Tag: business

Perception and Your Career – COVID-19 series

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Perception is a powerful thing: What we do, where we live, which school we went to, which company we work for and who our clients are paint a picture of where we belong in people’s minds. Rightly or wrongly, perception is reality. Perception also informs finance.

A thought experiment: You meet someone at a function and ask the obligatory question of what they do for a living. You get the following answers:

  • I work for a large warehousing and logistics firm
  • I work in the energy industry, primarily focused on electricity
  • I work in consumer electronics sales
  • I work for a large taxi services firm
  • I work at a very large information indexing firm.

Some people (not us) nod politely and move onto the next conversation. But of course, the above statements could also read like this:

  • I work at Amazon
  • I work for Tesla
  • I work at Apple
  • I work at Uber
  • I work for Google.

Same job, different description, entirely different perception.

If someone works at a ‘hot’ company, surely they must be smarter, better, more competent. A possibility few people consider is that they might just be lucky to have ‘a seat on a rocket ship’ – simply riding the success of what happened before they got there. Maybe the more competent person is working damn hard and smart in a failing firm with fewer resources and a worse brand perception. Reality is rarely as it seems.

The economics of perception: Perception doesn’t only change minds – it also influences the economic value we assign to something. People, careers and especially corporations. If a firm seems ‘futuristic’ enough, the market can be incredibly irrational. Uber has lost $38 billion since 2013 and yet still has a market valuation of around $60 billion. As I discussed on The World on ABC News, I don’t believe Uber will ever recoup investors’ money and I still stand by this. But the reason Uber is valued so highly has little to do with reality and more to do with perception. In the short run, perception is more profitable than reality.

Now let’s compare Tesla with its closest competitors. The figures below represent the market capitalisation of the biggest car companies in the world, divided by how many cars they sell per year.

– Tesla $ valuation per car sold = $302k
– GM $ valuation per car = $5k
– Ford $ valuation per car sold = $17k
– Toyota $ valuation per car sold = $15k

Even though Tesla makes terrific cars (and has a wider portfolio) – its valuation is seriously inflated. Tesla plans to make 500,000 cars this year, while Toyota will ship around 10 million. Even if Tesla sold 5 million cars (10 times more than it does today), it would then have a valuation of $30,000 per car sold, which is still double that of Toyota. It just doesn’t add up. We must also remember that Tesla’s advantage in electric cars is quickly being eroded. You don’t have to be a maths major to understand that the economics of this will eventually drag their share price down. Likewise, it’s a lesson in the importance of brands, and being seen as technologically competent and future-centric. It’s one of the things our economy values most highly today.

Here’s the kicker – this isn’t just important for companies, it’s vital for you.

The Economic Perception of You: Being seen as future-focused and technologically literate in your career is a bankable asset. In uncertain times, people want to back those who have a handle on the future. It gives them confidence in you and gives you outsized opportunities. Being good at what you do today isn’t enough. People need to believe you’ll be good at whatever they’ll need tomorrow. This is a perception game – a matter of personal brand. How ‘Elon Musk’ are you? Our work lives used be based on qualifications, experience and competence. Increasingly, having a personal brand is becoming a core competence for everyone.

The World Just Got Flatter: Twitter, Facebook and other large technology firms have just announced their staff can work from home ‘forever’. Once we start to work from home, employers can hire staff from anywhere globally. It’ll be harder to build relationships, so having a personal brand will be even more vital. What we know from consumer culture and technology is that the most impressive brands command the highest price, not the most functional ones. This means that the marketing we do for ourselves might even be more important than the marketing do we do for an employer.

Keep thinking,

Steve. 

– – –

P.S – My Post-Covid-Economics briefing is getting rave reviews. I’ve now done with Fortune 50 firms and Governments in the USA, India, China, Singapore & the UK. I have a few corporate slots left for the month of June. Details here.

What the Fork? Strategy for 2020 – COVID-19 series

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Never has business been so open-minded to change. While humans are the most innovative species on earth, we’re inconsistent. If things are cruising along nicely in life – then don’t expect much change. We’re creatures of habit and naturally risk averse. Currently it is riskier to not change, hence the embrace of change.

