Why I Wrote 100 Questions for Management in the Age of AI

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# Theory Alone Does Not Change Management

I have published a series of books built around Future Value Theory.

In *Future Value Theory*, I systematized a new way of thinking about corporate value in the age of AI. In *Future Value Theory Q&A*, I explained that theory in an accessible, dialogue-based format. And in *Enterprise Redefinition*, I reframed management in the AI era from the perspective of redefining the company itself.

After that, I wrote two novels.

I did so because there were things that theory alone could not convey — things I wanted to express through the form of a story.

Theory can be understood with the head. But stories move the heart.

What is corporate value?

What is future value?

What should a company aim for in the age of AI?

By depicting these questions through the struggles and challenges of a single business leader, I wanted to deliver the theory not as knowledge, but as an experience.

And when I finished writing those five books, I arrived at one great realization.

Theory alone does not change management.

Of course, theory is necessary. Without theory, experience becomes nothing more than an accumulation of coincidences. A good theory is a map for understanding complex reality.

In my roughly twenty years at IBM, working on many corporate transformation projects, I felt the importance of frameworks and theories again and again. It is because we have a common language that many people can face the same direction, debate, and make decisions.

That was also why I wrote Future Value Theory. Even as AI advanced at a remarkable pace, there was no common language for how to understand it as a matter of management.

Adopt AI.

Promote DX.

Leverage data.

There was no shortage of such discussions. But the more essential questions — "What does a company exist for in the age of AI?" and "What determines corporate value?" — had not been adequately answered by any theory.

So I chose to organize my thinking into a single theory: Future Value Theory.

But publishing a theory changed almost nothing in the real world.

To be sure, many people expressed their support.

"This was a new perspective."

"It made me think about management in the AI era."

Hearing those words made me genuinely glad.

At the same time, I noticed something else: people who understand a theory do not necessarily change their behavior.

Executives read theory. They attend lectures. They participate in seminars. And yet many companies keep repeating the same decisions they made yesterday.

This is not a matter of ability. It is because people do not change simply by acquiring new knowledge.

During my IBM years, I was involved in many corporate transformation projects.

Companies that did not change even after adopting the latest strategy. Companies that saw no results even after implementing the latest DX. And, on the other hand, companies that changed dramatically without any large investment.

Where does the difference lie? I kept thinking about it for years.

And I arrived at one conclusion.

When a company changes, it begins not with a new answer, but with a new question.

"Should we really continue this business?"

"What does this company exist for?"

"Beyond profit, what kind of future do we want to create?"

From the moment such questions are born, a company begins, little by little, to change. Conversely, until those questions are born, no amount of excellent theory will meaningfully change how a company is run.

With the arrival of AI, I believe this tendency will only grow stronger.

Until now, possessing knowledge was itself a source of competitiveness. So was the ability to perform superior analysis. So was the capacity to execute.

But generative AI is rapidly democratizing all three.

Knowledge has moved from an age of searching to an age of conversing. Analysis is no longer the preserve of experts. AI now drafts proposals, writes programs, even prepares contracts.

In other words, the power to produce "answers" will increasingly be carried by AI.

Then what role remains for human beings?

I believe it is the power to ask questions.

What do we aim for?

What future do we want to create?

What do we hold dear?

These are not things AI decides. They are things only humans can decide.

When I realized this, I felt I needed to write a new book.

Not a book of theory. Not a collection of case studies. Not a manual on how to use AI.

A book for executives to pose questions to themselves. A book to be read not for answers, but as a way to think for oneself.

That book is *Management in the AI Era: 100 Questions*.

This book contains no hundred answers. What it contains is one hundred questions.

Because what changes the future is not an answer handed to you by someone else, but a question you have faced with complete seriousness.

Through this book, I have no intention of imposing my views on readers. Quite the opposite. My hope is that these one hundred questions will lead each reader to find their own question one hundred and one.

Management is the ongoing act of choosing the future. And the future always begins with a single question.

That is why, after theory, I chose to write questions.

# The AI Era Will Be an Age of Questions, Not Answers

When I entered the workforce more than twenty years ago, one of the most important assets a company could have was knowledge.

Knowing the industry deeply. Understanding the competition. Knowing the technology. Knowing law, accounting, and management.

