Is the future of Swedish industry a Black Swan?

Today I had the opportunity to talk to a guy who had been sacked after more than 30 years in a Swedish high tech company. He was an IT expert, with a very long impressive CV. As far as I understand there are not many people with his knowledge and experience in the world.

I don't know why he lost his job. Someone must have thought that it wasn't a good business case to keep him. Maybe he was considered too old (in Sweden you should not be much older and know more than your manager) and too well payed. I don't know.

During the lunch he gave me some details on GI diets and explained why the human body does put on weight when we eat carbohydrates. He also shared some other theories in other areas. My impression was that this wasn't a guy that had stopped learning or stopped using his brain, and besides he was a pleasant person.

Interesting to note is that his former employers' most aggressive competitor is planning to hire him. It seems they see a business case in paying for using his experience and skills. Their strategy is to use his and others experienced brains to figure out the best way of doing things and then let more inexperienced and cheaper labor implement it.

If my grand children ask me in the future what happened to the Swedish industry, the industry that used to be very successful and important to this country, I think I have a good story to tell them. But no good explanation why nobody could foresee what was going to happen to it. Maybe I should tell them that important people with insight later on explained it as a Black Swan, that they couldn't foresee because they had not seen it happen before ...