to asset lifetimes and regulatory processes. The danger is treating 10-year plans as **precise predictions**, not having long horizons per se. The proposed synthesis: **keep large, long-duration goals but make the plan itself 'living'** — continuously updated and wired to short-term reality, augmenting (not replacing) long-term commitment with scenario planning and real options.