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Speaker 1: Today's Medium talk is with Juliette Shore, who is the

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Speaker 1: author of After the Gig, How the Sharing Economy Got

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Speaker 1: Hijacked and How to Win It Back. It's a great

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Speaker 1: book that talks about the gig economy. You know, these

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Speaker 1: apps that were out here looking at you know, so

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Speaker 1: many of us have used them, you know, Uber, Lift.

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Speaker 2: Airbnb, all these things.

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Speaker 1: And it's a very comprehensive breakdown of one the marketing

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Speaker 1: of these ideas, the execution of these ideas, the pitfalls

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Speaker 1: of these ideas, the exploitation of these ideas, and also

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Speaker 1: some alternative ideas to how to fix it, and the

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Speaker 1: effect that it's had on the economy, on people's like

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Speaker 1: personal experiences, and.

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Speaker 2: The results of that. So we had a very.

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Speaker 1: Comprehensive, fun discussion about some of the different collectives in

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Speaker 1: the book, some of the different ideas, Like we talked

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Speaker 1: about this food sharing collective and the snobbery that ruined

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Speaker 1: it and the impracticality of some of the maker spaces

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Speaker 1: and things of that nature. It was a very informative,

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Speaker 1: funny discussion. I can't recommend the book highly enough. I

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Speaker 1: suggest if you enjoyed our conversation you go and check

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Speaker 1: out the book After the Gig by Juliette be sure,

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Speaker 1: I'll put a link in the show notes. So yeah,

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Speaker 1: without further Ado, let's actually get into this conversation and

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Speaker 1: thank you for listening. Juliet Sure, nice to meet you

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Speaker 1: after reading your work After the Gig. And the first

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Speaker 1: thing I want to ask is how how did you

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Speaker 1: come up with the concept of the book? Is it

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Speaker 1: like Germaine too, your expertise already or something you were

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Speaker 1: you know, because it sounds like this was a lot

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Speaker 1: of research, Like like you had a like teams of

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Speaker 1: people working on is the the just like the appendix

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Speaker 1: is half the book? So like, how do you become

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Speaker 1: want to tackle something so big as the gig economy?

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Speaker 3: Yeah?

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Speaker 4: And I did have a great team, all of my

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Speaker 4: graduate students. I had a team of like eight eight

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Speaker 4: or more people working on it. So back at the

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Speaker 4: time of the financial crisis and the so called Great Recession,

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Speaker 4: I was finishing up a book called Plentetude, The New

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Speaker 4: Economics of True Wealth, and it was really designed to

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Speaker 4: sort of think about how we as a society could

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Speaker 4: address both economic inequality and all the stagnation, recession, unemployment,

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Speaker 4: and the climate crisis.

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Speaker 3: At the same time, and it.

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Speaker 4: Was really just geared to households individuals. It didn't seem

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Speaker 4: like the government was going to be doing coming along

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Speaker 4: to help us anytime soon. So I developed this Plenitude model,

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Speaker 4: which was about how people could do less work in

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Speaker 4: the corporate sector, do more so called self provisioning or DIY,

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Speaker 4: barter more, community based activity, localize. And just as I

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Speaker 4: was writing this, this so called thing called the sharing

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Speaker 4: economy was it wasn't called that yet actually, but it

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Speaker 4: was starting to be born. And by this I mean

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Speaker 4: both community sharing like tool libraries, repair cafes, food swaps,

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Speaker 4: maker spaces, but also there were these commercial entities like

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Speaker 4: ride sharing that's what it was called then Airbnb, that

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Speaker 4: people could use to earn some money to make it

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Speaker 4: possible for them to live without these like stressful corporate jobs,

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Speaker 4: or for people who couldn't get those jobs.

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Speaker 3: So that's what got me.

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Speaker 4: Interested in it, And when I finished that book, I

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Speaker 4: got a grant from the MacArthur Foundation to start studying

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Speaker 4: these We were really interested in whether young people would

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Speaker 4: be able to create new pathways to livelihoods other than

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Speaker 4: just you know, the corporate default. And so we began studying.

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Speaker 4: We studied the nonprofits, We studied the for profits. Airbnb

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Speaker 4: delivery apps, we studied Uber and Lift. We studied task rabbit,

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Speaker 4: which is like an errands platform. We studied something called touro,

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Speaker 4: which is where you airbnb your car.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and you sound like you kind of are true

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Speaker 1: believer in some of it, like obviously not the execution

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Speaker 1: of some of the for proper stuff, but like some

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Speaker 1: of these ideas, right because we like we need to

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Speaker 1: like decrease our carbon foot print on the earth, like

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Speaker 1: to live, so like the idea of community sharing and stuff,

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Speaker 1: like the impetus of these ideas at least or the

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Speaker 1: core values of them, It seems like, like because I

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Speaker 1: felt like you're still kind of rooting for it, as

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Speaker 1: opposed to like this is all BS, We're out of.

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Speaker 2: Here, don't don't believe in any of this stuff.

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Speaker 1: If so, did you have any experience with that coming up,

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Speaker 1: like communal sharing and and some of the like I said,

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Speaker 1: underpinnings of what they base the share economy on.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, absolutely, I am still a believer in all this,

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Speaker 4: and I'm I'm a believer in sort of two parts

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Speaker 4: of it. One is the technological because these technologies actually

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Speaker 4: are pretty amazing. They make a lot of new social

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Speaker 4: relations possible. So the idea of a person to person

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Speaker 4: economy where you don't have to go through a middleman,

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Speaker 4: for example, where the worker can take a much greater

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Speaker 4: fraction of the value that they produce. So that's one

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Speaker 4: thing where a lot of the functions of management are

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Speaker 4: taken over by the algorithms and the rating systems and

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Speaker 4: so forth. And then the question is like, can we

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Speaker 4: put that to work for ordinary people and not just

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Speaker 4: the you know, the fat cats who invested in Uber

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Speaker 4: and Airbnb, And I think the answer is yes. And

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Speaker 4: there are a lot of really cool applications that people

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Speaker 4: are using, whether it's food donation programs, so there are

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Speaker 4: apps where restaurants or groceries if they have too much food,

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Speaker 4: they post it and then volunteers come along and they

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Speaker 4: take it and they you know, the people who need

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Speaker 4: it are also on the app and.

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Speaker 3: They deliver it to them.

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Speaker 4: As I said, you know, the repair cafe, so you

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Speaker 4: don't have to buy something new every time something breaks

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Speaker 4: the time banks where people are trading services, so even

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Speaker 4: if you don't have money, you can get access to

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Speaker 4: things as long as you're willing to contribute some of

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Speaker 4: your time to do what you can. You know what

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Speaker 4: you know how to do. So all of these things

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Speaker 4: are great. We have we studied these nonprofits, food swaps,

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Speaker 4: and the maker spaces, and especially you know, I live

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Speaker 4: in Boston where there are a lot of really highly educated,

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Speaker 4: you might say some of us over educated folks, where

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Speaker 4: a lot of these initiatives didn't get beyond that demographic

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Speaker 4: also very white, but they they work well in other

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Speaker 4: contexts or if you start them differently with a more

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Speaker 4: diverse group of people from the beginning. So that that

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Speaker 4: was one of the issues that we found with the nonprofits,

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Speaker 4: and you know, we can talk a lot more about that,

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Speaker 4: but there are versions of this that are going on,

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Speaker 4: you know, around the country, not just in communities like

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Speaker 4: the ones we studied, but also in the black communities,

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Speaker 4: low income communities, diverse communities like cooperation Jackson. You're in

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Speaker 4: the South, so you you know, I'm sure you know

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Speaker 4: about them. But just where these principles of doing things

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Speaker 4: in ways that everyone's included, everyone's skills are valued, more solidarity,

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Speaker 4: more community. We're going to have to go that way

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Speaker 4: if we're going to survive. As a species, that's what I.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, And the thing is as a black person,

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Speaker 1: it is intriguing, right because some of the technological alternatives

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Speaker 1: were alternative things that were worse to me. Like, so

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Speaker 1: maybe over has some issues with race and they're maybe

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Speaker 1: declined or have a ride canceled. Is it still better

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Speaker 1: than the reputation a taxi has for me?

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Speaker 3: Yes?

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Speaker 1: So it's like, which one of these things is closer

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Speaker 1: to being fixed? Is? Like I do kind of hope

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Speaker 1: that they find a way to like fix ride sharing

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Speaker 1: more so than I think they can fix the institutionalized

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Speaker 1: problems of like taxis. And you know, you would hope

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Speaker 1: almost that the competition between the two would make taxis

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Speaker 1: be better.

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Speaker 2: Right, But so yeah, there's stuff like that in the

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Speaker 2: book that I thought was so interesting.

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Speaker 1: The other thing I thought was so interesting is you

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Speaker 1: kind of start to hold upfront it's a thing throughout everything,

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Speaker 1: but how much marketing is about the progressive values that

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Speaker 1: people have.

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Speaker 2: But then kind of underneath the surface and you.

