(The Big Disrupt) Interview: This Week In Startups Talks To Bestselling Author Steven Kotler

Check out this great interview by This Week In Startups as founder and host Jason Calacanis talks to bestselling author, journalist, and founder of the Flow Genome Project Steve Kotler as he talks about science fiction becoming fact, entrepreneurship, and the future of technology.

(The Big Disrupt) Uber: Uber’s Californian nightmare

With Uber closing down operations in France and two of its executives being held under arrest, it’s surely time for the Google backed car hailing company to review its ill-advised strategy of getting under the skin of governments and taxi drivers across the planet.

Uber has been harassed, harangued and protested by governments and taxi drivers against in just about every country it’s operates in as the company has launched operations in countries with the truly naïve notion that the disruptive and regulatory implications of their service wouldn’t garnered them the attention of both governments and taxi drivers despite the vitriol and legal drama the company has faced wherever it went.  

Governments and taxi drivers have been all over Uber like a hot rash for a number of reasons but the main contention has been over Uber’s reluctance to be pinned down as a taxi service and therefore avoid dealing with the burdensome regulations that come with it. Uber have consistently described themselves as an app service which largely doesn’t wash with either governments or taxi drivers who have to compete with a popular and cheaper service that’s not beholden to the regulations they are.

Taxi drivers everywhere have cried foul over Uber’s ability to flout regulations and have taken to the streets as the California based company represents an extinction level event to their industry. While characterizing Uber as an extinction level event for the taxi industry might sound hyperbolic, tell that to French taxi drivers whose protests against Uber turned violent as, according to The Hamilton Spectator, “100 Uber drivers ha(d) been attacked, sometimes while carrying customers”[1].

Taxi drivers and fleet around the globe would probably take Uber’s disruption on chin if Uber played but rules of the road but Uber, intent on arguing its status as merely an app service that simply connects consumers with drivers, have other ideas. The reason Uber make this argument beyond actually seeing themselves as an app service is that Uber don’t want to insure their drivers as doing so will make insurance costs one of the company’s largest expenditures and fast. It’s why Uber has had to brave legal battles, bans, and protests in every country it operates in and the bad press that comes with it as Uber simply doesn’t want to take on a very large liability.

So far, it’s been Uber’s drivers taking on the insurance liability forcing drivers to lie to their car insurance providers who’ll likely raise their rates or potentially drop them altogether. However, Uber will no longer be able to have their cake and eat it in California at least as thanks to recent changes in the law, Uber now have to cover their drivers from the moment they use Uber’s app to the moment drivers turn it off.

Insurance company executives must be jumping for joy in their boardrooms upon hearing the news of the California law change as it part of a growing trend of states in the US changing their laws to make sure that Uber insures their drivers. Uber executives however are likely to have their heads in their hands wondering why California of late has been tough on them as the Californian labor commission ruled that Uber drivers were employees as opposed to contractors.

It’s one thing that states are pushing to make Uber insure its drivers but recognizing their drivers as employees is literally Uber’s worst nightmare as insurance is merely a drop in the pool compared to the costs the company will incur if its drivers are ruled as employees as rulings like this “opens Uber up to higher costs, including Social Security, workers’ compensation and unemployment insurance”[2]. Should more states in the US and countries across the globe make similar rulings, Uber’s business model will be seriously hobbled by onerous obligations and raise driverless cars a rungs up Uber’s corporate agenda from a far flung ambition to the organizations top business priority.

In sum, Uber, despite the bad press, protests, and legal battle have largely had their own way but with the double whammy served up by their home state in making them cover their drivers and, more importantly, recognizing them as employees, Uber could find themselves in real trouble should other states and countries follow the Californian example.

