In both of these seemingly diverse industries, decisions about parts, risks and returns are made in the vacuum of virtually unchecked darkness. In companies today there's no direct linkage between the tasks your people are doing and the goals of the organization.

This isn't a lack of automation It's a lack of visibility. Regardless of industry, the world's largest companies are houses of cards, built on darkness and risk.

This should scare all of us.

Ironically, the off-shoring, which was the first response to the symptoms of the artisan-economy-on-steroids, served to increase risk and darkness even as it hid behind the allure of cost savings.

Because the growth in the service workforce was not easily scalable (costs went up in a linear fashion as heads were added), CEOs found it easier to fire local workers and hire distant ones who were paid a fraction of their U.S. counterparts. These executives took the easy way out, often-times they actually added headcount to an already-unwieldy process and boasted about their "savings."