Those who knew had value, and that knowledge was the source of corporate competitiveness. That is why companies invested so heavily in hiring talented people, giving them experience, and accumulating knowledge within the organization.

"Knowing" was, in itself, competitive advantage.

But AI has begun to overturn that premise.

When generative AI first appeared, the first thing that astonished me was its ability to write. Reports. Contracts. Proposals. Emails. Work that used to take hours takes shape in minutes.

The next surprise was its analytical ability. Market analysis. Competitive analysis. Financial analysis. Business strategy. SWOT analysis. PEST analysis. Tasks that experts once spent long hours on, AI performs in an instant.

Beyond that, it now writes programs, generates images, produces video, and creates audio.

In other words, AI has begun to take on not only the possession of knowledge but the use of knowledge.

This is not a mere technological innovation. It is an event that changes the very premises of management.

In Future Value Theory, I argue that knowledge, analysis, and execution will be rapidly democratized. Democratization means that capabilities once held by a small number of experts become open to many.

There was a time when owning an encyclopedia had value. Then the internet spread, and being able to search became the norm. And now, generative AI is changing even what it means to "search." Type in what you want to know, and what comes back is not raw information but an answer that has been organized, compared, and summarized.

Knowledge itself, in short, is ceasing to be scarce.

The same is happening to analysis. Building financial models. Analyzing markets. Comparing competitors. Work that was once the strength of consultants and specialists is becoming available to everyone through AI.

Execution is changing, too. AI agents do not merely make suggestions. They create documents, write programs, handle customer service — they carry out the work itself.

Knowledge, analysis, execution. All three will be rapidly commoditized by AI.

Where, then, will human value remain?

I have turned this question over many times.

AI returns answers. But every answer is an answer to a question that a human gave it.

"Analyze the market size."

"Compare our competitors."

"Draft a business plan."

AI returns excellent results. But before every result, something must exist first: the question — what is it that we want to know?

If the question is wrong, no matter how superior the AI, the result will not be superior. A good answer can only stand on a good question.

The same is true of management.

Ask AI "how to maximize profit," and it will present many options. But does maximizing profit alone make a good company?

Ask AI for "cost reduction measures," and many will come back. But if, as a result, employees lose their willingness to take on challenges, has the company's future value increased?

Ask AI for "the most efficient organization," and it will propose a rational design. But will that company's purpose and culture truly be protected?

Here lies the domain where AI cannot answer.

What do we hold dear? What future do we aim for? What do we sacrifice, and what do we protect?

These are matters of values, and matters of will. And will belongs not to AI, but only to human beings.

I believe this means the very role of the executive is changing.

Until now, executives were people who gathered vast information, analyzed it, and searched for the optimal answer. That role will remain, of course. But what matters even more from now on is what questions you ask.

Does our company have a reason to exist ten years from now? What value do we offer society? Not "what do we make more efficient with AI," but "what future do we create with AI?"

Whether a company can hold these questions will determine its future.

This is also the very heart of what I wanted to convey in Future Value Theory. Corporate value is not determined by past performance alone. It is determined by expectations for the future. And those expectations arise from a question: what kind of future is this company trying to create?

That is why I wrote *Management in the AI Era: 100 Questions*.

Not one hundred management theories. Not one hundred rules for success. Not one hundred AI techniques.

One hundred questions.

Because in the age of AI, the greatest value belongs not to those who hold knowledge, but to those who hold questions that create the future.

AI will keep evolving. Knowledge will be democratized further still. Analysis and execution will both be supported by AI.

But the more that age advances, the more vivid becomes the work that only humans can do.

It is to keep asking: what future do we want to create?

AI produces answers. But it is the human question that gives those answers meaning. And that question is the first step toward creating the future.

# Why "One Hundred Questions"?

After finishing Future Value Theory, I thought for a long time about what to write next.

Should I write a new theory? Summarize the latest developments in AI? Explain corporate value in greater depth? Dig further into strategy or leadership?

There were many ideas. But with each of them, I kept feeling: hasn't enough been written already?

We are entering an age in which AI will teach us as much knowledge as we could ask for. New theories, too, will eventually be organized by someone.

Then what is it that only I can write?

The answer I kept arriving at became ***Management in the AI Era: 100 Questions***.

Most business books aim to provide answers.

