This piece is a bit glib, and a bit too free and easy, but it makes a useful point.  So consider this slight blog post a hat tip to the somewhat weak gesture it makes. That's why my thoughts here are so slight as well. 

The piece compares two different "surveys"--I suppose they're really polls--about what threats are facing the world, and what challenges the surveyed feel most fundamentally informing their vision and guiding their actions.

One survey focused on "experts in a broad range of disciplines including business," while the other surveyed "company CEOs." Unsurprisingly, the CEOs are still caught in short-term economic profit-seeking thinking, like over-regulation and economic instability, while the "experts" are concerned with longer-term issues such as climate change and weapons of mass destruction.

The reason for this, the author argues, is straightforward:

business leaders tend to think in economic terms first and ethical terms second. That is, businesses, as you’d expect, tend to focus on their short-term economic situation, while civil society and other experts in the Global Risk Report focus on longer-term social and environmental consequences.

For example, year after year, CEOs have named a comparatively stable set of narrow concerns. Overregulation is among the main three threats in all but one of the years – and is frequently at the top of the list. Availability of talent, government fiscal concerns and the economy were also frequently mentioned over the past 14 years.

In contrast, the Global Risk Report tends to reflect a greater evolution in the types of risks the world faces, with concerns about the environment and existential threats growing increasingly prominent over the past five years, while economic and geopolitical risks have faded after dominating in the late 2000s.

Why is this a problem, he thinks?  Simple--a too-narrow understanding of the CEO's interests:

Fundamentally, risks are about interests. Businesses want a minimum of regulations so they can make more money today. Experts representing constituencies beyond just business place a greater emphasis on the common good, now and in the future.

I'm less convinced that the "experts" here are actually experts.  As I understand it, Davos is about who gets invited, and the criteria for invitation are opaque--mostly celebrity and who you know.  A few figures are there to challenge the narrative but not many.  (The most interesting immanent critique of Davos is one that Davos is very much uninterested in hearing.)  I suspect the experts are a bit more fad-driven and less independent minded than this guy wants to admit.  (I'm still looking for more thoughtful forecasting in the world, so if you know of any resources, don't hesitate to email me a link--I will thank you for it.)

Still, that said, this is a nice contrast between two different sorts of concern.