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Speaker 1: Know that the iceberg, part of the iceberg, not the tip,

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Speaker 1: is a lot of just kind of corporate greed, a

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Speaker 1: lot of like rampant capitalism, and you know, a lot

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Speaker 1: of like lobbying against laws that protect workers and things

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Speaker 1: of this nature.

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Speaker 2: How much of that do you believe was like by

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Speaker 2: design or how much?

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Speaker 1: How much do you think was just kind of like happenstance,

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Speaker 1: you know, like they did set out to kind of

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Speaker 1: do these things, and it just at some point it

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Speaker 1: was like, oh, I'm a billionaire, and how much of

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Speaker 1: it was like no, no, no, We're going to tell

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Speaker 1: people we want to do this, but we're not planning

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Speaker 1: on doing that.

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Speaker 2: We want to get rich.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a great question.

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Speaker 4: So almost all the companies in the if we're talking

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Speaker 4: about the you know, the for profits, almost all of

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Speaker 4: the companies in the quote unquote sharing economy came out

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Speaker 4: with this discourse of common good like we're going to

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Speaker 4: provide economic benefit for people. We're going to be more inclusive,

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Speaker 4: we're going to be fairer, we don't discriminate, we're going.

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Speaker 3: To help people connect with each.

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Speaker 4: Other and build friendships and social ties, and we're going

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Speaker 4: to reduce carbon footprints.

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Speaker 3: There's one exception that's Uber. I'll get to them in it.

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Speaker 4: But if you take air and b Airbnb, there's so

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Speaker 4: much about cultural you know, interaction and you know that

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Speaker 4: you're sharing your home and fighting middle class squee income

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Speaker 4: squeeze if you take lyft lift. Such an interesting case

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Speaker 4: they found it. It was founded one of the founders

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Speaker 4: was in Zombie, I think, and saw the way these

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Speaker 4: sort of jitneys worked, where it'd be like vans that

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Speaker 4: would be driving along and anybody could hop.

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Speaker 3: On or hop off.

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Speaker 4: Very ecological, and oh it was ZIMBABWEI that's it, and

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Speaker 4: that's where the it was originally called zim Ride. That

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Speaker 4: was his his uh inspiration for starting it. And then CouchSurfing,

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Speaker 4: which is a free service Airbnb like, but you don't

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Speaker 4: have to pay.

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Speaker 3: So they all started.

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Speaker 4: With the belief that they were really going to do

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Speaker 4: a lot of good in the world, and I think

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Speaker 4: most of the people believed it. There's one interesting paper

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Speaker 4: by someone who interviewed employees of all these platforms in

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Speaker 4: San Francisco back in the early days, and what he

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Speaker 4: found was that they all, you know, had drunk the

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Speaker 4: kool aid to a certain extent about this do good

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Speaker 4: or stuff.

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Speaker 3: But they also all saw a little bit.

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Speaker 4: The contradictions that were starting and they would mostly point

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Speaker 4: to Uber and say, but at least we're not like

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Speaker 4: Uber so I said, I mentioned Uber's different because Uber

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Speaker 4: was started by somebody with an extreme conservative free market

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Speaker 4: ideology saying okay, yeah, we're gonna do some good things,

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Speaker 4: but very you know, a very different, very different mentality

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Speaker 4: than the rest of these which tended to be more progressive.

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Speaker 4: I mean, the fullilosophy of Travis Kolanik, who is the

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Speaker 4: Uber founder, is horrible.

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Speaker 3: And you know, he very early on was doing basically.

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Speaker 4: U picked up the Koch Brothers playbook to destroy the

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Speaker 4: taxi industry.

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Speaker 3: You know, so he's a bad egg.

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Speaker 4: I mean, he got pushed out because he was even

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Speaker 4: too bad an egg for his company.

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Speaker 3: The company's still doing a lot of really awful stuff.

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Speaker 4: But they and they, by the way, are the one

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Speaker 4: company that never said they were part of the sharing economy.

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Speaker 4: They never defined that themselves that way, even though you know,

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Speaker 4: most of the press when they would be writing these

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Speaker 4: stories about the sharing economy was economy.

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Speaker 3: It was Uber, airbnbing left right.

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Speaker 1: And it's also interesting too because like you said, they

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Speaker 1: became the model right like so many companies like we

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Speaker 1: want to be the Uber of blank, but then they're

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Speaker 1: you know, supposed politics and promotion is the exact opposite

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Speaker 1: of that is we want to empower the people on

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Speaker 1: our platform. We want to enable people to have better experience,

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Speaker 1: is when they travel or when they eat or whatever.

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Speaker 2: So, yeah, it's interesting.

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Speaker 1: Maybe they've just meant the ubiquitousness of Uber, like we

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Speaker 1: just want to be known.

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Speaker 2: Is that big? But yeah, the model of uber is.

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Speaker 1: Very much uh yeah, it's very much like a survival

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Speaker 1: of the fittest. Almost the other thing you brought up

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Speaker 1: to was class in this a lot and how at

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Speaker 1: least from a lot of studies y'all did it was

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Speaker 1: like college educated, middle class people that did a lot

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Speaker 1: of this labor, even when the labor was you know.

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Speaker 2: Quote unquote where we believe to be beneath people.

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Speaker 1: That have gone to college and like, oh, you're you're in,

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Speaker 1: you have a doctorate and you drive Uber like you're

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Speaker 1: not supposed to do that. What do you think was

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Speaker 1: the impetus behind that level of labor becoming like acceptable

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Speaker 1: almost for these people to be doing.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, well, there are a couple of things. One is

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Speaker 4: a lot of the people who got into this in

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Speaker 4: the early days were young.

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Speaker 3: It was almost all young people.

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Speaker 4: And since these these platforms were founded two thousand and

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Speaker 4: eight two thousand and nine.

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Speaker 3: They were people graduating from college into a world where

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Speaker 3: there were no jobs.

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Speaker 4: So that's part and part of was necessity for some

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Speaker 4: of them. But the other thing was the platforms really

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Speaker 4: destigmatized the work.

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Speaker 3: They had this.

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Speaker 4: Ethic of, you know, like it's technologically advanced, it's novel,

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Speaker 4: it's hip, it's cool. In the book, I talk about

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Speaker 4: a video for one of these online. It was just

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Speaker 4: like a task site, sort of like task grab.

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Speaker 3: It was called Zarly.

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Speaker 4: It didn't make it, but it was like a video

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Speaker 4: of a woman in her apartment and then all these

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Speaker 4: cool people start coming, like this black DJ comes and

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Speaker 4: you know, super multi cultural and hip, and and.

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Speaker 3: It's like, oh, if you do cizarrely, you're going to

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Speaker 3: be in this cool, h multicultural world.

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Speaker 4: And that that I think really helped to get people

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Speaker 4: doing it. But what's interesting is over time, and especially

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Speaker 4: more and more of this evidence has come out in

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Speaker 4: the just in the last couple.

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Speaker 3: Of years.

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Speaker 4: When you look at what's happened in a couple of

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Speaker 4: the big sectors, So Ridehill's the biggest one.

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Speaker 3: Food delivery is another big one.

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Speaker 4: That workforce has really changed from the days when we

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Speaker 4: started studying this, it's gotten much more immigrant, it's gotten

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Speaker 4: much less educated from in the beginning, Like the huge

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Speaker 4: percentage of all these people had college degrees, and the

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Speaker 4: same for the food delivery like, you know, partly its

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Speaker 4: differences in Boston and other cities. We just there was

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Speaker 4: just a study in San Francisco of food delivery workers

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Speaker 4: and not any of them were you know, white, maybe

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Speaker 4: like twenty percent or something. Now that's a more you know,

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Speaker 4: much more racially diverse or ethnically diverse city than Boston.

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Speaker 4: But you know, we found a lot of college students

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Speaker 4: and recent college grads and stuff doing that work. So

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Speaker 4: as the companies have really squeezed the workers and the

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Speaker 4: wages went down and the business.

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Speaker 3: Got it harder, got harder and harder to get the.

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Speaker 4: Jobs, you've seen the composition of that workforce move toward

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Speaker 4: a sort of less educated, less white workforce, people who

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Speaker 4: have fewer options, whereas you know, higher educated people have

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Speaker 4: higher options, more options, and they sort of they move

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Speaker 4: out when things start to get really not so great.

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Speaker 1: It also makes sense too, because you would think earlier

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Speaker 1: one to hear about it earlier and to be an

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Speaker 1: early adopter.

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Speaker 2: You know, it's kind of a privilege and.

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Speaker 1: Then also like to have to buy into the political

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Speaker 1: type of.

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Speaker 2: Promotion of it, to have those politics.

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Speaker 1: It's kind of a privilege in America to be able

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Speaker 1: to sit back and be like, yeah, I want to

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Speaker 1: share my car with people.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 1: It's like like when I got my first car and

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Speaker 1: I was like like a sixteen year old, I was

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Speaker 1: just like, this is the first thing that's mine. So

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Speaker 1: I'm definitely not driving, Like I might drop my friend

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Speaker 1: somewhere if they're really nice. But yeah, but to think

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Speaker 1: about who would be into that marketing, you know, it

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Speaker 1: would be somebody that you know, felt a need to share,

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Speaker 1: whether through guilt or just like these progressive values that

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Speaker 1: they hold. Another thing that you just brought up, and

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Speaker 1: it kind of ties into the book, which is so interesting.