"What successful companies have in common."

"Seven habits every executive should master."

"Ten points for putting AI to work."

Such books have great value, of course. I myself have learned much from many of them.

In the AI era, however, one great change is upon us: the value of answers is falling fast.

There was a time when knowledge known only to experts carried value. Today, ask a generative AI and you can obtain vast knowledge in seconds. More than that, AI will organize the knowledge, compare it, and tailor proposals to your company.

"Knowing," by itself, no longer sets anyone apart.

What value, then, remains for a book?

I believe it is this: to give people a reason to think.

A book the reader keeps thinking about after closing its pages. A book remembered not at the moment of finishing, but a week later, a month later, a year later. A book you want to open once more when a great decision stands before you.

That, I believe, is the kind of book that will endure in the AI era.

So I chose to write not one hundred answers, but one hundred questions.

Questions have a mysterious power. A good question does not let thought come to rest.

"What does this company exist for?"

"Does pursuing profit alone truly raise corporate value?"

"In an age when AI makes management decisions, what is the role of the CEO?"

Questions like these have no single correct answer. The answer differs with each executive. It differs by industry. It differs with each company's purpose.

And that is precisely why people keep thinking. That accumulation of thought becomes corporate culture, becomes strategy, and gives shape to the future.

There is a reason for the number one hundred as well.

At first I thought ten questions might do. Or thirty, or fifty.

But it was not enough. The AI era is not an age in which only one part of management changes.

The company's reason for being. Leadership. Talent. Competition. Corporate value. Capital. Innovation. Education. Society. How we work. Investment. Organization. Decision-making.

Almost everything changes. No single theme can speak for the age of AI.

One hundred is also an expression of intent: to question management in its entirety.

Of course, there is nothing absolute about the number. It could have been a hundred and twenty questions; it could have been two hundred. But I feel a certain symbolism in one hundred. When people see the number 100, they become conscious of the whole. A hundred years. A hundred points. A hundred books. A hundred people. It is a number that evokes a completed form.

I wanted this book to be a complete map for thinking about management in the AI era. That is why I chose the form of one hundred questions.

And there is one more thing I was careful about: not letting the hundred questions fall apart into fragments.

This book is not a collection of one hundred independent questions. It is designed so that reading it from beginning to end forms a single current of thought. It begins by asking what AI is, then asks about the role of human beings, the reason companies exist, competition, corporate value, and the future — and arrives, at the end, at the question, "What future do I want to create?"

The book itself, in other words, is a journey. Answering the hundred questions, readers find themselves re-examining their own philosophy of management without quite realizing it.

That is the experience I wanted to offer.

When I wrote Future Value Theory, I organized a single idea: corporate value is decided not by the past, but by the future. But that theory takes on real meaning only when each reader translates it into their own company.

"What is our future value?"

"What expectations for the future do we want to earn from society?"

Those questions do not arise from reading theory alone. They are born only through thinking for oneself, wavering for oneself, and searching for one's own answers.

That is why, after theory, I wrote questions. Not to hand over answers, but to offer time to think. I believe that is the new role demanded of books in the age of AI.

And it is my hope that these one hundred questions will be, for each reader, not the last questions — but the first.

# What Is Competitiveness in the AI Era?

"Without AI, we won't survive."

In recent years I have heard these words again and again. And indeed, I believe they are true. AI will become the foundation of every corporate activity.

Not only operational efficiency. Sales, marketing, product development, R&D, human resources, finance, legal, corporate planning — AI will make its way into nearly every corner of the enterprise. Between the companies that do not use AI and those that master it, an enormous productivity gap will open.

And yet one thing has never sat right with me.

Adopting AI is not, in itself, competitiveness.

Look back at history and you see that sources of competitive advantage have always shifted. There was an age when mass production was competitive strength — when owning factories was the advantage. Then quality became the differentiator. Then brand, then marketing and customer experience. And in the internet age, owning data became a source of advantage.

None of it lasted forever. Superior technology eventually spreads. New management methods eventually become common practice. What was once competitive advantage becomes, with time, simply the norm.

I believe AI will follow the same path.

Today, many companies announce that they have "adopted AI." But a few years from now? Most likely, having adopted AI will no longer be news — because it will be taken for granted.

