“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.” — John F. Kennedy

In 2008, American investor and founder of Scion Capital, Michael Burry, made about $825 million (about $725 million for his investors and $100 million for himself) from an unlikely angle of investment in the US housing market.

In the 2000s, the US housing market was booming, and while investors were pouring money in under the assumption that prices were going to keep going up, Mike Burry was paying closer attention to what was happening beneath the boom. By 2005, he had come to the conclusion that the mortgage market would eventually collapse.

Amidst pressure from investors and the disapproval of his peers, Burry reacted to what he was seeing by betting against mortgage investments that he believed would lose value if the housing market collapsed.

By 2007, the US housing market had begun to collapse, and the mortgage investments he had bet against started losing value. His decision eventually yielded a profit of about $825 million, including $725 million for his investors and $100 million for himself.

Similar to Michael Burry’s story is that of Paul Tudor Jones. In 1986, the stock market was in the middle of an aggressive bull run, and most of Wall Street did not believe it would end anytime soon. But Paul Tudor Jones and his team were studying the past as well as the present and noticed similarities between what was happening in the market and the events that had preceded the 1929 stock market crash.

By mid-1986, Jones had begun preparing for the possibility of another major market collapse. He started taking positions that would pay off if the market went in the opposite direction.

On October 19, 1987, the market experienced its largest single-day percentage drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s history, at 22.6%. Jones’ preparation and positioning paid off, and his fund reportedly gained about 62% that month.

While these examples show how foresight can influence financial decisions, strategic foresight is not limited to investments, nor is it simply about predicting what will happen. It is about noticing where the world is heading, recognising the problems or opportunities that direction could create, and positioning your organisation before the change becomes obvious to everyone else or becomes a problem for you.

Forecasting and Positioning for Change: Netflix

Netflix was running a very productive DVD-by-mail business, raking in about $305.3 million in quarterly revenue with 6.8 million subscribers. This great success, however, did not blind them to the possibility of change.

With the advent of faster internet and the growing possibility of online video, Netflix could see that the world was moving towards a point where people would be able to watch movies and TV shows over the internet. So, the company began preparing for that future. In 2007, Netflix launched its instant-viewing service, allowing subscribers to stream about 1,000 movies and TV shows on their computers at no additional cost while continuing to receive DVDs by mail.

As internet access and streaming technology improved, Netflix’s streaming service improved with it, as did its customer base.

By 2013, Netflix had more than 40 million streaming members in 41 countries, watching more than one billion hours of television and movies each month.

Netflix eventually ended its DVD-by-mail service completely in 2023, and by the end of 2025, Netflix had more than 325 million paid memberships globally and reported $45.2 billion in streaming revenue for the year.

The Netflix transition is a clear example of not only foreseeing or predicting change, but understanding where that change could lead, preparing for it early, and building the capabilities needed to take advantage of it. Today, Netflix is one of the biggest streaming entertainment platforms in the world.

At IMMERSE, we believe proactive leadership can still go a step further.

A proactive leader does not only ask, “What is likely to happen, and how do we prepare for it?” They also ask, “What do we want the future to look like, and what can we do today to make that future possible?”

A proactive leader does not always have to wait for favourable conditions—customer behaviours, market trends or other external factors—they create those conditions, just as Steve Jobs and Apple did when they created the iPhone.

Shaping Change, Not Just Responding to It: Apple 

With the release of the iPhone in 2007, Apple redefined the customer expectation of what a smartphone could be. Unlike the previous smartphones—which were mostly button-controlled and limited to the functionalities they came with—Apple presented the iPhone as a smartphone with a large multi-touch screen that combined a phone, an iPod and internet capabilities, as well as an App Store that would make it possible to expand the functions of the phone.

This creation caused a shift in the smartphone market as touchscreens, software and app ecosystems became increasingly important parts of the smartphone experience, and other manufacturers had to respond to the expectations that Apple had created.

The features and functionalities of the iPhone were not necessarily a response to existing customer behaviour or demands. Rather, they shaped and influenced what people thought about and expected from a smartphone.

Dear Leader,

The world has changed, is changing, and will continue to change. And while it is great to anticipate and prepare for these changes, it is also important to ask yourself: how much of this change are you or your organisation responsible for?

Are you only receiving and reacting to change, or are you among those creating it?

Come VLC 2026, holding from the 29th to 31st of October 2026; we invite you to be part of the leaders building what comes next.

This year’s conference, with the theme “Executing Vision in an Age of Disruption,” is a designed to raise leaders who will look beyond what is happening now, anticipate what is coming, and execute beyond intention.

Visit our website to secure your ticket and join other visionary leaders at VLC 2026.

Don’t wait to be told. Be there.