It has been hard to ignore the executive resignations, AI disruptions, and even criminal implications plaguing leadership over the past year. From alleged inappropriate relationships to outright criminal behavior, it raises a difficult question: when screening executives, is the lens too narrowly focused to properly gauge judgment and integrity?

We are entering the end of exceptionalism—an era in which wealth, innovation, and leadership are no longer treated as special cases exempt from scrutiny, taxation, or market discipline. Scale still commands rewards, but it now comes with visibility, accountability, and cost. Is innovation no longer exceptional? Maybe when we consider that for years, Chinese biotech benefited from a kind of innovation exceptionalism where domestic policy protection, licensing instead of full g