There was a time when a company with a website was rare. A time when launching e-commerce was a competitive edge. A time when using the cloud marked a company as advanced. None of these is special today.

So it will be with AI. Adoption itself will cease to be an advantage.

Competitive advantage is what others cannot easily imitate. An AI that anyone can use does not meet that condition.

What, then, is competitiveness in the AI era?

I believe the answer lies in the power to create the future.

AI derives optimal answers from past data. It organizes existing knowledge, analyzes, predicts. AI is superb at learning from the past.

But what companies truly need is to create a future that does not yet exist.

What kind of society do we aim for? What value do we want to provide? What kind of company do we want to be in ten years?

For these, the past holds no correct answers. The future is not born on the extension line of data alone.

Future Value Theory proposes that corporate value is decided not by the past, but by the future. This does not mean dismissing profit or revenue — sound management requires earnings, without question. But what the market expects of a company is not only how much profit it earned in the past. It is this: what value will this company keep creating from now on? That expectation is what gives corporate value its shape.

The deeper we move into the AI era, the more important this becomes. With AI, anyone can achieve efficiency. But the expectation embodied in "what future is this company creating?" cannot be easily imitated.

There lies a company's true competitiveness.

I think of Future Value in terms of five elements.

Purpose — why does the company exist?

Capability — does it have the technology, the people, and the organization to realize the future?

Capital — does it have sufficient capital to invest in that future?

Ecosystem — can it create value together with society, customers, and partners?

Continuity — can it keep generating that future value over the long term?

Only when these five come together, I believe, can a company create future value.

And not one of the five can be realized by AI alone. AI can support Capability. It can assist in deploying Capital. But it cannot decide Purpose. It cannot hold resolve toward the future.

That is exactly why the human role will not disappear.

What matters here is not the mindset of competing against AI. AI is not a rival; it is a partner.

The strong companies of the coming era will not be "companies that use AI." They will be companies that understand the respective strengths of AI and human beings and create new value from both.

AI supports knowledge, analysis, and execution. Humans set the purpose, envision the future, and make the decisions. The better a company masters this division of roles, the greater its competitiveness in the AI era.

*Management in the AI Era: 100 Questions* contains almost nothing on how to operate AI. No comparisons of the latest tools. No guide to writing prompts.

That is deliberate. Tools change within a few years. Instructions quickly go stale. But questions like "What does the company exist for?", "What is competitiveness in the AI era?", and "What future should we create?" will remain essentially unchanged ten and twenty years from now.

I wanted to write not what is current, but what is essential.

So this book is not a commentary on AI. It is a book for training the executive mind in the age of AI.

Competitive advantage is not possessing AI. It is using AI to create a future no other company can create.

And that future begins with a single question held by a single leader.

# This Book Is Not for Executives Alone

Seeing the title *Management in the AI Era: 100 Questions*, many people will assume it is a book for executives. That is not wrong.

I run a company as its chief executive, and I have spent my career thinking about corporate value. At IBM I worked on many corporate transformations; afterward, I led a portfolio company as CEO on the front lines of management. Today I have founded VURA Capital Innovation Holdings, where I work on value creation in the AI era through investment, management support, and research.

So yes — many of the questions in this book were born from the themes executives face every day.

But as I wrote, I realized something. This is not a book for executives alone. Of that I became certain.

What AI changes is not corporate management alone. It is society itself.

We now stand at one of the great turning points in human history. The steam engine changed industry. Electricity changed daily life. The internet changed information. And AI is about to change intellectual activity itself.

This is not a change confined to one industry. Manufacturing. Finance. Healthcare. Education. Government. Research. The arts. Nearly every field will feel its effects.

To think about the AI era, in other words, is not to think only about management. It is to think about the future of society as a whole.

I teach MBA courses in graduate school. Students sometimes ask me: "If AI advances this far, what should we study?" It is a profoundly essential question.

Once, I might have answered, "Acquire knowledge." Knowledge still matters, of course. But it is no longer enough. AI holds knowledge. It searches. It analyzes. It writes reports. "Having knowledge" alone can no longer explain the value of a human being.

What, then, should we learn?

I believe it is the power to ask questions.

What do we want to achieve? What is society's real problem? What future should we create?

The more a person can hold such questions, the more fully they will be able to use AI.

