Lee, modern Singapore's political father, remains a powerful presence in his homeland -- and, like Singapore, casts an outsized shadow on the global stage -- even though he stepped down as prime minister a decade ago. When he arrives this week in Davos, Switzerland, for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, he'll still rank among the elite of an already select group of political, business and academic leaders.

Lee has ruled with the firmest of hands. Now, as the Digital Age emerges, he seems reconciled to some new, technology-driven facts of social and economic life -- such as loosening the governmental grip that many believe helped bring Singapore to its current prominence.

Leadership, he said in an interview at his Singapore office late last year, is ``the ability to see the future a little clearer than the others.'' As a leader you map out the ``desirable locations you can reach. Then persuade your people to make that arduous journey to a set location.''

The journey was, perhaps, clearer in years past as Lee and his colleagues worked to elevate Singapore from a Third World, colonial backwater into the first tier of developed nations. They built a solid infrastructure, educated their people and strictly enforced the social norms they felt necessary for a First World nation.

Lee, in the process, became a major player on the global stage, widely admired for his geopolitical virtuosity -- and reviled in some circles for his harsh methods.

I was prepared to find Singapore an unsettling place on my first, recent visit. That was the case, because a conformist dictatorship -- albeit a relatively genteel version -- underlies the golf-course tidiness and capitalistic fervor that has brought the nation so far, so fast.

But I also expected a close-up view of the senior minister's well-known strengths, notably the sheer intelligence, savvy and practicality that have won him acclaim from other leaders. And that, too, was the case, because the man is enormously impressive in person.

Somewhat surprisingly, however, Lee expressed some frank uncertainties about what lies ahead -- and made clear that massive, even disruptive, changes will be part of the process. In some respects, he seemed to be saying, the old game is up, whether anyone likes it or not.

``It's uncomfortable,'' Lee says of the relentless trend toward a global economy. ``You can slow it down at a price. But if you stop it, you're going to be a loser.''

The information-technology revolution is forcing as much change on those who run governments as the people who are governed, Lee says. In Singapore's first 40 years, there were some obvious ways to move the economy and society forward -- watching what other countries did, creating a robust infrastructure, focusing on a few key value-added sectors, training the population and so on.

Now, with information technology at the heart of the budding economy, the older kind of training is not so useful. Now it's like creating an artist. And artists either have what it takes or they do not.

Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, respectively the chairman and chief executive at Microsoft Corp., ``are special people,'' Lee says. ``They've got that something. So has John Chambers of Cisco. I've met them. Apart from the inner drive, it's the ability to see this changing technology and the possibilities it has in certain directions, and to anticipate and be there and produce it and say, `Here you are.' And it's something that everybody wants to use.''

Government should still put in place an infrastructure that helps people create and operate businesses, Lee says, and Singapore is spending more than ever in this way. But something else is also on the agenda, because developing an information-fueled economy is about more than that.

``We also have to change our mindsets,'' Lee says.

Many Asian cultures have strongly disapproved of the kind of failure that has been so useful in Silicon Valley -- failure where you learn from the mistakes and do things better the next time. Today's young Singaporeans are being urged to be less conformist, to take more of these kinds of risks. That's going against the grain to a major degree. It's also essential, Lee says.

``Now we've got to tell them, `Look. If you want to get to the summit, you've got to take risks. If you fail, you've got to try again,' '' he says. ``And failure is no disgrace in this new age of new technology. It's being tested all over the world.''

Who will succeed? ``The entrepreneur, the inventive, the innovative mind, he's going to hit the jackpot,'' Lee says. ``And the societies that encourage this kind of innovation will prosper more than others.''

An Information Age economy is all about the Internet. A famous Silicon Valley saying holds that the Net regards censorship as damage, and routes around it. How, I ask Lee, does that truism apply in a nation that has censored the Net?

The nation recognizes reality, he replies. Yes, Singapore will continue to block a relatively small number of Web sites that feature pornography and violence. But the bottom line is that the Internet ``is something we can't control now.''

He hopes that the people of Singapore have built a moral and ethical base that will, in effect, immunize them from the worst effects of objectionable online material -- that parents and schoolteachers will imbue young people with what they need.

``It is unsettling,'' he says, ``because you don't know the end result.''

Are Singapore's modern traditions sufficient to ward off the negative effects he fears? ``I hope,'' he says.

``I hope,'' he repeats, ``that there will be an inner call that will survive all this onslaught.'' But people will have help, he believes, from sources of reliable information that emerge through the misinformation.

One of the smartest things Lee and his colleagues did -- at least in the context of building an economy that could compete globally -- was to make English an official language. Educated in British schools before Singapore became independent, Lee's English is excellent.

I ask what particularly good decisions he has made during his career. A sabbatical in the United States back in 1968 offered him a close look at the US economy and politics, he says. He saw how dynamic the world was becoming, moving at a quicker pace in so many ways, and he applied what he had learned when he returned home. What about poor decisions? ``Oh, quite a few,'' he laughs, then points to one in particular. ``We were too hasty in opening up our society,'' he says. ``We were young students in Britain after the war, and we came back and said, `It's silly not to educate the girls.' ''

The idea was to double the talent pool in the population, he says. ``So we educated them all and made jobs available; we passed a Women's Charter. But we didn't foresee one problem. We could not change the cultural prejudices of the men and their mothers. The men are afraid of being seen as hen-pecked by well-educated, high-earning wives. And mothers-in-law are frightened of highly educated daughters-in-law who talk back to them.''

As a result, well-educated women weren't marrying, while educated men married women with lesser educations. ``At each level they married down,'' he says, ``and the lowest-educated men got no wives.''

The lesson was clear. ``We were ignorant of the cultural lag,'' he says. ``You can change legislation and suddenly open up opportunities, but you can't change cultural habits'' quickly. The problem has eased somewhat in Singapore society, but it endures among Islamic women. ``An educated Muslim woman graduate is likely to have to marry a foreigner or stay unmarried,'' Lee says. ``It's just ridiculous.''

During his long political career Lee has met just about every other leader of any stature. The greatest, he says, was Deng Xiaoping, who led Communist China from 1976 until his death in 1997.

In 1978, Deng tried to persuade Lee to support China against the Vietnamese, whom the Chinese considered a provocative influence in Southeast Asia.

``I told him my neighbors consider him a danger because there are no overseas Russians in their region; but there are overseas Chinese -- and he and his Communist Party, broadcasting day by day, are encouraging these insurrections, and sending them arms, and other support.''

To Lee's surprise, Deng was willing to take criticism -- and even asked what he should do. ``I said, `Stop it. Then we might get together.' Two years later he stopped all this'' -- and began a liberalization process that, albeit with fits and starts, has continued. Deng was ``a very great man,'' Lee says.

It's too early to know how Lee will be viewed in the history books, despite the real accomplishments and, conversely, the authoritarian qualities that earned the scorn of liberty-oriented outsiders. In his recently published semi-autobiography, From Third World to First,' he notes that the survival record for city-states isn't good. Singapore's future is anything but guaranteed.

But Lee plainly grasps the new realities. His recipe for dealing with the Internet era's challenges, if translated to the people, does suggest risks -- necessary ones, he says, as in the case of recognizing the futility of censoring the Internet.

If fear of the wrong result leads Singapore to avoid risk, ``then definitely we'll be left behind,'' he says. ``We'll be marginalized. So we just have to take the chance.