1) Why is more gig economy a good thing? The US economy has always had variations of this over the years and it does not seem to be increasing long term. Why is job instability so good for the US economy?

2) In terms of TBTF and other the increasing size of multi-nationals (esp. with the complaining about crony capitalism), I think we are forgetting the value of economies of scale. It is exceptionally powerful in the long run.

3) I find it exceptionally contradictory that most successful internet businesses become so monopoly/oliogopoly really quick. (The barriers to the internet are really small and rely on relatively little capital.)

Not sure if the effect they measure is that high, but thought it interesting.

Thoughts?

https://hbr.org/2016/07/research-want-more-entrepreneurs-make-college-cheaper?utm_campaign=HBR&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

– Corporations have found ways to give employees the entrepreneurial experience
– Equity / pay / retention systems have evolved to compete with new offers from outside
– (As another commenter mentioned) big data lets big companies act like small companies in some ways, and some employees of big companies are focused as “owners” on small parts of the whole (I’m in this situation)
– A holistic view of an employee as an asset anywhere in the org, and orgs big enough to offer multiple opportunities for conscientious workers improves retention
– A high focus on feedback and performance reviews keeps everyone engaged, and provides early warning on attrition risk
– Multinationals with cloud operations and tons of video conferencing can bring the office to a small city instead of forcing you to relocate to their big city (I’m in this situation too)

I understand the importance of mobility overall, but from where I’m sitting it feels that big companies are offering a different deal than they did 20 years ago, and that must be considered in any conversation about the situation.

It might be possible to resuscitate Galbraith’s argument for the Internet era, that large standardized orgs with excellent and very granular economic sensors (e.g. online activity tracking ) intelligence and cheap and powerful computational capabilities, big legal compliance departments, and massive scalability really do now have an edge over the little, local entrepreneur or arbitrageur.

So once the local, little guy had the advantage in detecting and exploring local knowledge that escaped the attention of the big guys. But now the big guys have information surveillance systems and techniques that are like quasi-panopticons and economic all-seeing eyes of Sauron, that are as least as good as what the little guy can have.

More speculative and not thought through: maybe it’s even worse, they may generate, provide and control the market reconnaissance info used by the little guys in similar ways these days, and like big investment houses, keep the best opportunities for themselves.

Presumably Uber driver isn’t considered self-employed with these numbers.

The best ones are probably worth what they charge. How to evaluate them, IDK.