Arrey Obenson on Youth, Curiosity, and Why Small Business Is the Path to Global Prosperity Posted on August 3, 2026August 2, 2026 By Kekeletso Nkele, small.news Assistant (small.news) — On July 29, 2026, Arrey Obenson, Co-founder of Transformunity, joined our small.talk to make the case that the world’s greatest untapped opportunity lies in its young people — and that small businesses are the vehicle to unlock it. Arrey joined Silver Lining Founder and CEO Carissa Reiniger spoke about the mindset shifts needed to meet a rapidly changing world, why rigid commitment to the past is the enemy of progress, and how empowering the next generation of small business owners could close income gaps, create employment, and transform communities from the ground up. Q: How do you define what you see as the opportunities in the world right now? A: Yeah. I see various opportunities ahead. The world is full of opportunities because it is changing rapidly. Because the world is changing rapidly, we have the opportunity to move away from burdens that saddled us in the past and into new ones. For example, by 2030, about 2 billion young people will enter the labor market. That is the biggest opportunity. Instead of seeing it as a challenge, we must capitalize on it and create opportunities for them. They are going to face a world designed for yesterday, and yet they can create a world designed for their future. Instead of burdening them now with what we have known in the past, politics, policies, and business initiatives should focus on leveraging that growth in young people to build prosperity for everyone. I see that as a big opportunity. Top Stories What ‘It’ll Never Work’ Is Really Telling Your Small Business In 1976, I was a young employee at Walt Disney Productions. During a brainstorming session in Burbank, I suggested releasing our cartoons on a new format: videotape. The company’s president, Card Walker, looked at me and said: What South Africa’s Small Businesses Understand About Money that the Rest of Us Are Still Learning A manufacturing business owner in Gauteng once explained her business to us in a way no financial statement could. Her company supplied specialized components to larger industrial clients and had a healthy order book most of the year, but every month brought the same knot in her stomach. The Emergency Kit Every Business Owner Needs Somewhere between the business name registration and the first logo draft, somebody told you to write a business plan. And they were right. A business plan matters. It gives your idea structure, your goals a timeline, your vision something to stand on. No argument there. Q: What do you say to the people who think these young people don’t want to work as hard? A: I took my kids to watch the new movie, The Odyssey. And in that movie, a man had to go away for many, many years and then come back to his family. Our conversation was about how long it took to get anything done and how patient people were then. Now, with every generation, century, and decade, the world has changed. We now have enough history and knowledge of the past to help us predict the future. Young people no longer have to cut down trees to build log cabins. When technology creates opportunities, their DNA is no longer designed for the hard tasks past generations faced. We have transformed our capabilities in response to environmental challenges. They no longer face those challenges and are not expected to respond as we did. Accepting this reality is how we can pave the path for the future. Q: How do we create the space for new, young energy innovation points of view? A: Yeah. It requires a mindset shift because we are often rigidly committed to the past or what we know. There is a story about an elephant in the circus that is captured young with a metal ring and ball around its back foot. It grows to 10, 20 times its size and is still bogged down by the same metal ring and ball that is less than its weight. The elephant is just rigidly committed to what it knows, but there is a bigger opportunity outside that ring that the elephant can go around. And so, in the context of, we’re not saying that we move away from the old and the experience, but we need a mindset shift that tells us that the future, because the world is changing and changing faster than ever, than we’ve ever seen. I mean, it took companies like Sears a hundred years to break a billion dollars. And we’re seeing new companies emerge and break through a billion dollars within a short period of time without the necessary experience. Still, they have leveraged a foundation that had been built for them to get to it. So in the same way, whether it’s in politics or in business, it gets to the point where we are discussing AI technology in Congress. It’s not to say cast away the old, but how do we cultivate the mindset of transition to match the changes that are taking place in the world? And it needs advocates like some of us to sound this drum repeatedly for people to begin to think. And of course it’s not going to be easy because no one wants to let go of what we’re rigidly committed to in the past, as I said before. Q: Is rigid commitment the opposite of curiosity? A: It’s just constant curiosity where there is no limit to the age of learning. And you always want to discover what’s on the other side of the mountain that stands ahead of you, because if you’re only looking at the