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Speaker 1: The profit is kind of the thing.

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Speaker 2: That allured like the idea of.

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Speaker 1: Making money is going to be a thing that's going

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Speaker 1: to attract black and brown people, immigrants, lower class people,

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Speaker 1: things of this nature. But when you brought up the nonprofit,

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Speaker 1: because I was like, Okay, this is where like it's

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Speaker 1: gonna be more quote unquote right. But then the more

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Speaker 1: the nonprofit had their own feelings I think my favorite,

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Speaker 1: Like it actually made me laugh out loud. I know,

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Speaker 1: this book is not supposed to be like a funny book,

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Speaker 1: but it was funny to me. But the food Sharing

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Speaker 1: Collective and like the failures of and like the snobbery

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Speaker 1: of it, Oh my god, can you just kind of

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Speaker 1: talk about that a little bit, because it was honestly

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Speaker 1: the best part of the book to me.

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Speaker 3: Oh yeah, thanks, That's what my family thought.

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Speaker 4: Too, So yeah, it was really interesting in these organizations

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Speaker 4: that were started like to do good in the world,

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Speaker 4: and the people are really genuine they.

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Speaker 3: Do want to do good things. The Food Swap was

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Speaker 3: started by three young professionals.

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Speaker 4: I mean the main person was an African American single

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Speaker 4: woman lawyer and she had a farm share and it

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Speaker 4: was just more than she could handle, and so she thought, well, look,

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Speaker 4: why don't I make stuff with all the corn I'm

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Speaker 4: getting or whatever it was, and then we can swap

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Speaker 4: it out once a month. But the founders and the

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Speaker 4: sort of the core group of the Food Swap were

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Speaker 4: really snobby about what they would trade.

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Speaker 3: So they're like, oh, you brought it in a zip

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Speaker 3: lock bag, forget it.

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Speaker 4: You had to have those Mason charts you know, they're

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Speaker 4: like and everybody started drinking out of and they kept

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Speaker 4: showing up at weddings and things in a certain era.

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Speaker 4: So or I mean the funny that funny quote is

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Speaker 4: probably the one that they do laugh out loud. Is

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Speaker 4: someone who just first timers the first time is you know,

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Speaker 4: never expected all this snobbery, right, and they could have

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Speaker 4: easily written on the website like don't do this and

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Speaker 4: don't do that, but they didn't do that. So somebody

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Speaker 4: had made Oreo truffles and everything's hand made, and so

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Speaker 4: one of the founders like, oh, Oreo truffles, those look

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Speaker 4: so nice?

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Speaker 3: Are they made from real Oreos?

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Speaker 4: And of course the person thought that that was going

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Speaker 4: to be like a positive so they said, yeah, you know,

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Speaker 4: I made them for Oreos. And then the one was like, oh,

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Speaker 4: well then I couldn't possibly beat them, you know because

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Speaker 4: they have all those chemicals in them.

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Speaker 3: And so it was it and it failed.

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Speaker 4: It just people stopped coming and there were a lots

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Speaker 4: every month there would be new people, but they wouldn't

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Speaker 4: come back because these people were just kind of they

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Speaker 4: had that crunchy granola alternative thing, but they also had

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Speaker 4: that like nose up in the air food snobbery thing,

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Speaker 4: and it just it didn't work.

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Speaker 1: I also like, like I think what made I mean,

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Speaker 1: that made me laugh too, But I think it was

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Speaker 1: the one where an older lady came in and like

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Speaker 1: she also felt social ostracization because no one talked to her,

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Speaker 1: because it's like it just reminded me of like children

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Speaker 1: with Show and Tell or something where it's like legos,

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Speaker 1: everyone has legos.

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Speaker 2: Oh god, this guy's not cool. Oh yeah.

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Speaker 4: Cut vanilla cupcakes with vanilla icing, and people are.

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Speaker 3: You know, they wanted.

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Speaker 4: Their line marmalade and urban pistachio, urban crusted tofu, you know,

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Speaker 4: whatever it.

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Speaker 1: Was, and it's just so far from what they started

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Speaker 1: to be, you know, which I think is just kind

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Speaker 1: of a human element.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 1: You started with these values in mind and this high mindedness,

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Speaker 1: and then it breaks down and they're like I don't can't,

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Speaker 1: I can't eat another brownie. We could have made brownies

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Speaker 1: at home, and now you're just recreating, uh, what's our exist?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, because it was supposed to be take

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Speaker 4: back your pantries for urban populations who didn't have access

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Speaker 4: to friend healthy food, to bring healthy food to them

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Speaker 4: and so forth, yeah.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 1: Another thing you brought up was I believe you had

402
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Speaker 1: to change the name the industry in the book to

403
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Speaker 1: detect the the.

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00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:15,760
Speaker 2: Whatever company it was.

405
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Speaker 1: But can you talk about industry and the impracticality of

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Speaker 1: some of the things they worked on and how that

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Speaker 1: kind of became the point of what they were doing.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, so this is we call it make Industry in

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Speaker 4: the book. It's one of the biggest maker spaces in

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Speaker 4: the country. I mean, it was a huge success in

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Speaker 4: certain ways. After it was founded, it grew rapidly. It

412
00:23:36,640 --> 00:23:41,600
Speaker 4: has all kinds of machinery, high tech making, low tech welding, woodworking,

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Speaker 4: laser cutting, three D printing, all of that, robotics.

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Speaker 2: Oh I'm sorry, can you tell people what a makerspace is?

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Speaker 2: I'm sorry?

416
00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:51,520
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, sure.

417
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Speaker 4: A makerspace is a central like a place that has

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Speaker 4: a whole bunch of tools that that are either owned

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Speaker 4: in a community makerspace like this one, they were owned

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Speaker 4: by a nonprofit. There's also something called tech space, which

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Speaker 4: is like a for profit chain of maker spaces. But

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Speaker 4: so you don't have to have the tools yourself or

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Speaker 4: no people will have them.

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Speaker 3: You can go to these places. Usually there's a membership

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Speaker 3: component or a lot of them.

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Speaker 4: Give ourscape had classes that you can you know, sign

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00:24:21,920 --> 00:24:24,919
Speaker 4: up for the classes and so forth. So what we

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00:24:25,119 --> 00:24:28,919
Speaker 4: found was, if you think about it, this could be

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Speaker 4: really valuable for a lot of people because you could

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Speaker 4: repair things, you could make things. There's a lot of

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Speaker 4: expertise there. You could learn how to do all this stuff.

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Speaker 4: So we did have one guy in our research whose

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Speaker 4: his family had I think there was a fire at

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Speaker 4: their house or a flood or something, and he was

435
00:24:45,440 --> 00:24:49,199
Speaker 4: repairing his parents furniture and everything. So just like a

436
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:52,560
Speaker 4: kind of normal thing to do at the space, someone

437
00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:56,359
Speaker 4: like that was called a normy. Okay, a normal person

438
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Speaker 4: was called a normy, which meant they were like a weird.

439
00:25:00,359 --> 00:25:01,760
Speaker 3: Thing right right right.

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Speaker 4: Because most of the people were involved in making.

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Speaker 3: The whole point of.

442
00:25:08,040 --> 00:25:13,120
Speaker 4: The making was like how weird, exotic, esoteric, impractical could

443
00:25:13,200 --> 00:25:13,439
Speaker 4: you be?

444
00:25:13,800 --> 00:25:14,200
Speaker 2: Wow?

445
00:25:14,480 --> 00:25:17,240
Speaker 3: And so they do a lot of single use making.

446
00:25:17,680 --> 00:25:20,960
Speaker 4: So a bike collective, they'd build these bikes, they'd used

447
00:25:21,000 --> 00:25:25,160
Speaker 4: them once, they tear them down. A robot competition they'd

448
00:25:25,160 --> 00:25:30,040
Speaker 4: spend weeks building robots, which is cool, you know, totally cool.

449
00:25:30,400 --> 00:25:32,800
Speaker 4: They'd have a competition. The robots would kill each other

450
00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:35,080
Speaker 4: in the competition and they that was the end.

451
00:25:34,920 --> 00:25:35,919
Speaker 3: Of it, you know.

452
00:25:36,000 --> 00:25:40,040
Speaker 4: So it was like or they would just get sort

453
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:45,080
Speaker 4: of do things that would be just as weird as possible.

454
00:25:45,800 --> 00:25:51,240
Speaker 4: The Robotics Group built this giant robot. It was an

455
00:25:51,320 --> 00:25:57,120
Speaker 4: eight foot hexapod, so six legged robot. There wasn't even

456
00:25:57,160 --> 00:25:58,800
Speaker 4: any way to get it out of the space.

457
00:25:58,880 --> 00:25:59,720
Speaker 3: It was so big.

