Well, just like that, the unofficial end of summer. Labor Day weekend. But I agree with Shawn Micallef: “Defy the crowd and keep enjoying summer.” There are still weeks of it left.
But given that it is Labor Day weekend, here are two things to think about.
The first is a Financial Times article by Lawrence Summers where he argues that America needs unions more than ever and that, indeed, the central issue of American politics today is the “economic security of the middle class.”
Here is an excerpt that speaks to declining bargaining power on the part of labor:
“But I suspect the most important factor explaining what is happening is that the bargaining power of employers has increased and that of workers has decreased. Bargaining power depends on alternative options. Technology has given employers more scope for replacing Americans with foreign workers, or with technology, or by drawing on the gig economy. So their leverage to hold down wages has increased.”
It’s also worth mentioning that only about 6.4% of private sector workers in the U.S. are in a union today. This is a decline of almost two-thirds since the 1970s and is a good segue into the second thought of this post.
Two years ago Fred Wilson wrote a post on his blog (which he reblogged today) where he argued that “labor needs a mechanism to obtain market power as a counterbalance to the excesses of markets and capitalism.”
But, that this mechanism needs a refresh. He calls it Union 2.0.
“However, like all bureaucratic institutions, the “Union” mechanism appears anachronistic sitting here in the second decade of the 21st century. We are witnessing the sustained unwinding of 19th and 20th century institutions that were built at a time when transaction and communications costs were high and the overhead of bureaucracy and institutional inertia were costs that were unavoidable.”
This makes perfect sense to me.
At the same time, we can’t forget – and this is how Summers ends his article – that, today, “the most valuable companies are the Apples and the Amazons rather than the General Motors and the General Electrics.”
That tells me that what may have worked in the past will likely not work in the future.
Photo by Jonas Viljoen on Unsplash
Today it was announced that Amazon is planning to launch its “Prime Now” service in Vancouver and Toronto this November and January, respectively.
The pilot program will offer two-hour deliveries for members and, according to the Wall Street Journal, will be be heavily focused on groceries.
It’s worth noting that most of Whole Foods’ stores in Canada (now owned by Amazon) are in and around Vancouver and Toronto. And that Amazon has already started lowering prices to make those stores more competitive.
Right now a “Prime” membership in Canada costs CAD$79 per year. I’m not sure if the price will change at all for “Prime Now”, but let’s assume for the sake of argument that it won’t.
If this service was available to you today (or if you’re in a city that currently has it), would you (do you) use it? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.
Two common objections around online grocery shopping are that many people want to touch and feel the goods before they buy and that perishable deliveries are a challenging thing to coordinate.
I think I can work around those objections and would certainly try this today if it was available in Toronto. What about you?
Well, just like that, the unofficial end of summer. Labor Day weekend. But I agree with Shawn Micallef: “Defy the crowd and keep enjoying summer.” There are still weeks of it left.
But given that it is Labor Day weekend, here are two things to think about.
The first is a Financial Times article by Lawrence Summers where he argues that America needs unions more than ever and that, indeed, the central issue of American politics today is the “economic security of the middle class.”
Here is an excerpt that speaks to declining bargaining power on the part of labor:
“But I suspect the most important factor explaining what is happening is that the bargaining power of employers has increased and that of workers has decreased. Bargaining power depends on alternative options. Technology has given employers more scope for replacing Americans with foreign workers, or with technology, or by drawing on the gig economy. So their leverage to hold down wages has increased.”
It’s also worth mentioning that only about 6.4% of private sector workers in the U.S. are in a union today. This is a decline of almost two-thirds since the 1970s and is a good segue into the second thought of this post.
Two years ago Fred Wilson wrote a post on his blog (which he reblogged today) where he argued that “labor needs a mechanism to obtain market power as a counterbalance to the excesses of markets and capitalism.”
But, that this mechanism needs a refresh. He calls it Union 2.0.
“However, like all bureaucratic institutions, the “Union” mechanism appears anachronistic sitting here in the second decade of the 21st century. We are witnessing the sustained unwinding of 19th and 20th century institutions that were built at a time when transaction and communications costs were high and the overhead of bureaucracy and institutional inertia were costs that were unavoidable.”
This makes perfect sense to me.
At the same time, we can’t forget – and this is how Summers ends his article – that, today, “the most valuable companies are the Apples and the Amazons rather than the General Motors and the General Electrics.”
That tells me that what may have worked in the past will likely not work in the future.
Photo by Jonas Viljoen on Unsplash
Today it was announced that Amazon is planning to launch its “Prime Now” service in Vancouver and Toronto this November and January, respectively.
The pilot program will offer two-hour deliveries for members and, according to the Wall Street Journal, will be be heavily focused on groceries.
It’s worth noting that most of Whole Foods’ stores in Canada (now owned by Amazon) are in and around Vancouver and Toronto. And that Amazon has already started lowering prices to make those stores more competitive.
Right now a “Prime” membership in Canada costs CAD$79 per year. I’m not sure if the price will change at all for “Prime Now”, but let’s assume for the sake of argument that it won’t.
If this service was available to you today (or if you’re in a city that currently has it), would you (do you) use it? I would love to hear your thoughts in the comment section below.
