The book's call for action that leaders must learn how to navigate disruption and uncertainty—foreshadowed the subsequent global crises, including the COVID pandemic, corporate blowups, military conflicts, and social strife.

Tilman is the author of dozens of original works, including Risk Management (2000) co-authored with BlackRock’s co-founder Bennett Golub.

In collaboration with Edmund Phelps, he co-authored a 2010 Harvard Business Review proposal to reignite U.S. economic dynamism by creating the First National Bank of Innovation.

Tilman was one of the main architects of a public/private partnership involving the White House Rural Council,[9] U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the Farm Credit System[10] that brought billions of private capital to innovative companies and projects.

Organizations that adopt this mindset thrive amidst uncertainty and disruption, and are able to turn today's challenging environment into an advantage—one that supports their vision.

"Financial Darwinism explains the tectonic shifts now underway in the investment world far better than any book I have seen to date," writes David M. Rubenstein, co-Founder of The Carlyle Group.

Tilman proposes that the basic key to understanding the behavior of modern financial institutions and capital markets lies in the recognition of the fact that the process of economic value creation in finance has undergone a fundamental transformation.

In order to demonstrate this, the book introduces the concept of risk-based economic performance that helps depart from the outdated accounting-earnings-inspired mental paradigm.

Thus, the second part of this book uses this evolutionary perspective to introduce an actionable decision-making framework designed to help financial executives respond the ongoing challenges.

They help define financial institutions' strategic vision that properly integrates customer-related and risk-taking decisions, thus unifying business strategy, corporate finance, investment analysis, and risk management.