I’ve never had as many large corporations and government bodies contact me as they have over the past two months. What’s refreshing is the desire not just to understand possibilities, but their willingness to implement – immediately. A timely reminder of how quickly we can mobilise when needed.

While I have been doing many post-COVID economic briefings, the strategic template I’ve offered is not just for large institutions, but also for startups and individual careers. Most COVID-related shifts are falling into 2 specific patterns: Acceleration and Forks.

Acceleration: These are the trends that were already happening, but slowly. They are long-term trajectories. However with COVID, they got on the fast track – accelerated. Things that might normally take years are transformed in mere months. This list under this shift is long, but here are some examples:

  • Work From Anywhere (WFA)
  • Biometric Surveillance of Citizens
  • Tele-Labour and Telemedicine
  • Transition to Ecommerce
  • Dominance of Technology in our social and work lives
  • Nationalism – re-localisation of core supply chain

Forks: These are changes in direction that would not have occurred without COVID. Sometimes they are additional requirements that need to be added to a process and sometimes they entirely replace how we used to do things. In this list we could include the following:

  • COVID-safe supply chains
  • Social Distancing in retail / entertainment environs
  • Travel restrictions – reduced human mobility
  • Exo-labour
  • Off-campus education

A key task today is to make a list of the relevant accelerants and forks in your business and personal life.  Some will be the same for everyone and some are industry specific. Categorise the changes that have impacted you into either Accelerant and Fork buckets, you’ve got a strategic template of how to go forward and build tactics for implementation.

Though fortunately not all of us have been affected physically by the virus, it’s likely we all have been affected in other ways. Personally, I’ve had to pivot. I practice what I preach and I’m happy to share my forks and accelerations.

A big chunk of my non-passive income came from keynote speaking and consulting. This involves being in front of large audiences, in closed rooms or prolonged face-to-face contact with clients, as well as interstate and overseas travel. That all went to zero. I’d also been working on some longer lead projects – the Future House, a new TV show and a new book – these have been my accelerants. Lately I’ve focused on writing (doing around 2,000 words a day) – scripts and segments for the new TV show, articles and more media interviews, as well as some post-COVID strategy briefings. Luckily, this can be done online.

I haven’t tried to replace lost income through doing cheaper online versions, simply because the value of my advice is not determined by how it is delivered. So, rather than offer discounts, I’ve decided to design a cathedral. When the sky clears, I’ll come out and share it. This is a core principal for freelancers. We have to be very careful not to cheapen our brands and discount them, because it can be very difficult later on to reclaim the true value.

The truth is the change has been really refreshing for my mind – I’ve never felt so prolific and stimulated exploring new possibilities and new ideas.

We should all remember this: the openness to innovation will only survive as long as the instability does. Stability usually results in stasis for the large majority. So take your chances now while the world is open to it, when everyone’s plans are kiboshed and their budgets are blown. We might just have a chance to invent something new.

– – –

Keep Thinking.

Steve. 

Escaping the Cubicle Farm – COVID-19 series

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

Nothing happens in decades, and then decades happen in days. We often get stuck in yesterday’s habits when a better option already exists. Especially when it comes to technology. It’s only when a transformational moment occurs do we embrace the shift. That moment has arrived for the modern day corporate office. We have finally escaped the cubicle farm – with a little courage we can make it permanent and change the shape of offices forever.

Why offices exist: It’s worth remembering that centralised offices exist, because once upon a time that was where the ‘tools to do our jobs’ resided. Typewriters, expensive photocopiers, computers, printers, internet connections, and even phones where all once things we didn’t have in our homes. Only a company could make the requisite investment. These days we nearly always have better technology in our homes than our office!

Weirdly, when that changed, we still kept going into our offices – mostly through habit and managements’ desire to watch over us.

All of a sudden – this changed. 

History of office hours: The amount of hours people worked was never tracked before industrialisation. We worked until it was done. We got paid when we sold what we made. It turns out that office hours where set to when the sun shone in the window of the office. Administration work was linked to daylight hours long before they became formal office hours in the mid 1900’s. So, now that we have electricity, a serious question needs to be why are we still slaves to 9-5? Especially given most of us are expected to check emails in bed, and answer the phone long after dinner. Surely people who do work which isn’t a time scheduled interaction ,can choose when to get the work done, just like a grown up should.