458
00:26:00,000 --> 00:26:04,000
Speaker 4: I spent huge amounts of time and money building this

459
00:26:04,240 --> 00:26:07,600
Speaker 4: to what purpose? And as these folks would say when

460
00:26:07,600 --> 00:26:09,960
Speaker 4: we'd interview them, you know, why are you doing that?

461
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:12,080
Speaker 3: Because I can, you know.

462
00:26:12,760 --> 00:26:17,639
Speaker 4: And so it's totally white place located in the middle

463
00:26:17,760 --> 00:26:23,760
Speaker 4: of a very ethnically diverse neighborhood. But I don't think

464
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:25,600
Speaker 4: we saw one African.

465
00:26:25,200 --> 00:26:27,520
Speaker 3: American person there, you know, the whole time.

466
00:26:27,840 --> 00:26:31,720
Speaker 4: It was just and they didn't they didn't get how

467
00:26:31,800 --> 00:26:35,600
Speaker 4: the culture they created, which they thought was just so cool,

468
00:26:35,760 --> 00:26:39,000
Speaker 4: you know, because it was on alternative culture, they didn't

469
00:26:39,000 --> 00:26:42,880
Speaker 4: get the ways in which it was just it exuded

470
00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:46,399
Speaker 4: so much privilege and so much whiteness and also maleness.

471
00:26:46,440 --> 00:26:49,399
Speaker 4: I mean there were women there, but men really dominated

472
00:26:49,440 --> 00:26:50,280
Speaker 4: the space.

473
00:26:50,640 --> 00:26:53,200
Speaker 1: Because there was like a beer there's like a beer

474
00:26:53,200 --> 00:26:56,560
Speaker 1: economy too, right where they like like, yeah, I'm going

475
00:26:56,640 --> 00:26:58,439
Speaker 1: to buy you a pack of beer. We're gonna, you know,

476
00:26:58,560 --> 00:27:04,040
Speaker 1: drink some beer. And beer very like gendered in society already.

477
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:09,080
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, so the beer economy, so the like what

478
00:27:09,160 --> 00:27:11,360
Speaker 4: we found was there was a group of people there

479
00:27:11,359 --> 00:27:13,879
Speaker 4: who kind of really came to socially dominate, like a

480
00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:17,439
Speaker 4: very high status group. Even though all of the ethic

481
00:27:17,480 --> 00:27:21,600
Speaker 4: of the place was egalitarian community, We're all part of

482
00:27:21,640 --> 00:27:26,760
Speaker 4: the same community. Everybody's equal. But these these certain group

483
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:33,639
Speaker 4: and they would help each other with their projects for beer.

484
00:27:35,359 --> 00:27:37,679
Speaker 4: They wouldn't take money from each other because they were

485
00:27:37,680 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 4: all part of this elite there, so like you know.

486
00:27:41,200 --> 00:27:44,280
Speaker 3: Who would They'd have a list servants.

487
00:27:43,760 --> 00:27:45,520
Speaker 4: Like, oh, I need such and such and be all

488
00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:48,760
Speaker 4: this technical stuff. You know, you know, whoever can help me,

489
00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:51,080
Speaker 4: I have a case of your favorite beer waiting or something.

490
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 4: For the normies, you'd have to pay money, like you'd

491
00:27:57,000 --> 00:27:59,600
Speaker 4: either have to take a class or you know, if

492
00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:01,720
Speaker 4: you want to get help from one of these people.

493
00:28:01,520 --> 00:28:05,200
Speaker 3: You'd have to know the time. So it was really elite.

494
00:28:05,400 --> 00:28:08,440
Speaker 4: The beer economy was was male, but also it was

495
00:28:08,560 --> 00:28:11,480
Speaker 4: very elitist because you had to get accepted into it.

496
00:28:12,280 --> 00:28:14,199
Speaker 3: They wouldn't trade for beer with everybody.

497
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it's interesting too because I think, without thinking

498
00:28:19,320 --> 00:28:21,840
Speaker 1: about it, because that's the other thing, like the group

499
00:28:21,880 --> 00:28:25,399
Speaker 1: of people that are mostly in this book, that the

500
00:28:25,440 --> 00:28:27,679
Speaker 1: white people are the good white people. You know, if

501
00:28:27,720 --> 00:28:30,560
Speaker 1: you had to like make a list of a chart,

502
00:28:30,640 --> 00:28:32,840
Speaker 1: you know, I would put them into like good category

503
00:28:32,880 --> 00:28:34,720
Speaker 1: of like, oh no, they care about the earth and

504
00:28:34,760 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 1: other people and stuff.

505
00:28:36,160 --> 00:28:38,080
Speaker 2: But I think it is hard to.

506
00:28:38,240 --> 00:28:40,960
Speaker 1: When you have a society that deals with racism and

507
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:44,280
Speaker 1: sexism all this stuff, it's kind of hard to create

508
00:28:44,280 --> 00:28:48,160
Speaker 1: something outside of that society unless you're very intentional. And

509
00:28:48,240 --> 00:28:51,200
Speaker 1: so without the intentionality of being like, we're gonna make

510
00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:53,400
Speaker 1: this space diverse, we're gonna make it inclusive, we're gonna

511
00:28:53,400 --> 00:28:56,280
Speaker 1: make it practical, you do end up making eight foot

512
00:28:56,880 --> 00:29:01,200
Speaker 1: robots or whatever and trading beer. And and I thought

513
00:29:01,200 --> 00:29:03,480
Speaker 1: it was interested in one of those interviews where the

514
00:29:03,840 --> 00:29:05,640
Speaker 1: guy was like, oh no, we just don't even really

515
00:29:05,640 --> 00:29:08,320
Speaker 1: care about that stuff, and You're like, well, he belongs

516
00:29:08,400 --> 00:29:12,760
Speaker 1: to all the groups that are kind of benefiting from

517
00:29:12,800 --> 00:29:17,000
Speaker 1: not caring about this, So I thought that was also interesting. Now,

518
00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 1: can you explain what exactly the time swap is like,

519
00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:24,360
Speaker 1: because I, like, I know a time like it seemed

520
00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 1: and maybe it's just because it's so abstracted me, but

521
00:29:26,840 --> 00:29:30,400
Speaker 1: it's these people sign up to be like, Okay, I'm

522
00:29:30,440 --> 00:29:33,720
Speaker 1: a lawyer, you're a janitor. You work an hour for me,

523
00:29:33,920 --> 00:29:37,120
Speaker 1: I work an hour for you. And that's that's the idea.

524
00:29:37,320 --> 00:29:39,720
Speaker 1: I guess on this, you know, not how it worked out,

525
00:29:39,760 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 1: but that's the basic idea.

526
00:29:41,880 --> 00:29:42,160
Speaker 3: Yeah.

527
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:46,000
Speaker 4: So they're called time banks. They were actually started long

528
00:29:46,080 --> 00:29:49,720
Speaker 4: before the sharing economy as a way of.

529
00:29:51,800 --> 00:29:58,360
Speaker 3: Responding to unemployed people who didn't have access to cash.

530
00:29:57,040 --> 00:29:59,600
Speaker 4: To create a new kind of economy that would allow

531
00:29:59,720 --> 00:30:02,520
Speaker 4: them to contribute the skills that they do and the

532
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:05,360
Speaker 4: time that they do have and to get stuff in

533
00:30:05,440 --> 00:30:10,920
Speaker 4: return that they didn't need cash for. So it's you

534
00:30:11,000 --> 00:30:14,479
Speaker 4: join a time bank, and you you put up your

535
00:30:14,480 --> 00:30:16,800
Speaker 4: profile and you list the kinds of things that you're

536
00:30:16,840 --> 00:30:19,120
Speaker 4: willing to do and you know that you can do,

537
00:30:20,520 --> 00:30:28,520
Speaker 4: whether it's being a lawyer, driving somebody places, doing gardening, baking, childcare, plumbing,

538
00:30:28,560 --> 00:30:35,000
Speaker 4: whatever it is. And then you and then you look

539
00:30:35,200 --> 00:30:38,720
Speaker 4: to see what other people have.

540
00:30:38,760 --> 00:30:42,200
Speaker 3: That you need and you arrange trades.

541
00:30:42,360 --> 00:30:45,920
Speaker 4: And it's a bank because like if I, let's say

542
00:30:45,960 --> 00:30:48,480
Speaker 4: I wanted some lessons from you and how to do

543
00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:52,600
Speaker 4: a podcast. You wouldn't need something that I have, so

544
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:54,800
Speaker 4: I could get my I could get two hours of

545
00:30:54,840 --> 00:30:59,160
Speaker 4: your time. And let's say you needed gardening, which I

546
00:30:59,160 --> 00:31:01,160
Speaker 4: don't know how to do, you could get gardening from

547
00:31:01,160 --> 00:31:01,840
Speaker 4: somebody else.

548
00:31:02,080 --> 00:31:05,000
Speaker 2: Oh okay, Like when you give.

549
00:31:04,840 --> 00:31:06,960
Speaker 4: Me two hours, you get two hours of credit in

550
00:31:07,000 --> 00:31:08,040
Speaker 4: your bank account.

551
00:31:08,280 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 2: Okay, okay.