Two common objections around online grocery shopping are that many people want to touch and feel the goods before they buy and that perishable deliveries are a challenging thing to coordinate.
I think I can work around those objections and would certainly try this today if it was available in Toronto. What about you?
I had a friend ask me this week about how I decide what to write on this blog. His comment was that I tend to write about a variety of different topics. He wondered: Isn’t it better to focus on one particular niche?
The simple answer is that I write about what interests me. And secondary to that is any concern around what will get the most clicks. In fact, I try not to fall into the trap of worrying about the latter. Sometimes it can be paralyzing to fixate on what will appeal most to the tens of thousands of people who read this blog on a regular basis.
The reality is that my interests are much broader than, say, just design and real estate; though these two topics are clearly central.
I learned a long time ago while studying architecture and art history that what we make as a society is generally a product of the cultural milieu at the time. In other words, the built environment doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It is the physical manifestation of what we believe to be true at a particular moment.
Today, it’s pretty hard to ignore the importance of tech. Think of some of the most valuable companies in the world right now: Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and so on. Now, technology has always shaped our cities, but what makes this moment different is the decisive shift toward software.
It’s arguably no longer about who can build the best mousetrap. It’s about who can build the best software layer on top of that mousetrap.
In 2011, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen (previously the co-founder of Netscape) published a widely shared essay called, “Why Software Is Eating the World.” And over the past 6 years he has been proven to be very right.
The 3 main points he aimed to make with that essay are as follows:
Every product or service that can become software will become software.
Every company will have to become a software company.
The winning companies will be the best software companies.
Depending on your industry, this may sound ludicrous to you. Certainly in 2011 it probably seemed that way.
But a perfect example of this phenomenon is the iPhone. The phone itself is manufactured in China, albeit where a lot of great hardware innovation is taking place.
But at this point, phones have become fairly commoditized. The profits that Apple makes from the iPhone disproportionately come from the software layer and the app ecosystem it has developed.
You could make a similar argument with Tesla. Autonomous navigation – which most of us can agree will have a profound impact on cities – is largely a software challenge.
And so if you believe that autonomous vehicles will be a fundamental part of the future of mobility, then it’s not that hard to believe in point number three: the winning car company will also have to be the best car software company.
Some industries have been less touched by tech and software – real estate being one of them. But if Andreessen is right and it’s not a question of if, but a question of when, then it behooves all of us to think about the potential impacts.
I love how Andreessen ends this podcast discussion with Barry Ritholtz of Bloomberg and so I’m going to repeat it here to close out this post. He says: “There are no bad ideas. There are only early ideas.”
And that’s why I write about tech on my city building blog.
Photo by Michal Pechardo on Unsplash
I had a friend ask me this week about how I decide what to write on this blog. His comment was that I tend to write about a variety of different topics. He wondered: Isn’t it better to focus on one particular niche?
The simple answer is that I write about what interests me. And secondary to that is any concern around what will get the most clicks. In fact, I try not to fall into the trap of worrying about the latter. Sometimes it can be paralyzing to fixate on what will appeal most to the tens of thousands of people who read this blog on a regular basis.
The reality is that my interests are much broader than, say, just design and real estate; though these two topics are clearly central.
I learned a long time ago while studying architecture and art history that what we make as a society is generally a product of the cultural milieu at the time. In other words, the built environment doesn’t happen in a vacuum. It is the physical manifestation of what we believe to be true at a particular moment.
Today, it’s pretty hard to ignore the importance of tech. Think of some of the most valuable companies in the world right now: Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, and so on. Now, technology has always shaped our cities, but what makes this moment different is the decisive shift toward software.
It’s arguably no longer about who can build the best mousetrap. It’s about who can build the best software layer on top of that mousetrap.
In 2011, venture capitalist Marc Andreessen (previously the co-founder of Netscape) published a widely shared essay called, “Why Software Is Eating the World.” And over the past 6 years he has been proven to be very right.
The 3 main points he aimed to make with that essay are as follows:
Every product or service that can become software will become software.
Every company will have to become a software company.
The winning companies will be the best software companies.
Depending on your industry, this may sound ludicrous to you. Certainly in 2011 it probably seemed that way.
But a perfect example of this phenomenon is the iPhone. The phone itself is manufactured in China, albeit where a lot of great hardware innovation is taking place.
But at this point, phones have become fairly commoditized. The profits that Apple makes from the iPhone disproportionately come from the software layer and the app ecosystem it has developed.
You could make a similar argument with Tesla. Autonomous navigation – which most of us can agree will have a profound impact on cities – is largely a software challenge.
And so if you believe that autonomous vehicles will be a fundamental part of the future of mobility, then it’s not that hard to believe in point number three: the winning car company will also have to be the best car software company.
Some industries have been less touched by tech and software – real estate being one of them. But if Andreessen is right and it’s not a question of if, but a question of when, then it behooves all of us to think about the potential impacts.
I love how Andreessen ends this podcast discussion with Barry Ritholtz of Bloomberg and so I’m going to repeat it here to close out this post. He says: “There are no bad ideas. There are only early ideas.”
And that’s why I write about tech on my city building blog.
Photo by Michal Pechardo on Unsplash
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