, Columnist
Sanjeev Gupta's Grand Designs Should Have Been a Warning
He sold a vision that the coming industrial revolution would be a smooth process with only winners and no losers. The reality is quite the opposite.
Grand ideas and grim outcomes.
Brendon Thorne/Bloomberg
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In the years when he traveled the world snapping up threadbare metal plants with money from insolvent supply-chain finance firm Greensill Capital, Sanjeev Gupta sold an enticing vision.
The rich world’s aging industrial base wasn’t destined to a future of losses, redundancy and out-competition by larger, more modern factories in Asia. Instead, it could transform itself in the white heat of technological change, preserving jobs and revitalizing declining towns while retrofitting polluting industries ready for a net-zero world.