All of a sudden – we choose the hours. 

What causes traffic jams: They aren’t caused by the roads not being big enough – they are caused by everyone starting and finishing work around the same time – funny that. The major traffic jams around the world aren’t on the way to factories or retail outlets, but to CBD’s with high rise buildings filled with people doing information work. Crazy fact, the average office worker in Australia spends the equivalent of an entire work day commuting every week. We don’t need wider roads, we need the wisdom to realise we can work our own hours, and choose where we do that work for much of the week. Offices need to be a place where people collaborate, connect, plan and inspire – not type on laptops and make phone calls. Once we focus on that, we’ll realise the office is a sometimes place, not an everyday place.

All of a sudden – the roads are clear.

Truth about open plan offices: Offices are expensive to own run and operate. They are costly to the firm and the people who need to travel to them. The economic response to costly offices was the rapid growth of the open plan layout – sold in, as a shift towards collaborative work – the reality was more about getting more chickens in a smaller coup. We always knew we could collaborate miles away from each other and without being squashed into cubicles.

All of a sudden – we are distributed.

Offices of the future: These won’t just be smaller given we’ll frequent them less often, their shape will change too. They’ll be more open – be more like a house – hotel lobby – lounge room – cafe – the kinda space you want to spend time in and be inspired by. They won’t be a place where you do work, but plan and review it. We don’t even know what they will look like yet, we are about to invent them. They will be modular and change their shape based on the day, week, month, season and which firms and people happen to be using them. They’ll be what co-working spaces should’ve been – not the cubicle farms disguised with kombucha and pinball they turned out to be.

All of a sudden – we have an opportunity to reinvent work spaces.

A post COVID economy will be one where information work is as mobile as the tools we use to conduct it. The benefits for society will be enormous. We’ll have less commute time, spend more time and money in our local communities, and we’ll enjoy the interspersed office time we do have much more. We can have our cake and eat it too. But only if we don’t slip back into old habits.

The biggest benefit of all? That will be that we can unlock ourselves from office proximity. We can live where we choose even if we work at a city based firm. We can go regional and drive ,or even fly in when required and still have money and time left over. And most important of all, it could take pressure off house prices in and around major cities. A simple shift like this might just give the next generation a chance at owning a home – wherever they choose that to be.

– – –

Keep Thinking,

Steve. 

Post Covid Possibilities – COVID-19 series

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

At time like these no one has all the answers as to what’s next. What is useful however, is asking a lot of questions. The art of scenario planning and being ready for a number of plausible trajectories and future realities. So I’ve bunched them into the of categories Data, The Economy, Work and Society.

So here it is – Post Covid Possibilities from the Sammatron. Consider, discuss and debate.

The Data & Surveillance:

Digital Sovereignty – Governments around the world (excluding China & USA) will realise that they don’t have digital sovereignty They’ve essentially been colonised by ‘Big tech’ – in that they don’t own or control the most powerful tools in the modern economy – Digital Infrastructure. Hardware / data / social / search – they’ve had to rely Big Tech (Alphabet / Apple / Facebook / Amazon / Microsoft) to gain access to data to control the virus. It will (should) facilitate nationalisation of digital infrastructure and or create a desire to build out and create their own versions.

Permanent Surveillance – A new era of digital surveillance will enter the economy and become very sticky. All our personal connections & locations and data will now be a permanent fixture in Gov. databases. Providing existential risk for overreach. Algorithms matched with other existing data sets will provide near perfect summaries of most citizens.

Biometric Scanning – Will be a new norm like scanning for weapons except this time they won’t be checking for weapons outside of our bodies, but the weapons inside our bodies – potential viruses and infections. Biometric testing will be present on public transport, stadiums, schools, universities and workplaces. We’ll walk through temperature sensors, breathe into analysers, look into iris scanners and be monitored by any other device you can imagine.

