Lots of great links apropos our discussion of the future of work. Sent from my iPhone
Begin forwarded message: > From: Social Capital <[email protected]> > Date: December 11, 2016 at 14:01:52 PST > To: <[email protected]> > Subject: Snippets: Sunday, December 11, 2016. Direct to Consumer collective > bargaining > Reply-To: Social Capital <[email protected]> > > > > Snippets - December 11, 2016 > As always, please forward this weekly mailer to friends and colleagues and > encourage them to sign up. You can also view this email and past issues in > your browser. Enjoy! > Share > > Tweet > > Forward > > One theme we’ve returned to regularly in Snippets over this past year is the > idea of “Direct to Consumer” as a fundamental consequence of software and the > Internet. After the holiday break we’ll be releasing a more in-depth series > on how and why this happens. And we’ve just seen this transformation lay > waste to the American political campaign establishment, so likely no source > of inertia is too big or will stay safe for long. > > One of the major social and economic compacts that is increasingly at odds > (if not outright under threat) by modern technology is the grand bargain > between companies and workers - the employer-employee compact. This compact > served a very important role over the last century: if I work for your > company loyally, you take care of me with benefits, a pension, career > stability, and a long term source of worth. This week, two stories in the > news helped illustrate the problem at hand. First, the whole drama around > Carrier automating and outsourcing jobs from Indiana to Mexico, then maybe > not - and then their CEO frankly admitted the plain reality, which is that > automation will inevitably eliminate most of these jobs no matter what. > Second, and closer to the tech community, Amazon’s plans for their new > grab-and-go cashier-less supermarkets, aptly named Amazon Go. Although it was > more of a tech than a national story, and is not yet fully realized, it > reminded us that retail cashiers are the second most common occupation in the > United States - and may become another job that fades away in time. So it’s a > good a time as ever to talk about the job that the employer-employee compact > used to do - and what might possibly replace it. > > Thomas Kochan, from the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research, had > this to say about the issue in a recent PBS Newshour around the future of > work: > “In terms of a market failure, it’s the reality that it’s not in the > interests of any individual firm in the United States to try and solve the > jobs problem. So, we’ve got to figure out a way to deal with that… and the > only way you solve this is by getting people and institutions and > organizations to work together, to engage these issues collectively. It’s > about an institutional failure over the last thirty years. With the decline > of the labor movement, you’ve seen a lot of institutions go downhill > equivalently. We don’t see the kind of dialogue, we don’t see the enforcement > of our social norms and social policies that discipline corporations, and > that really provided the kind of collective spreading of wage patterns and > wage norms across the society. > We’ve got to rebuild those, but we can’t try to rebuild them in an > old-fashioned way. Now we’re in a more digital economy, a more > knowledge-based economy, and we need to invent the new institutions that will > cut across and aggregate these interests to address these challenges. We’ve > got to get the education community working with business and employers, > working with labor and civil society. I’m not a believer that technology is > going to naturally eliminate jobs and cut income, but if we don’t do anything > about it, if we just leave it, as we have, to individual market forces and to > individual corporate actions and to individual technology innovations, then > that’s probably where we are headed.” > > The issue at hand, which Peter skates around but doesn’t quite hit directly, > is that the labor movement and workers in general are being disintermediated > from the interaction between providers and consumers. To be clear, not all of > these jobs are being lost to technology - a solid half of American > manufacturing job losses are more attributable to foreign competition than to > tech, for example. But overall it’s hard to imagine what might arrest this > trend in the long run, short of sweeping government action. So what’s to be > done here? In a generation, what might a “Direct-to-Consumer” equivalent of > the traditional union’s bundle economics look like? What do consumers have, > in aggregate and at meaningful scale, that can be valuable in collective > bargaining for our well-being, security and perhaps even our self-worth? > > One thing we can reject pretty much right off the bat is our attention - i.e. > advertising. It’s tempting to consider as a thought experiment, since > advertising is the original form of “Subsidize something the consumer wants > (the news; entertainment; Google search) in exchange for something the > consumer has (their attention; their intent).” But advertising revenues are > only 1 to 1.5 percent of GDP, and a truly attention-based economy rapidly > devolves into something horrifying. The “Fifteen Million Merits” episode of > Black Mirror comes to mind. > > What about consumer loyalty? That might be slightly more plausible. It’s the > basic promise behind Amazon Prime, or Costco, or even Walmart really - if you > pledge loyalty to Prime (as, let’s be honest, most of us probably have), > Amazon will fight relentlessly for you. It would be pretty cynical to suggest > that the Prime bundle could one day become the direct-to-consumer version of > a labor union, but it makes a creepy amount of sense. > > What’s