552
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:13,200
Speaker 4: What we call a multilateral barter system, so no money,

553
00:31:13,600 --> 00:31:17,440
Speaker 4: just time credits. And the fact that everyone's hour is

554
00:31:17,560 --> 00:31:21,720
Speaker 4: equal was very much the foundation the sort of ideology

555
00:31:21,760 --> 00:31:24,520
Speaker 4: of the time Bank. But what we've found, and it's

556
00:31:24,560 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 4: a great ideology, it's really important, But what we found

557
00:31:27,680 --> 00:31:30,160
Speaker 4: is that it was really hard for a lot of people,

558
00:31:30,840 --> 00:31:34,720
Speaker 4: even though they thought they believed in that. They would

559
00:31:34,760 --> 00:31:37,840
Speaker 4: say things and they'd often figure it out when we

560
00:31:37,840 --> 00:31:41,640
Speaker 4: were interviewing them. They say, well, I don't offer this

561
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:45,640
Speaker 4: in the time bank because it's worth more. Like people

562
00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:48,680
Speaker 4: who were and you know, people for whom it was

563
00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:53,480
Speaker 4: their professional identity, you can understand that they don't want

564
00:31:53,520 --> 00:31:55,640
Speaker 4: to trade something that they are hoping to sell on

565
00:31:55,680 --> 00:31:58,040
Speaker 4: the market for seventy five dollars an hour.

566
00:31:58,120 --> 00:32:00,600
Speaker 3: For something you know that's worth fifteen.

567
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 4: But the point of the time bank was to break

568
00:32:04,000 --> 00:32:07,640
Speaker 4: down those big differences in the wages in part, but

569
00:32:08,080 --> 00:32:11,800
Speaker 4: it also meant that there were too many people offering

570
00:32:12,200 --> 00:32:15,200
Speaker 4: stuff that didn't cost that much, and it was hard

571
00:32:15,240 --> 00:32:17,400
Speaker 4: to get some of the high value stuff.

572
00:32:17,480 --> 00:32:19,400
Speaker 3: But you know, it was actually even worse than that.

573
00:32:19,920 --> 00:32:21,800
Speaker 3: It was that we found a.

574
00:32:21,720 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 4: Lot of the people with very valuable skills, things that

575
00:32:25,720 --> 00:32:29,080
Speaker 4: they could charge a law for in the market, like coding,

576
00:32:29,520 --> 00:32:34,160
Speaker 4: you know, a lot of the software skills that people need,

577
00:32:34,360 --> 00:32:37,360
Speaker 4: Like people really need that stuff, and it's expensive. They

578
00:32:37,360 --> 00:32:39,160
Speaker 4: didn't want to do that in the time bank because

579
00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:41,920
Speaker 4: they spend all day doing it. So they wanted to

580
00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:45,400
Speaker 4: install thermostats or do gardening or so there was a

581
00:32:45,520 --> 00:32:49,640
Speaker 4: shortage of some of those high paid skills. There's also

582
00:32:49,720 --> 00:32:52,280
Speaker 4: a big shortage of blue collar skills, right.

583
00:32:52,600 --> 00:32:55,080
Speaker 1: And it's interesting because it can't really work the other way, right,

584
00:32:55,120 --> 00:32:57,720
Speaker 1: I can't be like, you know what, I'm a janitor

585
00:32:57,760 --> 00:32:59,719
Speaker 1: most of the day. I'm tired of being a janitor

586
00:33:00,160 --> 00:33:02,440
Speaker 1: for an hour day, I would be a lawyer, right, Like,

587
00:33:03,040 --> 00:33:03,800
Speaker 1: no one.

588
00:33:03,680 --> 00:33:05,200
Speaker 2: Would accept that trade.

589
00:33:05,360 --> 00:33:07,680
Speaker 1: So yeah, I thought that was interesting too, in the

590
00:33:07,720 --> 00:33:12,520
Speaker 1: solution of kind of like maybe adjusting to like the ratio,

591
00:33:12,960 --> 00:33:16,239
Speaker 1: and they still kind of didn't like that at the end,

592
00:33:16,240 --> 00:33:19,040
Speaker 1: because you know, it kind of violates the idea.

593
00:33:19,120 --> 00:33:21,080
Speaker 2: But you're right, the idea.

594
00:33:20,760 --> 00:33:23,160
Speaker 1: Is so revolutionary that you almost have to separate it

595
00:33:23,160 --> 00:33:25,880
Speaker 1: from society. You can't, like, if we live in a

596
00:33:25,920 --> 00:33:28,360
Speaker 1: world where a lawyer gets two hundred and fifty dollars

597
00:33:28,400 --> 00:33:31,040
Speaker 1: an hour, it's just very hard to convince that person

598
00:33:31,680 --> 00:33:35,840
Speaker 1: to trade it for fifteen dollars in our services. It's

599
00:33:35,920 --> 00:33:37,720
Speaker 1: like the exact opposite reason they went.

600
00:33:37,640 --> 00:33:38,960
Speaker 2: To school and did all that stuff.

601
00:33:41,200 --> 00:33:45,080
Speaker 1: Another thing, like, obviously I think it's been kind of

602
00:33:45,120 --> 00:33:48,239
Speaker 1: well researched and talked about, like the exploitative nature of

603
00:33:49,680 --> 00:33:53,640
Speaker 1: the gig economy, especially like Uber, some of the damage

604
00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:59,360
Speaker 1: that Airbnb has done to like neighborhoods and communities and whatnot.

605
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:02,400
Speaker 1: But near the end you kind of talk about how

606
00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:09,240
Speaker 1: much other countries have regulated been sort of aggressive sometimes

607
00:34:09,320 --> 00:34:12,840
Speaker 1: even band these things. Why do you think other countries

608
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:16,520
Speaker 1: were able to like see this coming and like kind

609
00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:19,960
Speaker 1: of get ahead of it, or you know, nip it

610
00:34:20,000 --> 00:34:23,040
Speaker 1: in the butt or push back to some extent when

611
00:34:23,080 --> 00:34:26,960
Speaker 1: America scene is kind of mostly like I don't know,

612
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:30,920
Speaker 1: almost like caught off guard or or just not prepared

613
00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:33,319
Speaker 1: for this at all and lets it run them up.

614
00:34:34,600 --> 00:34:39,720
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's a great question, I would say most people

615
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:40,319
Speaker 4: would think.

616
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:43,240
Speaker 3: And I think that's a big part of the answer is.

617
00:34:44,680 --> 00:34:48,960
Speaker 4: In the countries where you've seen the effect of regulation

618
00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:54,120
Speaker 4: are countries which have pretty strong labor unions and strong

619
00:34:54,320 --> 00:35:00,280
Speaker 4: governments in relationship to business. So in Sweden, for Temple,

620
00:35:00,320 --> 00:35:02,840
Speaker 4: when Uber came in immediately they were forced to follow

621
00:35:02,920 --> 00:35:05,759
Speaker 4: all the laws and they actually operate a lot like

622
00:35:05,880 --> 00:35:09,480
Speaker 4: the regular taxi system there. Germany they banned it. There

623
00:35:09,480 --> 00:35:13,000
Speaker 4: are a number of countries where it's been banned. There's

624
00:35:13,040 --> 00:35:16,400
Speaker 4: still fights going on in London, for example, big fights

625
00:35:16,440 --> 00:35:20,360
Speaker 4: with Uber. They keep getting deactivated and then trying to

626
00:35:20,400 --> 00:35:23,800
Speaker 4: get back in and so forth. On the other hand,

627
00:35:24,320 --> 00:35:27,799
Speaker 4: you have countries around the world where things are even

628
00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:32,560
Speaker 4: way worse than they are here, much less protection, where

629
00:35:33,239 --> 00:35:37,680
Speaker 4: these platforms are operating in really predatory ways, where you

630
00:35:37,760 --> 00:35:40,960
Speaker 4: have like subcontractors.

631
00:35:39,800 --> 00:35:41,920
Speaker 3: Who are really exploiting people, or.

632
00:35:41,880 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 4: There at least for example, Uber had early days it

633
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:49,759
Speaker 4: promised you could make ninety thousand dollars a year as

634
00:35:49,840 --> 00:35:51,360
Speaker 4: a as a driver.

635
00:35:51,640 --> 00:35:53,440
Speaker 3: I mean, it was total bs.

636
00:35:53,520 --> 00:35:57,839
Speaker 4: But the government finally came in and find them and

637
00:35:57,880 --> 00:35:59,799
Speaker 4: force them to take it back and so forth. You've

638
00:35:59,840 --> 00:36:04,160
Speaker 4: got you've got a lot of predatory marketing practices going on.