Big Tech Anti-Trust – Governments around the world will realise that they had to go cap in hand to big tech to use their resources to implement tracking and report on the covid situation. They are the only sector to have gained financial ground and market capitalisation during the crisis. This will further ensconce policy calling for their break up and or nationalisation.

The Economy:

Securing the Supply chain – There will be a push to have a stronger domestic supply chain and local production in most countries. Countries have realised how exposed they are if they don’t produce essential goods – such as food, medicine, health care materials, transport, energy etc. Local Manufacturing will make a comeback and be facilitated by new levels of A.I and automation.

De-globalisation – Married with borders being restricted and closed in many cases for an elongated period of time, we can expect a decade of de-globalisation. This shift already aligns with current US and UK political trajectories (Notably Brexit) and will accelerate the trend. Expect manufacturing and production to strengthen in home markets as a respond to supply chain risk and geopolitical and racial undertones.

Post-Efficiency Economics – Our obsession with efficiency of everything, and leaving no margin for error or ‘fat’ will be exposed as flawed. In the new economy we can expect a balance of safety to be built into systems which are inefficient on purpose so we can cope with Black Swan events such as COVID-19.

End of the Consistent Taxation Decline: The Ragan inspired era of reduced tax and trickle-down economics will be exposed as a lie that favours the rich and drives inequality. Due to necessity taxes will be raised globally regardless of what Liberal and Republican governments currently claim. We’ll realise that tax actually provides a base for economic stability and severely needed structural investment.

Nationalisation of Infrastructure – A new form of civic federalism will emerge. We’ll start to revalue to importance of infrastructure not run with a profit incentive, but the service incentive of the populace. Starting with Healthcare & Education, people will realise natural monopolies like Energy, Roads, Public Transport, Telecoms, may be better held in public hands. We’ll start to value access and control of critical infrastructure as the fabric of a civil society. A renewed respect for our trusted Institutions will also emerge.

A New Frugality – In both business and consumer spending. Financial fear associated with more frequent shocks will reduce the incentives to take on debt and aim for capital growth. This will impact corporate investment, consumer spending and house prices. The end of mass consumer culture could eventuate. A post-depression era style conservatism could emerge. The economy will be driven more by yield, than growth.

Bailout Pushback – Citizens will rally against the Gov. bailing out publicly traded stocks, and call it out for what it is Cronyism – or shall we call it – Corporate Socialism. This time the crisis has really hit street level and any bailout of a failed firm that isn’t an essential service will be heavily derided. This crisis jump start traditional two way capitalism, The take your wins, and swallow your losses – the antithesis of the GFC – where private profits and end up public losses via bail outs.

The Philanthropic Charade Exposed – billionaires who use philanthropy as a PR strategy will be exposed as the fraud they are. The tiny percentages of the wealth they offer up, pale in comparison to what they ought be paying in taxes, and the fact that philanthropy falsely allows rich people to decide where we need the money, (Choosing to give where it suits their business & political interests) instead of letting Gov. allocated their resources. All the while generating political favour for them.

Work:

Shrinking Offices – Companies will realise they don’t need as much office space. They’ll loosen the reigns on where office staff work, and take the financial advantage of having smaller offices people can come to for interactions and meetings X times per week. They’ll have collaboration spaces, not cubicles. This will negatively impact city real estate prices. The work from home revolution will accelerate.

Front Line Workers – Increased respect for healthcare workers has emerged, but sadly those in low skilled front-line work (grocery clerks, warehouse workers, drivers et al) continue to be put at risk with little safety considerations and zero financial recourse. We can expect logistical front end workers – the unsung heroes of COVD-19 – to push back hard and maybe even ask for danger money. Could unions re-emerge to protect gig workers?

Teachers, Nurses, Paramedics, childcare worker Revaluation – Social carers of the informed, young and sick might finally get the pay and respect they deserve, at a minimum they’ll have a stronger argument to their cases forward. We can live without many services, and these aren’t on the list.

Telemedicine Gets Real – Covid-10 will been seen as the long overdue birth of telemedicine. Our current necessity has provided proof that many of our healthcare needs can be performed remotely – firstly with GP consults going online– and eventually with robotic surgery becoming normalised.

