For most of history, workplaces controlled people by telling them what they couldn’t do. Today the control works differently, by removing all restrictions and letting people push themselves to their own limits.
In this conversation, Mark Orlic unpacks what philosopher Byung-Chul Han calls “The Burnout Society” where individuals are both victim and perpetrator of their own exhaustion.
We also discuss what AI is doing to the human fabric of organisations, why multitasking is an animal behaviour rather than a human one, and what Mark noticed about himself only after stepping back from corporate life.

Mark D. Orlic spent over two decades at Big Four consulting firms, as a Partner and AI Leader, where he advised governments, multinationals, and institutions across Europe on strategy, digital transformation, and the economic forces reshaping the continent. He was responsible for building and leading the AI practice in Germany at a moment when the gap between institutional ambition and institutional readiness was at its most consequential. He brings to his book, Geisterfahrer, what no purely German perspective could: a triple-identity shaped by Croatian roots, an American upbringing, and long-term residency in Germany. It is a vantage point that produces neither the insider’s blind spots nor the outsider’s condescension – only the particular impatience of someone who loves a place enough to tell it the truth. He is a lecturer at the University of Mannheim on social and fiscal policy questions that form the book’s analytical core, and speaks regularly on strategic transformation, Germany’s economic crossroads, and the leadership demands of the AI transition. He lives with his wife and three young children in Germany.

References:

Mark D. Orlic LinkedIn profile

Geisterfahrer: Germany at a Societal, Political and Economic Crossroads (English Edition)

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