left? Well, we’re still taxpayers - but the idea of deliberately > expanding our governmental social safety net, agree or not, has been rejected > in the United States for the time being. Maybe that will inevitably change, > if “end of work” rhetoric intensifies and proposals such as Universal Basic > Income gain more traction. We’ll see. For now, as tech-driven > disintermediation intensifies, it’s never been a better time to be a consumer > - and that’s looking increasingly permanent. To be continued... > > > On a happier note, apparently we found a dinosaur tail preserved in amber - > and it had feathers. That’s pretty neat. > > First dinosaur tail found preserved in amber | Kristen Romey, National > Geographic > > > Automation and machine learning is everywhere, including medicine: > > Translating artificial intelligence into clinical care: editorial | Andrew > Beam & Isaac Kohane, Journal of the American Medical Association > > Adapting to artificial intelligence: radiologists and pathologists as > Information Specialists | Saurabh Jha & Eric Topol, Journal of the American > Medical Association > > Vic Gundotra: in five years, machine learning will be a part of every > doctor’s job | Eric Johnson, Recode > > Machine learning approach for skill evaluation in robotic-assisted surgery | > Fard et al., 2016 World Congress on Engineering and Computer Science > > > Interviews and commentary: > > Joi Ito of MIT Media Lab on technological whiplash, nonviolent resistance, > and the risk of Silicon Valley “floating away" > > Wired founder Kevin Kelly on letting go of AI anxiety | Slack Blog > > Michael Milken: Brexit, Trump events were years in making | Bloomberg > > > And other reflections: > > Fundamental truths | Rebekah Cox > > Considering economic recovery | Kanyi Maqubela > > General Pencil Company: a photo essay | This Built America > > > Reading for the holidays: > > My favorite books of 2016 | Bill Gates > > YC’s winter reading list | Y Combinator > > Announcing our second eBook: Understanding Social Platforms | Version One > Ventures > > > Artistic expression, old and new: > > Danny Barker: giving a great jazz storyteller his due | Gwen Thompkins, The > New Yorker > > How the Internet unleashed a burst of cartooning creativity | The Economist > > > Other reading from around the Internet: > > How the Circle Line rogue train was caught with data | Daniel Sim, Singapore > Open Data Portal > > Millions in US still living life in Internet slow lane | Jon Brodkin, Ars > Technica > > The dividends of funding basic science | L Rafael Reif, WSJ > > We’re set to reach 100% renewable energy - and it’s just the beginning | Urs > Hözle, Google Infrastructure > > Functional versus unit organizations | Steven Sinofsky > > The operating system fountain of youth: iOS | Jean-Louis Gassée > > Keynes vs Hayek: who’s winning now? | Financial Times Alphaville podcast > > The man who invented Libor: the world’s most important number | Gavin Finch & > Liam Vaughan, Bloomberg Markets > > > In this week’s news from the Social Capital family, > > Flutterwave announced the official launch of their product, Moneywave - a > payments API tailored for Africa. As you can imagine, reality on the ground > for African customers and merchants is quite different from here in the > United States: one-size-fits-all solutions fall flat in a continent where all > parties are rapidly going mobile-first (or mobile-only) and many solutions > compete with each other within and across country lines. If you want to find > out more or to use Moneywave, you can find their API documentation here. > > Flutterwave aims to unify Africa’s fragmented payment systems and empower > small businesses | Devin Coldewey, TechCrunch > > Congratulations to Greenhouse for winning #1 for Best Places to Work in > Glassdoor’s annual Employee’s Choice awards! If you’re not already following > Greenhouse’s blog, please do. It’s regularly updated with great thinking and > leadership around the 21st century workplace, employee motivation, and > company culture, and shows why they’re a deserving winner. Greenhouse is > currently hiring for positions in New York and San Francisco, so please > forward along to anyone who might be interested. > > What being named a Glassdoor Best Place to Work means for Greenhouse | Maia > Josebachvili, Greenhouse > > And finally, Intercom has launched another new product: Educate. Intercom is > leading the way when it comes to improving how companies can communicate with > their customers, and their newest product helps scale support for situations > where customer can find their own answers quickly and effectively. In > contrast to the automatic-chatbot concept that has permeated Silicon Valley > over the last year, Intercom offers a way for customers to address their own > questions and issues in an automated way that doesn’t dip into the ‘uncanny > valley’ of robotic near-assistance. To find out more, check out their video > on Educate and their vision for the future Knowledge Base. > > Announcing Educate: what a knowledge base should be | Intercom Blog > > Building robots to mimic human behaviour dissolves users’ trust. Intercom has > another solution | Cliff Kuang, Fast Co Design > > Have a great week, > > Alex & the team at Social Capital > > Share > > Tweet > > Forward > > Follow us on Twitter @socialcapital > > Suggestions for next week's Snippets? Send 'em to @alex_danco > > Copyright © 2016 Social Capital, All rights reserved. > You are receiving this email because you are a portfolio company or a friend > of Social Capital. > > Our mailing address is: > Social Capital > 120 Hawthorne Ave > Palo Alto, California 94301 > > Want to change how you receive these emails? > You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list > -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