Scientific Community – Expertise will start to get the respect it deserves. Even though some politicians have been working against their advice in many cases. Because this case is real, and has an immediate and direct impact (bodies piling up) – the truth will emerge that scientific advice must be adhered to in a modern society. We can hope that science will usurp the idolatry of celebrity and billionaire philanthropy. Throw us a bone why don’t ya Bezos!

Social Impact:

Personal Space – The handshake and kiss hello, and even the Bro Hug might evaporate from society. It’s already being espoused as a good time to stop it forever by healthcare experts. We can expect post corona social interactions to only be quasi-physical.

Increased Authoritarianism – Given the fear and solution authoritarian rule game to the virus, it opens a space for the acceptance of authoritarian rule. We’ll shift away from hyper individualism and the corporatization of society. We’ll revalue structure, control and certainty of risk avoidance.

Strengthened Family Units – Extended family lock downs will strengthen the value we put on the family unit and provide a war like and permanent bonding experience which will be generational and strengthen the value we put on the nuclear family. Historical evidence suggest that authoritarian regimes have stronger family units as a counter balance.

Digital Divide Exposed – COVID has exposed a digital divide amongst demographics. The most financially disadvantaged workers are also those who can’t work from home, and tend to be customer facing. Home schooling has also created a dearth for less well-off families whose kids lack access to basic technology to assist in home learning. This will become a focus of Gov. to ensure internet access and access to portable hardware such as laptops becomes part of the standard educational resources provided by Gov.

Re-Birth of Essentialism – Covid-19 have proven everything outside of food, housing, energy and healthcare are largely optional. By learning what we can live without a new era of essentialism will both be a cause and result of the new post covid frugality.

Decline in Celebrity Culture – The moved towards essentialism, will be a start reminder of the little value celebrity adds to our daily live. With a lack of production qualities in their covid-19 media output we’ve realised few celebrities have special talents – the celebrity herd will thin and influencers will see they are the most expendable as marketing budgets get cut.

Revival of Public Spaces – The increased usage of public parks and spaces will provide a new interest in protecting these resources and upgrading their facilities.

Cracks appear in Life Optimisation Movement – The idea of Life hacking and optimisations emanating out of Silicon Valley will become exposed as a flawed way to turn yourself into an economic robot. We’ve been reminded that just being and having freedom to move around is far more important than using digital tools to track how many steps you do, how well you sleep and counting other measures our bodies already track for us.

– – –

Stay safe & keep thinking, Steve. 

Choose your own Adventure – COVID-19 series

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

I did lots of post this week – but rather than bombard you with them every day, here they are for you to choose your own adventure:

Option 1: Our next Global Pandemics – yes, they could be worse.

Option 2: 3 Business Strategies for anyone during COVID-19 – which one is right for you?

Option 3: How saving Pennies in January, cost us Trillions in March – The real cost of hesitating.

Option 4: How the Richest Man in the World Behaves – Putting profit before people.

Option 5: Changes to the world post CoronaVirus – radio interview I did this week.

– – –

Stay alert & stay safe,

Steve.

 

Definitions During a Crisis – COVID-19 series

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

(12 min read – long, but worth it) 

Historian and author Yuval Harari says that if something doesn’t feel, then it isn’t real.  While an economy can grow or decline – it’s an abstract concept. Many of the parts that make an economy are real – like people – but much of it is just aggregated concepts for which measurements are possible.

Weirdly, it seems many governments (Australia and the USA come to mind) are more concerned with abstract concepts than real people’s needs. So with that in mind, I’ve decided to bust out some truth bombs and break down what is really happening during this crisis.

The Economy – The word economics can be traced back to mean household management. Of course, if a household has no resources, it can’t participate in the wider economy. This would also flow through to business to business transactions, because the only reason they exist is to facilitate the production of goods and services for other households as well. Ultimately it all starts and ends with the household. How quickly our federal government forgot that if we want the economy to survive, we need to go back to the original meaning of economics and help out households. If that means replacing incomes temporarily, then the government should do this. The best thing our government could do right now is think bottom up, not top down. If people have resources (money), everything else will be OK in the long run. If the government helps businesses first, then they’ve forgotten why businesses actually exist. Go to the source. In times where efficiency of resource allocation is desperately needed, cutting out the middle man is a damn good place to start.