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[1] The Hamilton Spectator, 2015, French taxis strike after weeks of rising tension over Uber, http://www.thespec.com/news-story/5695185-french-taxis-strike-after-weeks-of-rising-tension-over-uber/

[2] C. Johnson, 2015, Uber drivers are employees not contractors, California rules, http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/jun/17/uber-drivers-are-employees-not-contractors-in-california-ruling

(Movies) Steve Jobs - First and Official Trailer (HD)

Check out this brilliant first and official trailer of the Danny Boyle directed and Aaron Sorkin written self-titled biopic of Apple founder and CEO Steve Jobs starring Michael Fassbender.

(The Big Disrupt) Interview: This Week In Startups Talks to 3D Robotics Founder Chris Anderson

Check out this great interview by This Week In Start Ups as founder and host Jason Calacanis talks to former WIRED Editor-in-Chief and 3D Robotics Founder and CEO Chris Anderson about his company, drones, and much more. 

(The Big Disrupt) Apple: Why Apple can bend the knee to Taylor Swift and still win

So Apple, the big Cupertino based leviathan that permeates modern culture almost as much as it does the consumer electronics market is brought to its knees by Taylor Swift is the prevailing narrative you’ll read just about everywhere on the internet but, as in most cases, the truth is much more complex and interesting than meets the eye.

While Taylor Swift’s public objection to Apple’s plan to not pay royalties to artists for three months was the straw that rather large and intimidating camel’s back, it was the public outcry small indie and labels artists registering that brought it to a fever pitch where Apple would have no choice but to address the shortcomings of a plan that might have put some indie labels out of business.

While it’s quite a feat that one of the most powerful companies on the planet backpedaled so quickly and publicly on its plan because of a Tumblr blog from a prominent artist, the sad truth is that Apple can afford can back down from challenges from artists and indie labels as, for them, the stakes are not high enough given the sobering fact that the company comfortably makes in a quarter what the music industry makes in a year.

This large disparity between the scale of Apple and entire music industry gives a certain whiff about Apple Music’s launch that suggests that Apple’s only taking on the music industry just to see if they can be as dominant as they was with iTunes back in the early 2000’s and, given Apple’s ridiculous cash and talent advantage over just about every player in the music streaming market, only a fool or a clairvoyant would bet against them.

The only real reason Apple were able to make music executives kill the album and give birth to the singles driven music market we have today back in 2003 and are very likely to dictate terms to industry once again is that the music industry has never truly been able to control or own the means of how music was distributed or disseminated which has left the industry ripe for disruption since Thomas Edison invented the phonograph in 1877. The problem of how music was distributed and/or disseminated became more pronounced in the download era and now with streaming which has made this long term industry problem even harder to ignore. Say what you want about Tidal but the artist owned streaming service represents the best step the music industry has taken to control how music is distributed or disseminated for decades which, unfortunately for the music industry, too little, too late.

Because of this lack of control over how music distributed or disseminated, music fans, writers, artists, insiders and executives have had to dine on steady diet of books and articles that wonder out loud as to what new company, app, software, device and/or visionary will save the music industry or gives us culprits to vilify (usually major labels or naïve ambitious tech companies like Spotify who make the mistake of thinking they can save an entire industry) every time the industry contracts in record sales but not in the demand for great music.

With every generation this long term industry problem gets worse and doesn’t look like it’s going to get better and as long as it persists, innovative last mover companies like Apple with the deep pockets and talent to capture markets will always be able to control how we get to listen the music we love.

The real losers in this equation is almost always going to be artists who find themselves getting screwed by their labels who license their music to Apple for large fees and are nickeled and dimed by streaming companies who, in most cases, are forced to do so because of the large licensing fees they have cough up to labels to host their music.

In sum, while Taylor Swift, indie labels and other indie artists can take heart that Apple backed down under pressure but, in the end, Apple can bow down to every artist in the Billboard top 100 and still come up trumps because they have the ultimate ace in the hole: the music industry short termism which has given innovative companies from Edison Speaking Phonograph Company onwards a chance to dominate an industry that can’t see the blood on the leaves and realize that it’s theirs.