Get ready for gig work

I think it’s particularly important for us to figure out this third-way because I believe many more jobs will fit its mold in the future. The ability for algorithmically managed work to lower transaction costs and enable networks of loosely connected gig workers to coordinate on complex tasks is too powerful to be a passing fad.

Algorithmic management is already here, and it reduces transaction costs to the absolute minimum. I know this because I lead teams whose primary goal is to reduce this friction: we optimize steps in onboarding flows to allow people to start working faster, we add pay boosts to orders when we need to get them accepted quickly, we incentivize high-qu... See more

Some of these things will help provide people with unparalleled job flexibility, financial liquidity, and global work opportunities. But new layers of financialization and impersonal markets, particularly if not carefully considered by companies and well-versed policy-makers, have the potential to lead to damaging outcomes. As always, technology is... See more

When the option value of minimizing transaction costs by keeping employees around outweighs the deadweight loss of people stuck in an Office Space-inspired corporate purgatory, you end up with bullshit jobs.