Capitalism – We don’t live in a capitalist economy, but a mixed economy where we have a financial competition backed up with social protections. That’s what our taxes and governments are for. Right now the pendulum needs to swing very far to the side of socialism. We’ve always had publicly provided, healthcare, pensions, disability and unemployment benefits. What we need right now is a strategy or short term government policy that could save lives. Any murmur of dissent from so-called ‘capitalists’ needs to be pushed back hard by all of us.

The Corporation – A corporation is a legal entity set up to reduce the personal risk of people who own it. If corporations are designed to protect people, it might be time ignore the structure and think of the people they are made up of. Save the people and the corporations will be fine. If this sounds ridiculously simple, it actually is.

Yield – Our economy for too long has been based on capital growth instead of yield. We’re about to transition from growth to yield. People and companies have been obsessed with acquiring things in the hope they’ll be worth more tomorrow, simply because there is demand for it rather than the fruit it bears. Growth should be a function of expected future yield, but that seems to have gotten lost somewhere along the line. It’s about to make a serious comeback in the sharemarket, real estate and pretty much anything we invest in. The market will start to ask what’s the yield and base their decisions on that. This is a good thing.

Trickle Down Economics – This is the flawed idea that if we reduce taxes and costs for businesses and the wealthy, it will stimulate business investment in the short term and benefit society at large in the long term. The reality is that it’s called trickle down, because the 99% end up with only a trickle. The clue was in the name, and yet those who divined this strategy managed to sell it to the world. We are about to see it doesn’t work and the truth is that our economy is bottom up – it always has been. Governments around the world will realise very quickly that unless you replace lost incomes at the household level (like Denmark are doing), we are headed for a deep and long depression.

Bailouts – If Australia or any other country bails out an industry, it should be a buyout instead. Bailouts are a hoax where the stockholder get to profit in good times and make tax payers take the downside. It’s a case of private profit and public losses. If a firm is important enough for a government to bailout, then it should be nationalised or at a minimum, the government should take equity positions to the equivalent value of their market cap at the time of the bailout. These equity positions should take the form of preferred convertible stock.

Here’s an example: Qantas has performed share buybacks (when a company buys its own stock to take it off the market and boost the share price, benefiting existing shareholders and often bonus-incentivised executives) of over a billion dollars in the last 2 years. If they hadn’t done the buybacks, they would have a war chest of over a billion dollars in their balance sheet for moments like these. In an industry plagued with Black Swan events like this every decade or so, it would have been a more prudent management strategy. I bet Allan Joyce won’t give back any of his $20 million in non salary benefits he received last financial year.

Unemployment Statistics – For a long time the ‘underemployed’ (people who want more work than they currently have) have not been regarded as unemployed. I’ve even read predictions as recently as this week claiming unemployment might even get to 11-15%. These unemployment predictions are laughable. Get ready for 30-50% unemployment. In times of great change we need to get our heads out of the spreadsheet and into the real world. Most things happen on the street before they can be measured empirically in any meaningful way. Maybe the people coming up with these numbers should go and ask a broad sample of 100 people if they are currently working… then they’d get some real numbers.

De-globalisation – We can also expected a re-consideration of running global supply chains. The true national risk of every country’s supply chain will be exposed during this crisis. You better hope like hell your country is good at making food, generating energy and has a good healthcare system. Post COVID-19, we will see many countries taking steps to secure supply chains on vital industries. We are learning really quickly the difference between essential and optional. Sorry, Team Kardashian.

Economic Shock – It’s important we understand that this isn’t an economic disaster or shock, but a natural disaster. The consequences of which are different. If we thwart the virus quickly, there’s a big chance we will come out of this economic trough more quickly than we would if it were an economic-driven recession. If it lasts more than a couple of seasons it will shift the culture, change how we spend and invest in a longitudinal way. Human culture in every corner of the world is a function of their natural environment. In a highly populated city-based connected economy, this could change social and financial behaviour for a very long time.