639
00:36:05,960 --> 00:36:09,799
Speaker 4: I heard from someone who's studying Uber and Nairobi. I

640
00:36:09,800 --> 00:36:13,360
Speaker 4: have a friend who's studying in Global South countries and

641
00:36:13,440 --> 00:36:16,480
Speaker 4: cities around the world, and some of the stories that

642
00:36:16,520 --> 00:36:19,359
Speaker 4: are coming out from there those places in terms of

643
00:36:19,440 --> 00:36:24,560
Speaker 4: the treatment of the drivers are really bad. There's also

644
00:36:24,640 --> 00:36:27,880
Speaker 4: something that hasn't happened so much in the United States,

645
00:36:27,920 --> 00:36:34,360
Speaker 4: but this is actually a European problem where people documented

646
00:36:34,560 --> 00:36:38,680
Speaker 4: residents or citizens will set up accounts and then they'll

647
00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:45,399
Speaker 4: basically subcontract those accounts to undocumented immigrants who can't get on.

648
00:36:45,360 --> 00:36:46,520
Speaker 3: The platforms in Europe.

649
00:36:46,520 --> 00:36:50,280
Speaker 4: Here you can get on if you're undocumented much more easily.

650
00:36:50,560 --> 00:36:50,640
Speaker 1: And.

651
00:36:53,160 --> 00:36:56,239
Speaker 3: Then they'll just exploit the hell at the heck out

652
00:36:56,239 --> 00:37:00,000
Speaker 3: of them. Wow. So I think that you know.

653
00:37:00,120 --> 00:37:03,360
Speaker 4: Sort of how strong is labor, how strong is the

654
00:37:03,440 --> 00:37:06,399
Speaker 4: state is really key. The one good thing I would

655
00:37:06,440 --> 00:37:08,880
Speaker 4: say is, beginning in two thousand and eight, you start

656
00:37:08,960 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 4: to see some regulation coming in the United States. So

657
00:37:13,840 --> 00:37:17,040
Speaker 4: the Taxi and Limousine Commission in New York puts in

658
00:37:17,120 --> 00:37:21,680
Speaker 4: a minimum wage for right hail drivers and a vehicle

659
00:37:21,760 --> 00:37:27,040
Speaker 4: cap Seattle is considering that now you've got Airbnb regulations

660
00:37:27,040 --> 00:37:29,839
Speaker 4: that have come in in a number of the major cities, so.

661
00:37:31,520 --> 00:37:33,440
Speaker 3: We don't know how COVID is going to affect this.

662
00:37:33,560 --> 00:37:38,160
Speaker 4: There really was momentum starting in twenty eighteen to try

663
00:37:38,160 --> 00:37:41,879
Speaker 4: and push back because the companies had just been so

664
00:37:41,960 --> 00:37:46,360
Speaker 4: successful in stopping at all kinds of regulation. But eventually

665
00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:50,319
Speaker 4: the problems just became so obvious and so severe that

666
00:37:50,560 --> 00:37:57,120
Speaker 4: even in this super business friendly environment, some cities and

667
00:37:57,480 --> 00:38:01,320
Speaker 4: even the state of California decide to take some action.

668
00:38:01,920 --> 00:38:02,480
Speaker 2: Yeah.

669
00:38:02,719 --> 00:38:06,640
Speaker 1: I thought that was interesting because so like I didn't

670
00:38:06,640 --> 00:38:10,200
Speaker 1: even know that they were so good at lobbying and

671
00:38:10,600 --> 00:38:15,520
Speaker 1: getting these like preemptive like striking down stuff before it

672
00:38:15,520 --> 00:38:17,520
Speaker 1: could even become is. So it's like, listen, when we

673
00:38:17,560 --> 00:38:21,200
Speaker 1: come in, boom, We're gonna run everything, and we will.

674
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:23,920
Speaker 2: Have already smoothed greased all the wheels. So it was like,

675
00:38:24,760 --> 00:38:25,160
Speaker 2: this is.

676
00:38:25,120 --> 00:38:28,960
Speaker 1: Such a major undertaking, but it's also kind of you

677
00:38:28,960 --> 00:38:30,280
Speaker 1: can see why it's so successful.

678
00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:35,080
Speaker 2: They kind of thought of everything so far. The other

679
00:38:35,400 --> 00:38:36,200
Speaker 2: before we got out of here.

680
00:38:36,239 --> 00:38:38,480
Speaker 1: The last thing I wanted to ask, because I feel

681
00:38:38,480 --> 00:38:40,640
Speaker 1: like the book still does end on like I feel

682
00:38:40,640 --> 00:38:43,120
Speaker 1: like we've been talking about pessimism for like forty eight minutes,

683
00:38:43,520 --> 00:38:47,520
Speaker 1: but the book kind of is on like the idea

684
00:38:47,560 --> 00:38:49,759
Speaker 1: that there's still hope here, right, This is not like

685
00:38:50,400 --> 00:38:54,000
Speaker 1: we're doomed the technology has failed us back you know,

686
00:38:54,160 --> 00:38:57,440
Speaker 1: back to the middle of dark ages. What is it

687
00:38:57,520 --> 00:39:00,200
Speaker 1: that makes you feel like, you know, like what what

688
00:39:00,280 --> 00:39:04,280
Speaker 1: companies or what apps or what ideas, what community spaces

689
00:39:04,320 --> 00:39:06,680
Speaker 1: are giving you kind of like hope, you know what

690
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:09,319
Speaker 1: countries are giving you, Like, Okay, there's there's a place

691
00:39:09,320 --> 00:39:10,640
Speaker 1: where we can find balance in this.

692
00:39:12,040 --> 00:39:17,720
Speaker 4: Yeah, I And it's true. I do feel optimistic despite

693
00:39:18,000 --> 00:39:19,719
Speaker 4: you know, the subtitle of the book is how the

694
00:39:19,760 --> 00:39:22,640
Speaker 4: sharing economy got hijacked but then and how to win

695
00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:23,000
Speaker 4: it back?

696
00:39:23,040 --> 00:39:26,680
Speaker 3: I mean, I do believe we can. And it's you know,

697
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:27,880
Speaker 3: it's partly.

698
00:39:29,120 --> 00:39:34,960
Speaker 4: The technology makes a lot of new social relations possible

699
00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:36,520
Speaker 4: and like super efficient.

700
00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:39,320
Speaker 3: I think that's the thing. So let me give you

701
00:39:39,320 --> 00:39:39,920
Speaker 3: the example.

702
00:39:40,000 --> 00:39:42,719
Speaker 4: I studied the I did the first academic study of

703
00:39:42,719 --> 00:39:47,360
Speaker 4: what's called a platform cooperative, which is a worker on co.

704
00:39:47,200 --> 00:39:52,000
Speaker 3: Op on one of these platforms. So instead of having uber.

705
00:39:53,719 --> 00:39:58,879
Speaker 4: Investors and sharehold now shareholders owning the platform and extracting

706
00:39:58,880 --> 00:40:02,120
Speaker 4: all that value from it. The workers own it, and

707
00:40:02,960 --> 00:40:05,840
Speaker 4: it's really it's you know, I think it's a really

708
00:40:05,920 --> 00:40:11,560
Speaker 4: great idea because the technology just makes it so much

709
00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:16,480
Speaker 4: easier to get to do without management. So here's here's

710
00:40:16,520 --> 00:40:19,520
Speaker 4: the example that I started with some quite a few

711
00:40:19,600 --> 00:40:22,160
Speaker 4: years ago, and when I started thinking about these platform

712
00:40:22,200 --> 00:40:24,400
Speaker 4: co ops, why are they what can they do?

713
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:26,759
Speaker 3: Let's think about a home healthcare aid.

714
00:40:26,960 --> 00:40:32,160
Speaker 4: So this is a notoriously exploitative industry where the worker

715
00:40:32,400 --> 00:40:35,279
Speaker 4: does a lot of hard work and really doesn't get

716
00:40:35,320 --> 00:40:40,319
Speaker 4: that much money, and they get for the private the

717
00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:46,319
Speaker 4: private client sector. They get hired through agencies, and the clients,

718
00:40:46,520 --> 00:40:49,960
Speaker 4: the families, hire through the agencies because they want to

719
00:40:50,000 --> 00:40:53,160
Speaker 4: be you know, they want people who are trustworthy, that

720
00:40:54,000 --> 00:40:56,560
Speaker 4: they're you know, they're inviting someone into their home to

721
00:40:56,640 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 4: take care of a sick person, et cetera.

722
00:40:59,600 --> 00:41:00,759
Speaker 3: So that that.

723
00:41:00,800 --> 00:41:04,120
Speaker 4: Quality control and that you know, kind of ensuring that

724
00:41:04,120 --> 00:41:06,600
Speaker 4: the person is who they say they are and so

725
00:41:06,680 --> 00:41:07,920
Speaker 4: forth is really important.

726
00:41:10,040 --> 00:41:11,840
Speaker 3: The agencies take half the money.

727
00:41:12,640 --> 00:41:15,319
Speaker 4: Wow, they take half the money, okay in a lot

728
00:41:15,320 --> 00:41:20,120
Speaker 4: of cases. So now you have a platform that has

729
00:41:20,360 --> 00:41:24,520
Speaker 4: a system for collecting information.

730
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:24,880
Speaker 3: About a person.

731
00:41:25,080 --> 00:41:27,640
Speaker 4: They've got a rating, they've got reputation, you can find

732
00:41:27,640 --> 00:41:31,280
Speaker 4: out from all the other clients who who they worked for,

733
00:41:31,440 --> 00:41:34,640
Speaker 4: how good they are, and so forth. You don't need

734
00:41:34,680 --> 00:41:37,879
Speaker 4: the agency, right, you just need the platform.