The same applies to the younger generation. "Will AI take my job?" — I have been asked this many times as well.

Certainly, some jobs will be automated by AI. But the human role itself will not vanish. On the contrary, the work only humans can do will come into sharper focus.

Envisioning the future. Thinking about purpose. Conceiving new value. Connecting different people and creating new forms of collaboration. And above all, deciding what future to choose.

AI cannot do these things.

So I believe the important question is not "Will AI take my job?" but rather "With AI, what kind of future-creating person will I become?"

I hope investors will read this book as well.

In Future Value Theory I proposed that corporate value is decided not by the past, but by the future. This is deeply connected to the philosophy of investing. Investment is not investing in the past. It is investing in the future.

Not just reading a company's financial statements, but asking: what future is this company trying to create? What expectations does it draw from society? Does it have purpose? Does it have the strength to take on challenges?

In the AI era, this perspective grows ever more important. I hope these one hundred questions will offer investors, too, a new lens for seeing companies.

Education will change greatly as well.

Until now, education has centered on teaching correct answers. Exams have right answers; those who memorize the most knowledge are rewarded.

But in the AI era, those values will shift. In an age when AI can present the correct answer instantly, what is truly needed is not memorizing answers. It is the questions you ask.

Why does this problem exist? What is the real cause? Is there not a better future?

Education, too, will move from being a place where answers are learned to a place where questions are born.

This is a business book. But it is also a book about human beings. A book about AI. A book about society. A book about the future.

That is why I tried not to multiply technical terms, and wrote it so that it can be read without specialized industry knowledge. I aimed for a book that could be read not only by executives, but by students, researchers, investors, engineers, designers, public servants — and those about to step out into the world.

Because the future of the AI era will not be created by a handful of executives. Everyone who takes part in society will shape it.

When I wrote Future Value Theory, I thought about the future through the theme of corporate value. In *Management in the AI Era: 100 Questions*, I think about the future through the theme of questions. But the essence is the same.

The future is not something anyone will decide for us. The future is something each of us chooses and creates.

Not only executives. Employees. Students. Investors. Researchers. Every person in society keeps choosing the future from where they stand.

That is why this book is not for executives alone. It is for everyone who intends to create the future.

# What VURA Aims For

When I finished writing *Management in the AI Era: 100 Questions*, I came to one conviction.

This is not a book that stands complete on its own. It is a book that takes on its true meaning only within the framework of Future Value Theory. Put another way: this is a book for thinking through Future Value Theory, not merely reading it.

This is also why I founded VURA Capital Innovation Holdings.

It was not that I wanted to create a company. Not simply that I wanted to write books. Not simply that I wanted to build an investment firm.

What I wanted to realize was a common language for corporate value in the AI era — one that society could share.

What is corporate value? What does a company exist for in the age of AI? What is investment? What is management? What is capital?

Rather than debating these separately, I wanted to organize them into a single body of thought. That is how Future Value Theory was born. And VURA is the platform for carrying that thought into practice.

Over many years of corporate transformation work, what I felt most was that companies fall into partial optimization.

Pursuing DX alone. Adopting AI alone. Reforming the organization alone. Revisiting capital policy alone.

Each has meaning. But to truly change a company, you need a perspective that connects them into one.

A company does not grow on technology alone. Nor on capital alone. Nor is a superior strategy sufficient. Its relationship with society, purpose, people, culture, capital, technology, management — all of these interact to generate future value.

That is why I placed three forces — Business, Technology, and Capital — at the core of VURA: not as separate businesses, but as one mechanism for creating future value.

The Future Value Theory series was designed with the same philosophy.

The first book is theory. The second is Q&A. The third takes up Enterprise Redefinition. The fourth and fifth make the theory something you can experience, in the form of novels. And the sixth creates a space for readers to think for themselves, in the form of questions.

These are not separate books. They are one body of knowledge, designed so that a single philosophy can be entered through different doors.

Some will enter through theory. Some may come to understand it through story. Some will first take interest through a YouTube short. Others may first encounter the words "Future Value Theory" on a podcast.

Wherever you enter, you arrive at the same questions in the end. That is the kind of knowledge system I am aiming for.

Writing books, then, has never been the sole purpose. This is why I publish short videos on YouTube. Why I speak on podcasts. Why I release working papers. Why I publish the theory on our website.

