To understand true globalization’s playing field, businesses must learn a new way of looking at the map. National borders filled in with different colors are not just irrelevant, they are distracting, as are pins in cities. Instead, companies need to see the world’s urban centers and to understand their nature at a glance.

The difference between a business executive and a manager, an entrepreneur and an engineer, an investor and so much of what Wall Street has busied itself with over the last fifteen years is the difference between the unknowable and the known.