735
00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:41,560
Speaker 3: And so that other half of all that money, some

736
00:41:41,640 --> 00:41:43,560
Speaker 3: of it could go to the customer, it could go

737
00:41:43,600 --> 00:41:44,240
Speaker 3: to the worker.

738
00:41:45,200 --> 00:41:49,000
Speaker 4: The technology allows you to get rid of that middleman.

739
00:41:49,080 --> 00:41:51,960
Speaker 4: That was one of the big ideas from the early days.

740
00:41:52,160 --> 00:41:56,560
Speaker 4: More value to the to the the you know, the users.

741
00:41:57,040 --> 00:42:00,560
Speaker 4: So that's what a platform cooperative allows you to do,

742
00:42:00,840 --> 00:42:03,239
Speaker 4: which is like to get rid of a lot of

743
00:42:03,239 --> 00:42:07,840
Speaker 4: those layers of management and that that investor class. Because

744
00:42:07,960 --> 00:42:10,960
Speaker 4: now these platforms are pretty easy to set up. The

745
00:42:11,000 --> 00:42:14,080
Speaker 4: technology is widely available, it's not that expensive.

746
00:42:14,160 --> 00:42:16,200
Speaker 3: It's not like in the early days.

747
00:42:15,920 --> 00:42:18,760
Speaker 4: When you know only you know, just a few companies

748
00:42:18,840 --> 00:42:21,160
Speaker 4: knew how to do it. So and they're not all

749
00:42:21,200 --> 00:42:24,680
Speaker 4: as complicated as a logistics or delivery company where you're

750
00:42:24,719 --> 00:42:29,000
Speaker 4: just talking about labor exchanges. You know, you don't need

751
00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 4: all the mapping logistics. You know, the algorithms aren't that complicated.

752
00:42:33,320 --> 00:42:38,160
Speaker 4: So that's why I feel optimistic. The platform co op

753
00:42:38,200 --> 00:42:40,279
Speaker 4: we studied was super successful.

754
00:42:40,840 --> 00:42:43,360
Speaker 3: The artists loved it.

755
00:42:43,360 --> 00:42:46,239
Speaker 4: It was making a lot of money. They got way

756
00:42:46,280 --> 00:42:49,359
Speaker 4: more money than when they sold on the you know,

757
00:42:49,440 --> 00:42:58,480
Speaker 4: the the standard platforms. And there are cleaning co ops

758
00:42:58,520 --> 00:43:02,200
Speaker 4: that have started now, bicycle hurryer co ops, drivers, you know,

759
00:43:02,320 --> 00:43:06,520
Speaker 4: righte Heil co ops, healthcare. There is a big, huge

760
00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:09,560
Speaker 4: freelancers co op in Europe, so.

761
00:43:10,200 --> 00:43:13,040
Speaker 3: It's actually an idea. A lot of them are starting.

762
00:43:13,120 --> 00:43:16,040
Speaker 4: There's something called FAIRB and B which is a cooperative

763
00:43:16,080 --> 00:43:23,440
Speaker 4: alternative to Airbnb that reinvests in the communities where the.

764
00:43:21,760 --> 00:43:25,799
Speaker 3: Housing is located. So I think that's the way to go.

765
00:43:26,239 --> 00:43:29,000
Speaker 4: I mean, they've got they've got to compete with these

766
00:43:29,040 --> 00:43:32,239
Speaker 4: giant companies. But you know, Uber and Lyft have been

767
00:43:32,360 --> 00:43:35,760
Speaker 4: just losing world historic amounts of money.

768
00:43:35,920 --> 00:43:37,840
Speaker 3: You know, maybe it's time to try something else.

769
00:43:37,960 --> 00:43:41,239
Speaker 2: That was the other thing I didn't I don't want

770
00:43:41,239 --> 00:43:42,960
Speaker 2: to go over the time, but that was the other thing.

771
00:43:43,000 --> 00:43:46,640
Speaker 1: I just didn't understand the math of we're losing money.

772
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:49,799
Speaker 1: And then also the people who run it are billionaires.

773
00:43:49,880 --> 00:43:52,960
Speaker 1: You know, It's like, I don't know, just mathematically, it

774
00:43:53,040 --> 00:43:56,200
Speaker 1: just doesn't seem to make sense that you know, you

775
00:43:56,200 --> 00:43:58,200
Speaker 1: could be a billionaire and be like, yeah, my company's

776
00:43:58,239 --> 00:44:00,080
Speaker 1: in the red and we've never made a property, but

777
00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:01,080
Speaker 1: I'm rich.

778
00:44:02,280 --> 00:44:05,400
Speaker 4: Well, you know, it's interesting and I I think I

779
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:07,719
Speaker 4: have five extra minutes. I hear my husband still mowing

780
00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:12,239
Speaker 4: the lawn before we have to leave. We had one, uh,

781
00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:14,440
Speaker 4: one of the somebody who's in the book.

782
00:44:14,239 --> 00:44:17,759
Speaker 3: And someone we interviewed who'd been at a startup.

783
00:44:18,440 --> 00:44:20,319
Speaker 4: She was part of a startup, and then she was

784
00:44:20,400 --> 00:44:25,240
Speaker 4: doing bicycle currying courier and she was saying, how crazy

785
00:44:25,280 --> 00:44:30,640
Speaker 4: the economics of the startups are because the investors are

786
00:44:30,640 --> 00:44:31,960
Speaker 4: just pouring tons of money in.

787
00:44:32,160 --> 00:44:35,879
Speaker 3: The investors have so much money they poured it in.

788
00:44:36,080 --> 00:44:39,080
Speaker 4: They know that nine out of ten are going to fail, right,

789
00:44:39,600 --> 00:44:42,080
Speaker 4: so they don't they but they don't know which one

790
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:44,680
Speaker 4: is going to succeed. So they pour the money in

791
00:44:45,000 --> 00:44:46,880
Speaker 4: and they're basically willing to lose it.

792
00:44:47,880 --> 00:44:52,520
Speaker 3: And that's what and that's what goes on in the

793
00:44:52,640 --> 00:44:53,480
Speaker 3: at the beginning.

794
00:44:54,080 --> 00:44:57,120
Speaker 4: And then if they really believe in an idea, they're

795
00:44:57,160 --> 00:44:59,759
Speaker 4: willing to take those losses for a long time.

796
00:45:00,160 --> 00:45:02,799
Speaker 3: They think eventually there's going to be a big pay day.

797
00:45:04,120 --> 00:45:06,640
Speaker 3: You know. They look at Amazon, they look at Google.

798
00:45:06,760 --> 00:45:09,160
Speaker 4: These are things that in the early days lose money.

799
00:45:09,200 --> 00:45:11,479
Speaker 4: And then Amazon took a long time to make money.

800
00:45:11,480 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 4: And now, of course it's like the most profitable you

801
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:20,840
Speaker 4: know business you could ever imagine, so with Uber, because

802
00:45:20,920 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 4: Uber is the company that is lost by far the

803
00:45:23,239 --> 00:45:28,399
Speaker 4: most money with Uber. The idea the profitability will come

804
00:45:28,480 --> 00:45:31,319
Speaker 4: with Uber only if they can eliminate all the competition

805
00:45:31,560 --> 00:45:34,120
Speaker 4: or at least profitability on a big scale.

806
00:45:34,239 --> 00:45:35,840
Speaker 3: And I talk about this in a book.

807
00:45:35,920 --> 00:45:40,600
Speaker 4: In the book, they subsidize every ride and that's why

808
00:45:40,640 --> 00:45:42,880
Speaker 4: a lot of people started taking right here because it

809
00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:45,240
Speaker 4: was a lot cheaper than taxis in the early days,

810
00:45:45,600 --> 00:45:49,640
Speaker 4: and with the pooled services, they were pricing it as

811
00:45:49,680 --> 00:45:51,520
Speaker 4: the same as a public transportation.

812
00:45:52,480 --> 00:45:54,759
Speaker 3: So what would you rather do? Have a car come

813
00:45:54,800 --> 00:45:55,319
Speaker 3: and pick you.

814
00:45:55,320 --> 00:45:57,560
Speaker 4: Up wherever you are, take you to wherever you want

815
00:45:57,600 --> 00:46:00,400
Speaker 4: to go, or get on a bus way you.

816
00:46:00,440 --> 00:46:02,560
Speaker 3: Take five times as long, same price.

817
00:46:03,400 --> 00:46:06,680
Speaker 4: Okay, of course people are gonna people are gonna take

818
00:46:06,680 --> 00:46:11,200
Speaker 4: the ride house. But once there is no public transportation,

819
00:46:11,680 --> 00:46:15,319
Speaker 4: once there is no lyft, once there's no other way

820
00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:19,000
Speaker 4: to get around, you're going to be paying five times

821
00:46:19,040 --> 00:46:21,759
Speaker 4: the price. That's the only way Uber gets profitable is

822
00:46:21,760 --> 00:46:23,640
Speaker 4: when it jacks up those prices.