Some read books. Some watch videos. Some listen. Some read research papers. People learn in different ways — and so I want to deliver the same philosophy in many forms, not just one medium.

I call this the Future Value Library. Books, papers, videos, audio, essays — not isolated artifacts, but one connected network of knowledge.

In the AI era, the value of connecting knowledge rises above the value of holding it. What cannot be understood through one book alone often deepens through video, dialogue, and practice.

Nor do I intend to let Future Value Theory end as a "finished theory." I chose the form of a working paper deliberately: publish the research, invite debate, keep improving. Corporate management changes; society changes; AI evolves. If so, theory too must keep evolving.

Future Value Theory is not a single book. I want it to be a living theory that grows through dialogue with society.

The name VURA carries the will to create future value. But what VURA aims for is not its own growth alone.

What we truly aim for is to increase the number of companies in this society that keep generating future value.

For Future Value Theory to become not one company's theory but a common language many companies can use. For Enterprise Redefinition to become not a few companies' concern but society's shared conversation. And for *Management in the AI Era: 100 Questions* to become, for many executives, students, investors, and researchers, a book that turns their questions inward.

That is my hope.

I did not write this book to teach anything. Rather, I want to think together with you.

What does a company exist for in the age of AI? What is corporate value? What work can only humans do? And what future do we want to create?

The answers are not held by a single author. They are found by a whole society in continued dialogue.

So before it is a company, I want VURA to be a place of dialogue. Future Value Theory is the common language for starting that dialogue. And *Management in the AI Era: 100 Questions* is one hundred doorways for continuing it.

# The Future Begins with a Single Question

When I finished writing *Management in the AI Era: 100 Questions*, one thing finally took the shape of words.

This is not a book about AI. Nor is it a book about management. It is both, of course. But what I truly wanted to write was something more fundamental.

In the age of AI, what should human beings think about?

That is the question I wanted to write.

I began my career as an engineer at Sony, then spent some twenty years at IBM working on corporate transformation. Later I led a private-equity portfolio company as CEO, and today I run VURA Capital Innovation Holdings, engaged in investment, management support, and research.

My position has changed. The industries I work with have changed. The technology has changed beyond recognition.

But through every era, one thing has never changed:

Management is the act of choosing the future.

Management is not the analysis of the past. Analysis matters, of course. So does understanding the finances, researching the market, grasping the competitive landscape. But all of these are means for choosing the future. They are not management itself.

AI will continue to evolve. Things unimaginable a few years ago are already real. AI writes prose. It generates images. It produces video. It writes programs. It reviews contracts. It analyzes markets. It prepares board materials. In a few years it will likely take on far more intellectual work.

I do not believe this current can be stopped. Rather, I see it as a technology that brings humanity great possibility. I do not think AI is something to fear.

But there is one thing we must never forget.

AI cannot choose the future.

AI returns answers — but every answer is the result of a question someone gave it. AI analyzes — but humans decide what to analyze. AI presents options — but humans decide which to choose.

AI has no will. No purpose. No longing for the future. No ideal of how society ought to change.

And that is precisely why, as the AI era deepens, the human role does not shrink. It comes into sharper relief.

What humans must carry is not memorizing knowledge, nor out-analyzing AI for speed.

It is deciding what future we want to create.

That is why I wrote Future Value Theory. There are things corporate value alone cannot explain. There is value that profit alone cannot measure. A company is an entity that creates future value. I wanted to organize that conviction into a theory.

And the reason I wrote *Management in the AI Era: 100 Questions* is exactly the same.

Theory alone does not change people. Knowledge alone does not change people. People change when they pose a question to themselves.

"What does our company exist for?"

"What kind of company do we want to be in ten years?"

"What do we want to achieve with AI?"

"Beyond profit, what future do we want to create?"

Only by facing such questions do people truly begin to think about their own future.

That is why I chose to write one hundred questions, not one hundred answers.

I do not expect readers of this book to answer every question. On the contrary — I hope there are questions you cannot answer. Questions that make you waver. Questions you keep thinking about for days.

Because those are the questions that lead to a future that is yours alone.

Truly important questions do not yield answers quickly.

What is our company's purpose? Who are the customers who truly matter? How much of management should be entrusted to AI? What future do we aim for?