mountain, then you may not ever be able to find out what’s on the other side. So what is needed is asking myself, that’s aging, what am I missing? And what have I not thought about? What have I not planned for? And it’s in those questions, curiosity, that you would find the answers that should help us really lead the world to a better place. Q: What do you think the biggest opportunity for young people is from an economic point of view? A: Yeah. I see change as the greatest opportunity for small business owners and young people because we are already seeing traditional models falter and established systems are struggling to adapt. So, there’s going to be new spaces for innovation opening up, and the people who are uniquely positioned to seize these opportunities are those who are agile, those who are unburdened by bureaucracy. So talking about those small businesses and those who are deeply connected to communities, because let’s not lose sight of communities. And if young people are given access to capital, technology, and networks, small businesses can leapfrog all these outdated models and build a more equitable and sustainable future for everyone. As I mentioned earlier about this youth bulge that we’re going to see by 2030, there is a need for us to empower that youthful population, because if we can increase the ability to earn an income, we can then begin to close the income disparity gap. We can create more employment opportunities because after all, 90%, the statistics say 90% of businesses in the world are small businesses. Exactly. They provide 50% of global employment. But if you can begin to close that income gap and offer employment at all levels, the conversation about inclusion is being addressed just by enhancing prosperity, especially for younger people. And that in itself drives development in communities away from the headlines of newspapers and magazines. But those changes actually will be taking place in communities. Q: What are you most worried about for small business owners? A: Well, my concern is going to be that small businesses will be forced to navigate a rapidly changing landscape without sufficient support. Whether it is limited access to capital, the challenge of adapting to new technologies, or the maze of evolving new regulations, they all seem to be stacked against them. And that is the one challenge: we need to find a way to offer support to small businesses so that they can navigate this rapidly changing landscape. Q: What’s the opportunity for small businesses? A: Well, the opportunity obviously is that young people are innovative. Given the opportunity, we’ll be able to adapt to new technologies faster than existing infrastructure. They will be finding solutions based on what they’re experiencing in their communities now. And that experience reflects the need communities face. Those solutions will be coming from small businesses. Q: If you had a Magic Silver Wand, and you could make one thing true for every single small business owner on the planet right now, what would you use your silver wand for? A: Well, I argue in my book that I wrote, which is titled Bridging the Opportunity Gap, that the path to prosperity runs through small businesses. And that by investing in small businesses and supporting the scaling of their ideas, we have the power to turn poverty into prosperity, to resolve conflicts and overcome this us-versus-them mentality that so often paralyzes society. So I would use my magic wand to change the global financial structure, to prioritize investing in future solutions. Q: How do we support you? A: My book, Bridging the Opportunity Gap, can be found on Amazon. And I have a second book coming out, hopefully in October, titled The Power of Unlearning: Creative Solutions for a Changing World, which is really about what we’re talking about here, but thinking about it further. One of the reasons why we are excited about collaborating with Silver Lining is that we have experienced, traveled the world, and seen the struggles of young people and businesses around the world, but also seen the creative solutions that they bring to their societal challenges. We have to multiply the advocates for this next generation of global leaders in many ways. They’re small businesses, but they’re a mighty peaceful army that’s going to transform the world. Do you want to shop small? Check out our new buy.small Marketplace! Latest Stories
What ‘It’ll Never Work’ Is Really Telling Your Small Business In 1976, I was a young employee at Walt Disney Productions. During a brainstorming session in Burbank, I suggested releasing our cartoons on a new format: videotape. The company’s president, Card Walker, looked at me and said:
What South Africa’s Small Businesses Understand About Money that the Rest of Us Are Still Learning A manufacturing business owner in Gauteng once explained her business to us in a way no financial statement could. Her company supplied specialized components to larger industrial clients and had a healthy order book most of the year, but every month brought the same knot in her stomach.
The Emergency Kit Every Business Owner Needs Somewhere between the business name registration and the first logo draft, somebody told you to write a business plan. And they were right. A business plan matters. It gives your idea structure, your goals a timeline, your vision something to stand on. No argument there.