823
00:46:24,080 --> 00:46:25,880
Speaker 3: A lot of that demand's going to go away.

824
00:46:26,440 --> 00:46:29,279
Speaker 4: Because people are gonna they're not gonna move around as much,

825
00:46:29,360 --> 00:46:31,960
Speaker 4: or they're gonna get walked again on the biker. But

826
00:46:32,080 --> 00:46:36,719
Speaker 4: that's what's happening, is those investors believe in the company.

827
00:46:36,840 --> 00:46:40,080
Speaker 4: But you know, Uber was a is a Ponzi scheme,

828
00:46:40,280 --> 00:46:42,600
Speaker 4: not a what is it called a bezel.

829
00:46:42,719 --> 00:46:44,640
Speaker 3: It's like a total fraud.

830
00:46:45,400 --> 00:46:47,800
Speaker 4: And it was people were talking about a valuation of

831
00:46:47,840 --> 00:46:50,359
Speaker 4: one hundred and twenty billion, you know, and it's down

832
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:52,200
Speaker 4: to now, I don't know what, you know, less than

833
00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:56,160
Speaker 4: fifty I think, but it's you know, it's it's never

834
00:46:56,200 --> 00:47:01,520
Speaker 4: made money, it's losing insane amounts of money, and.

835
00:47:01,480 --> 00:47:04,360
Speaker 1: Then it's in crazing by it because in the book

836
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:08,720
Speaker 1: you're also like, you know, in these interviews, you're anticipating

837
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:11,440
Speaker 1: the thing because you know you've been studying this, so

838
00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:14,279
Speaker 1: you know, people will be like, well, I'll do this

839
00:47:14,400 --> 00:47:16,560
Speaker 1: type of deal, and you're like, okay, But the changes

840
00:47:16,600 --> 00:47:19,440
Speaker 1: that will happen because of this, you have to think

841
00:47:19,480 --> 00:47:21,839
Speaker 1: of that too, Like what about the people that buy

842
00:47:21,920 --> 00:47:25,360
Speaker 1: more cars, so it's actually not reducing the carbon footprint

843
00:47:25,400 --> 00:47:25,960
Speaker 1: because it's.

844
00:47:25,800 --> 00:47:28,160
Speaker 2: A profit motive to having more cars.

845
00:47:28,280 --> 00:47:30,600
Speaker 1: You know, Like that kind of thing does seem to

846
00:47:30,640 --> 00:47:33,760
Speaker 1: go out of the window because it doesn't fit the marketing,

847
00:47:33,880 --> 00:47:35,440
Speaker 1: so they just don't want to talk about it.

848
00:47:35,880 --> 00:47:40,040
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I zip car was started by an ardent

849
00:47:40,200 --> 00:47:42,839
Speaker 4: environmental she's a friend of mine, and there were two

850
00:47:42,920 --> 00:47:47,920
Speaker 4: people started it, but she got eventually got pushed out

851
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:52,200
Speaker 4: of the company. But it's whole thing. You know, it

852
00:47:52,200 --> 00:47:55,880
Speaker 4: has green marketing, green color. But also you know that

853
00:47:55,920 --> 00:47:58,239
Speaker 4: you don't have to buy a car anymore. You can

854
00:47:58,280 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 4: just get a zip car when you need one. You've

855
00:48:01,000 --> 00:48:02,680
Speaker 4: heard of zip car, Yes, you have it?

856
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:04,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, Okay, I've heard of it.

857
00:48:04,520 --> 00:48:04,960
Speaker 3: Yeah.

858
00:48:05,000 --> 00:48:07,759
Speaker 4: So it's a it's just a you could rent a

859
00:48:07,800 --> 00:48:11,600
Speaker 4: car for an hour basically, and they were located all

860
00:48:11,640 --> 00:48:14,880
Speaker 4: around the city, like I had. One of my students

861
00:48:14,920 --> 00:48:17,520
Speaker 4: had one parked dinner driveway in the early days. So

862
00:48:17,560 --> 00:48:20,520
Speaker 4: they're very convenient. They'd be in your neighborhood and so forth,

863
00:48:20,840 --> 00:48:23,120
Speaker 4: and the whole Those women got into it for the

864
00:48:23,160 --> 00:48:26,760
Speaker 4: purpose of reducing carbon footprints so people wouldn't buy cars,

865
00:48:26,840 --> 00:48:33,520
Speaker 4: et cetera. Some years later, just by coincidence, a friend

866
00:48:33,560 --> 00:48:37,080
Speaker 4: of mine happened to be doing marketing, you know, rebranding

867
00:48:37,239 --> 00:48:39,920
Speaker 4: zip car, and you know, he had access to all

868
00:48:39,960 --> 00:48:42,360
Speaker 4: the data and what he said to them was, you

869
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:46,919
Speaker 4: have to stop saying you're green, because actually what you're

870
00:48:46,960 --> 00:48:50,800
Speaker 4: doing is making it easier for people to use cars.

871
00:48:52,000 --> 00:48:52,799
Speaker 3: They're putting them on.

872
00:48:52,840 --> 00:48:57,399
Speaker 4: College campuses, people are using them instead of public transportation.

873
00:48:57,520 --> 00:49:00,960
Speaker 4: They just made it much more cheaper and more convenient

874
00:49:01,040 --> 00:49:04,120
Speaker 4: to rent a car. Yeah, and it was the opposite

875
00:49:04,320 --> 00:49:08,160
Speaker 4: of what it had hoped for. Yeah, so they quietly

876
00:49:08,280 --> 00:49:11,520
Speaker 4: dropped all of the green uh market. You know, they

877
00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:14,759
Speaker 4: still the green color, but they no longer made any

878
00:49:14,800 --> 00:49:17,960
Speaker 4: claims because my friends said, you're gonna get creamed on

879
00:49:18,040 --> 00:49:20,759
Speaker 4: this because it's very obvious it's not what you're doing.

880
00:49:20,880 --> 00:49:24,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Airbnb with the we're reducing travel, we're you know,

881
00:49:24,600 --> 00:49:26,960
Speaker 1: it's less to travel, and we're gonna reduce the flipprints

882
00:49:26,960 --> 00:49:30,080
Speaker 1: like well, if you make one more trip then you

883
00:49:30,160 --> 00:49:33,680
Speaker 1: were gonna make on a plane. All of that is gone.

884
00:49:33,840 --> 00:49:36,480
Speaker 1: So yeah, anyway, I love this book.

885
00:49:36,520 --> 00:49:37,080
Speaker 2: It was great.

886
00:49:37,840 --> 00:49:42,320
Speaker 1: Y'all did great work, and uh, you know, hopefully the

887
00:49:42,360 --> 00:49:45,040
Speaker 1: people listening to us go out and read it. It

888
00:49:45,080 --> 00:49:48,360
Speaker 1: was very eye opening and the my favorite thing is

889
00:49:48,400 --> 00:49:51,279
Speaker 1: that it doesn't really skirt away from any issues, like

890
00:49:52,680 --> 00:49:55,000
Speaker 1: you know, as a black person always like how does

891
00:49:55,120 --> 00:49:57,920
Speaker 1: race affect this thing? You know, because that's my live experience,

892
00:49:58,320 --> 00:50:00,200
Speaker 1: and it's like in there it's like, oh yeah, as

893
00:50:00,840 --> 00:50:03,240
Speaker 1: the way that if you do air and BnB people

894
00:50:03,320 --> 00:50:05,600
Speaker 1: the price people pay to rent it out. If you're

895
00:50:05,880 --> 00:50:09,160
Speaker 1: if you want to be a host or or or

896
00:50:09,320 --> 00:50:12,200
Speaker 1: be a personet that uh is a customer sometimes you

897
00:50:12,200 --> 00:50:14,680
Speaker 1: get rejected and stuff, and uh, I just felt like

898
00:50:14,680 --> 00:50:17,160
Speaker 1: it was a very holistic approach, but but not a

899
00:50:17,160 --> 00:50:20,160
Speaker 1: pessimistic one, just kind of like realistic and then hey,

900
00:50:20,280 --> 00:50:23,160
Speaker 1: here's some ideas we can look into. So, uh, you

901
00:50:23,239 --> 00:50:26,160
Speaker 1: did a masterful job, Juliet, and thank you for your

902
00:50:26,200 --> 00:50:27,120
Speaker 1: time today.

903
00:50:28,040 --> 00:50:30,680
Speaker 3: Oh, thank you. It's really been a pleasure. And I'm

904
00:50:30,719 --> 00:50:31,840
Speaker 3: so glad you liked the book.

905
00:50:32,040 --> 00:50:34,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, I hope you uh hope you sell a lot

906
00:50:34,480 --> 00:50:37,200
Speaker 1: of them and uh that people start being a little

907
00:50:37,200 --> 00:50:38,280
Speaker 1: bit more mindful.

908
00:50:37,920 --> 00:50:40,640
Speaker 2: With their uh the choices out here.

909
00:50:40,800 --> 00:50:43,080
Speaker 3: So thank you, Yeah, thank you