Coté

A few weeks back my book review of two “the robots are taking over” came out over on The New Stack. Here’s some responses, and also some highlights from a McKinsey piece on automation. Don’t call it “automation” From John Allspaw: There is much more to this topic. Nick Carr’s book, The Glass Cage, has a different perspective. The ramifications of new technology (don’t call it automation) are notoriously difficult to predict, and what we think are forgone conclusions (unemployment of truck drivers even though the tech for self-driving cars needs to see much more diversity of conditions before it can get to the 99%+ accuracy) are not.

With a flurry of M&A over the past few weeks, we discuss some of the more popular ones: AppDynamics, Trello, and Apiary. These kind of buys are all about what the acquirer plans to do with the new “asset” and the financial health of the company being acquired. We discuss these recent acquisitions, including who the “losers” are. Also, the low-down on CostCo in Australia! Also see full show notes.

With a flurry of M&A over the past few weeks, we discuss some of the more popular ones: AppDynamics, Trello, and Apiary. These kind of buys are all about what the acquirer plans to do with the new “asset” and the financial health of the company being acquired. We discuss these recent acquisitions, including who the “losers” are. Also, the low-down on CostCo in Australia! Also see full show notes.

I reviewed two books on automation and digital transforming this month: The Wealth of Humans and Silicon Collar. These two books go well together because the first describes how automation is lowering the need for labor, leading, likely, to less jobs, while the second provides a compendium of examples of such software-driven labor change. Vinnie’s book has the optimism of a technologist, while Avent’s is much more fraught. Both accurately describe how IT is optimizing and replacing “analog” labor and businesses, leaving the core problem of devaluing human labor, perhaps to the point of eliminating millions of jobs, permanently.

Rational anaysis is hard to find in real life: But in Elkhart, people have jobs they didn’t have six years ago, and they’re working more hours. Their homes are worth more than they were before Obama took office, on average, and their paychecks are fatter than they used to be. Yet Obama is, and will likely remain, the president who didn’t do anything right. Link

Rational anaysis is hard to find in real life: But in Elkhart, people have jobs they didn’t have six years ago, and they’re working more hours. Their homes are worth more than they were before Obama took office, on average, and their paychecks are fatter than they used to be. Yet Obama is, and will likely remain, the president who didn’t do anything right. Link

Rational anaysis is hard to find in real life: But in Elkhart, people have jobs they didn’t have six years ago, and they’re working more hours. Their homes are worth more than they were before Obama took office, on average, and their paychecks are fatter than they used to be. Yet Obama is, and will likely remain, the president who didn’t do anything right. Link

Rational anaysis is hard to find in real life: But in Elkhart, people have jobs they didn’t have six years ago, and they’re working more hours. Their homes are worth more than they were before Obama took office, on average, and their paychecks are fatter than they used to be. Yet Obama is, and will likely remain, the president who didn’t do anything right. Link

Rational anaysis is hard to find in real life: But in Elkhart, people have jobs they didn’t have six years ago, and they’re working more hours. Their homes are worth more than they were before Obama took office, on average, and their paychecks are fatter than they used to be. Yet Obama is, and will likely remain, the president who didn’t do anything right. Link

Rational anaysis is hard to find in real life: But in Elkhart, people have jobs they didn’t have six years ago, and they’re working more hours. Their homes are worth more than they were before Obama took office, on average, and their paychecks are fatter than they used to be. Yet Obama is, and will likely remain, the president who didn’t do anything right. Link