These are not questions answered once and finished. Each time the company grows, each time society shifts, each time AI evolves, they must be asked again.

So I hope this will be not a book you read, but a book you keep returning to.

VURA Capital Innovation Holdings holds as its Purpose:

To make people around the world happy.

And as its Mission:

Through social transformation, technological transformation, and capital transformation, to increase the number of companies in this society that keep creating future value.

*Management in the AI Era: 100 Questions* was born as part of that Mission.

I do not believe one book changes the world. But a single question can change a single executive. A single executive can change a single company. A single company can change an industry. And I believe it is that accumulation that changes society.

The AI era will be an age overflowing with answers. Which is precisely why real value will lie not in what answers you know, but in what questions you hold.

The future is not something to predict. The future is something to create.

And the future begins with the will of a single leader. That will is born from a single question.

That is why I wrote *Management in the AI Era: 100 Questions*.

My hope is that this book will be, for you, not a volume of new knowledge, but the first book with which you begin to think about your own future.

AI produces answers.

But it is human will that creates the future.

# Epilogue: I Will Keep Asking

Now that *Management in the AI Era: 100 Questions* is written, I do not consider this book finished. Rather, I think of it as the beginning of a new dialogue.

AI will keep evolving. What could not be done today may be commonplace next year. Technologies unimaginable a few years ago may become part of our daily lives. New industries will emerge, new companies will be born, and the workings of society will change profoundly.

And as those changes unfold, the questions executives must face will keep changing too.

So these one hundred questions are by no means a completed form. Ten years from now, new questions will be added. Some questions will be dug deeper. Some will take on new meaning as society changes.

And that is as it should be. A theory of real value is not one that becomes obsolete the moment it is completed, but one that keeps evolving through dialogue with society.

I also publish Future Value Theory as a working paper. The reason is simple: I do not believe a theory is something one person completes.

Corporate management changes. Society changes. AI evolves. If so, theory must change as well.

Discussions with researchers. Dialogues with executives. Debates with investors. Conversations with students. Through this accumulation, I believe, Future Value Theory will be polished, little by little.

The same is true of *Management in the AI Era: 100 Questions*. I wrote one hundred questions. But what carries real value is that you, the readers, go on to find question one hundred and one, question one hundred and two.

This book does not end at one hundred questions. My hope is that it keeps growing through the questions of each reader.

I believe questions hold a mysterious power. An answer ends in the moment it is given. A question stays alive inside a person.

Some questions take on meaning a week later. Some find their answer only after ten years. And the questions that change a life are precisely the ones that do not yield answers quickly.

So I do not ask readers of this book to hurry to answers. I would rather you waver. Keep thinking.

What is our company's purpose? How should AI and human beings work together? What is corporate value? What is profit for? And what future do I want to create?

To keep holding those questions is, in itself, of great value. That is what I believe.

VURA Capital Innovation Holdings will continue its research and practice of Future Value Theory. We will write books. Update the working papers. Publish on YouTube. Speak on podcasts. Grow the Future Value Library. And in dialogue with many executives, researchers, investors, and students, we will keep nurturing this theory.

What we aim for is not to spread a theory. It is to increase the number of companies in this society that keep creating future value. To that end, we will draw on the three forces of Business, Technology, and Capital, and create the future together with companies.

Future Value Theory is the common language for that work. *Management in the AI Era: 100 Questions* is a book for turning that common language into words of your own.

What the AI era demands is not only the courage to face change. It is to keep asking, amid change, what we will protect, what we will change, and which future we will choose.

The future is not something anyone will decide for us. The future is created by the will of each one of us. And that will always begins with a single question.

So I will keep asking. I will keep writing Future Value Theory. I will keep thinking about Enterprise Redefinition. I will keep asking what corporate value is. And together with you who have picked up this book, I want to keep thinking about management and future value in the age of AI.

If, when you finish this book, what remains in your heart is not one new piece of knowledge but a question —

"What future do I want to create?"

— then, as its author, nothing could make me happier.

AI will keep evolving. But it cannot choose the future.

The future is created by human beings. And that future begins with a single question held by a single person.

I hope, with all my heart, that the number of people who keep holding that question grows — even by one.

That is the real reason I wrote *Management in the AI Era: 100 Questions*.