The state of the gig economy

At the end of last month, Axios released a special report on the growth of the US gig economy, acknowledging that the exact number of on-demand workers is hard to pin down while at the same time highlighting the probability that gig-economy participants are most vulnerable to losing work to automation and that many of the new jobs that comprise today’s gig economy will, in the not-too-distant future, cease to exist. From the Fight for $15 as minimum wage to the rethinking of work and safety nets to the very definition of on-demand work, take a deep dive into the gig economy here.

+ Cognizant’s Center for the Future of Work has released its latest Jobs of the Future Index.

+ Now streaming on HBO: VICE Special Report—The Future of Work

Are you ready to hail the driverless car?

Among the jobs widely believed to be subject to elimination by automation is driver—be it for a ride-hailing app or a long-haul trucking company—as many enterprises work on bringing autonomous vehicles to market. The entertaining and enlightening debate podcast Intelligence Squared US recently took on the topic of whether the world is ready for autonomous vehicles and, perhaps more important, whether driverless cars will ever be ready for the real world. Supporting the motion “All hail the driverless car!” were Amitai Bin-Nun, vice president of autonomous vehicles and mobility innovation at Securing America’s Future Energy (SAFE), and Chris Urmson, cofounder and CEO of autonomous vehicle tech company Aurora. Transportation safety expert Ashley Nunes, a senior research associate at Harvard Law School and MIT, and data journalist Meredith Broussard, author of Artificial Unintelligence: How Computers Misunderstand the World, opposed the motion. All presented reasoned arguments to defend their positions, bringing up both well-trod tropes like the trolley problem and intriguing facets of this topic not yet widely considered. Listen in here.

Using Uber as public transit: A cautionary tale

After a quiet spell in the wake of Travis Kalanick’s departure from the CEO role, Uber is back at the top of the news this week due to its much-anticipated IPO. At the same time, another Uber story is making the rounds, focusing on the town of Innisfil, Ontario. This rural Canadian community on the outskirts of Toronto was growing so fast that it was caught without a public transit system. Instead of creating fixed bus routes, the town decided on a less expensive mobility solution, partnering with Uber to subsidize rides for residents. Within little more than a year, the plan became a victim of its own success:

Adoption of Innisfil Transit was fast and steady: The program racked up 86,000 rides in 2018. Nearly 70 percent of respondents to a city survey said that they were satisfied or more than satisfied with the new service—figures that would be the envy of any traditional public transit agency. But that popularity meant costs grew for the town. So now residents will have to cover more of their own trips. “It’s the growing ridership and popularity of the service,” town planner Paul Pentikainen said. “It’s been a great success, but there are also challenges with working with a budget.”

Normally, though, raising transit fares when ridership is growing is backwards logic. While passenger fares almost never cover the full cost of service, more passengers riding fixed-route buses and trains should shrink the per-capita public subsidy, at least until additional routes are added. On a well-designed mass transit system, the more people using it, the “cheaper” it gets. But the opposite is happening in Innisfil. Only so many passengers can fit in the backseat of an Uber, and the ride-hailing company, not the town, is pocketing most of the revenue. With per-capita costs essentially fixed, the town is forced to hike rates and cap trips as adoption grows.

Along with rising fares, the town’s 30-ride cap per rider per month—a move that Uber suggested—has raised the ire of townspeople. As other communities consider forming partnerships with ride-hailing services to make up for inadequate public transportation services, CityLab’s examination of the Uber in Innisfil program could prove instructive. (On Monday, author Laura Bliss discussed this cautionary tale with Kai Ryssdal on Marketplace. Listen in here.)

+ Last month Mayor Rahm Emanuel announced the publication of comprehensive data on transportation network providers—including Uber, Lyft, and Via—on the city of Chicago’s open data portal, a move that Tim O’Reilly applauded, urging other cities to follow suit.

Building Silicon Valley success with $500

A few months ago, John Reynolds of the Irish news site Independent.ie caught up with Tim O’Reilly to trace his family roots back to Kerry, explore the premise of Tim’s book WTF?, and examine the source of his success. Tim explained how he began his business, starting out as a tech writer determined to work for himself and do interesting work, building his company around finding people who are doing new and important things, and helping other people learn from them. He bootstrapped the business, starting with $500 and growing it over 40 years to its current position as a leader in tech-related publishing, conferences, and online learning with annual revenues approaching $200 million. In an age when many entrepreneurs base their success on how much money they can attract from investors, Tim has always focused on running a long-term, sustainable, profitable business. Says Tim:

You can tell very quickly whether a business is a real company or a financial play. Real firms’ founders talk about their customers and revenues. The financial play guys emphasise how much money they’ve raised.

Despite a linkbait title (we don’t think Tim “conquered” anything, let alone Silicon Valley) and two small factual errors (Tim is an admirer of—though not an investor in—Zipline, and Pearson was O’Reilly’s biggest competitor back in 2000 when O’Reilly launched its online learning marketplace and invited Pearson in as a partner), this article provides a good look at Tim’s background, principles, and business practices. Learn how Tim “conquered Silicon Valley” with $500.

+ See why Tim admires Zipline in this video from the 2016 Next:Economy Summit—“On-Demand Drone Delivery for Blood and Medicine,” featuring Zipline founder Keller Rinaudo—exclusively available on O’Reilly.

Joi Ito opens up on Masters of Scale

In the Independent.ie article linked above, Tim O’Reilly discusses his role in the nascent open source movement. He’s got a kindred spirit in Joi Ito, entrepreneur, venture capitalist, and director of the MIT Media Lab. Ito was a popular DJ in Chicago in the 1980s, and he finds a similar sense of community in the open source world as he found in dance clubs. But while he has practiced and advocated for radical openness, he’s no absolutist; his perspective on openness in the context of business and institutions has evolved as he tries to bring more open access to a closed university while also helping sustain necessary institutions like the New York Times. Entrepreneur and VC Reid Hoffman, the founder of LinkedIn, invited Ito to discuss his professional path and the balance between open and closed in this fascinating episode of Hoffman’s podcast, Masters of Scale: “Open or Closed? The Answer Is Both.”

+ The Mozilla Foundation recently released a report on the state of “internet health,” focusing on how the web functions in five areas, including openness. Read it here.

MIT’s deep dive into climate change

After years of climate activists clamoring for attention, the media now increasingly focuses on the pressing issue of climate change, and more businesses, government entities, and educational institutions are taking steps to avoid looming ecological disaster. The question remains whether the human race can take sufficient action fast enough to stave off global catastrophe or if the response will be too little, too late. This month, MIT Technology Review devoted its issue to hard facts and inconvenient truths about the ramifications of climate change. Says editor in chief Gideon Lichfield:

[While] one should never give up on mitigation, it’s time to start talking more about adaptation and suffering—about the technologies the human race will need in a catastrophically altered world, and about the economic, political, and social realities of living in it.

Access the May/June special climate change issue of MIT Technology Review here.

+ Last week, the UK became the first country to declare a climate emergency.

+ On Monday, the UN released a report finding that about one million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction.

+ Reuters reports that as sea levels rise, the UN has joined a partnership to study the prospects of floating cities.

+ From the Seattle Times: Washington may become the first US state to legalize the composting of human bodies.