Natural Monopolies & Utilities – Countries that still control their utilities and natural monopolies will handle COVID-19 a lot better than those with largely privatised utilities. If Australia still owned and controlled its water, energy and telecoms, it could simply pause all bills for x period of time. What could be a massive financial relief for households is now not possible.

The good news is that many countries will rightly reconsider the re-nationalisation of vital infrastructure. This would not only allow flexibility in times like these, but allow build-outs of leading edge technology as most of these assets are going through a technological upheaval. It would also provide secure forms of employment and training which matches market needs.  I’ve written about this extensively before.

Power of Big Tech – Ironically, the companies benefiting the most from this crisis are those who need it least: Big Tech businesses like Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple. They already too powerful will only become even more powerful after this event. Just yesterday, the Australian Government announced a new app specifically to communicate with constituents about the crisis. It’s a nice idea – but even our Government had to abide by the rules of Big Tech and rely on Apple and Google to make it available on their app store. They also created a WhatsApp tool to extend their reach, relying on Facebook. Post COVID-19, many countries will realise they do not have and desperately need digital sovereignty

Discrimination –  This disease doesn’t discriminate. From princes to Prime Ministers, no one is immune. We’ve also realised the difference between essential services and optional indulgences. Health, housing, food, energy and humble logistics. It’s worth sparing a moment of thought for people working in supermarkets and hospitals, and putting themselves at risk for us.

It’s moments like this we realise that we are all in this together.

The Decade in Tech

Posted on by Steve Sammartino

It’s pretty easy to forget how much a new technology changes our lives once it’s adopted. Sure, some new technologies are like shooting stars, but some change everything forever. So, for posterity’s sake, I’ve laid out a list of new technologies that changed how we do things, and maybe even the direction of our species. Enjoy!

2010

What happened: Google leaves China + Uber launches in App Store

Why it mattered: Google leaving China was the start of a New Cold War. China pushed hard to create clones of Western online services and even made better ones – see WeChat. This time the Cold War isn’t an arms race, but a race for quantum and data supremacy. The weird part is that USA and China both surveil their citizens, though the Chinese government isn’t making a secret of tracking their citizens, while the USA is pretending it’s about security when clearly it’s not.

Uber hitting the App Store was about much more than putting taxis on notice for terrible service. It was the start of the immediacy economy – anything and everything on demand, delivered to wherever we happen to be. The start of a massive GPS-driven logistics and mobility revolution.

2011

What happened: Twitch is launched + Steve Jobs dies

Why it mattered: For the uninitiated, Twitch is an online streaming service to watch people play video games. If it sounds ridiculous to you, then just remember that in many cultures we gather in giant stadiums to watch teams of adult humans dressed in co-ordinated attire kick dead animal skins through white sticks (football). It really was the start of the meta-economy where online activities are starting to gather layers and blur with the ‘real world’.

The death of Steve Jobs cemented his legacy as a quasi-Jesus figure for tech fans the world over. The problem was this created a dangerous idolatry of any innovation big tech companies launched at us. From this, the negative externalities have been ignored for far too long – including the massive issues we are now facing with Big Tech’s monopoly powers on par with nation states.

2012

What happened: Facebook buys Instagram for $US 1 billion + Tinder launches

Why it mattered: An open and fair internet took a massive hit when Facebook bought Instagram. This was the start of a serious economic consolidation of power while regulators were asleep at the wheel. The fact that we have a single ‘media’ organisation – and yes they are a media company – with massive influence over 2.4 billion constituents should make all of us lose sleep at night.

We’ve been finding mates online and in personal columns for decades, but Tinder normalised digital as a preamble to the physical meetup process. Meeting online went from weird to just plain ordinary.

2013

What happened: Edward Snowden’s NSA revelations + Facebook goes public with IPO.

Why it mattered: Snowden’s revelations of a mass surveillance programme targeting US citizens was the first time the wider population saw the downside of digital. While most people still don’t care, or at least act like they don’t, it did signal that privacy and security will eventually become the workplace health and safety of the modern era. If we are fortunate, it might spawn a new industry to protect our civil rights, while society and lawmakers catch up with the the reality of the risks.

