As we clang towards our automated, robot future, the arts and sciences of management need an overhaul. Companies are heading for dramatic changes, and people are going to need different kinds of handling. But managers would rather merge, acquire or divest than analyse their own micro-behaviours. Few want to be told they would be better off managing an espresso maker than a team of real people.

Bad management thrives in industries with limited competition or weak labour markets. When your employees are unlikely to leave, however you treat them, there is no incentive to manage better. Rough them up and they will resign themselves to it.

Silicon Valley is the opposite. The competition is intense, forcing new kinds of management thinking and behaviour, which are by turn original, challenging and absurd — but almost certainly our best hope for adapting before the robots get us.