Facebook goes public. Interestingly, its founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg sends a letter to shareholders claiming that its mission of connecting (controlling) the world is more important than profit – but he fails to mention in said letter that he can never be removed from office or voted out. Just think of this: Mark Zuckerberg is in control of more people than anyone, ever, in history. To date, its market capitalisation has now increased fourfold since the IPO. Welcome to the Zuckerberg Dynasty.

2014

What happened: Facebook buys WhatsApp + Amazon Echo is launched

Why it mattered: It’s strange to me that Facebook was able to make an acquisition valued at $US 16 billion and still not capture the attention of antitrust regulation. They also said it was ‘impossible’ to integrate FB and WhatsApp services and data. Then, just like magic, they were able to do it a couple of years later, lolz… see 2012 above.

The launch of the voice services with Amazon Echo will be remembered in the future as the time when we truly started to communicate with AI. This was that moment. This will be when it got real.

2015

What happened: Google driverless vehicle hits the road + SpaceX lands first rocket

Why it mattered: When Google (now Waymo) put its driverless car out for all to see on a real road, industrialists sat up and took notice. We realised that cars were very quickly becoming rolling computers, that the digital world now shaped the physical world too. That was the moment that every business knew it too was now in the technology business.

The Space Race was once the exclusive domain of Big Gov. After a few decades of neglect, it has been miraculously revived as a private industry. If anything – this should signify the era of the bodacious billionaire where they have as much (or more?) power than elected governments.

2016

What happened: Donald Trump elected President + Theranos implodes

Why it mattered: In my view Trump is an inevitable symptom of crazy times and a radical pace of change. But it was the moment the wider world realised that news isn’t news anymore. We all live in echo chambers of existing belief systems and our minds can be hacked by the power of algorithms.

When blood diagnosis health startup Theranos was exposed as a scam – everyone started to understand that not all unicorns would live up to their hype, valuations or even their product promises. It was time to be very aware that in the real physical world beyond photo sharing apps, it’s very important that products actually work.

2017

What happened: Cambridge Analytica scandal + Bitcoin bubble

Why it mattered: The Cambridge Analytica scandal particularly annoyed me because it wasn’t the Cambridge Analytica scandal – it was actually a Facebook scandal. I don’t know how The Zuck pulled it off, but it was a stunning exercise showcasing the dark arts of blame deflection.

The bursting of the Bitcoin and crypto bubble was one we had to have. I liken it to the dot-com bubble of 1999. Cryptocurrency too will come back and change our lives, and this new financial system might change the world even more than the internet has.

Here’s the history of Bitcoin price:

2018

What happened: GDPR + Deep Fakes arrive

Why it mattered: The EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) put surveillance capitalism on notice. While the opening gambit was small and probably affected the competitors of Big Tech more than those it was aimed at, it was the start of a movement to give power back to the people.

The first flurry of deepfakes hit the world and blew minds. But just wait until they are free and anyone can do it. It might just spell the end of audio visual truth. A few years from now, we’ll be asking people if they were actually there to prove it happened. This could put a massive schism into the entire web and anything news-related.

2019

What happened: Antitrust actions commence on Big Tech + Greta Thunberg named Time Magazine’s Person of the Year

Why it mattered: Antitrust actions taking place this year are a classic turning of the tide and the realisation we are in the middle of a gilded technopoly. The next decade will be one of regulation versus innovation – with the former taking precedence over the latter. It won’t be about stopping or slowing down technology, rather about civilising it so we can have progress for all humanity, not just the fortunate few.

Greta showed the world than even a child can command attention on issues vital for humanity. It’s amazing what can be said when words are not guided by vested interests. Here’s what I know for sure: we have all the technology we need today to have a low carbon emission economy. The kicker is that such a shift to a new energy model is probably the only way to maintain the economic growth the grownups seem to love so much.

– – –

For me this is an era where the development of technology won’t slow – but its implementation might and it will certainly be more considered, competitive and wide-reaching for whom it benefits. I can’t wait to push deeper into the next decade and help build a future we all deserve.