People are scared of Disruption
People are scared of disruption.
But people shouldn’t be scared of disruption, because disruption is nothing but change, and Change is gonna come.
And things are changing. The Internet is giving greater access to global commerce that used to be limited to large corporations. Every year more people are gaining the skills and means to start their own mini multinationals. It’s not just distributing wealth, it’s distributing the means to create wealth. That’s been the missing piece all along.
Oh, people love talking about disruption and how things are changing, but when they start getting disrupted and the change starts to affect them, they say that’s too much disruption, that’s too much change.
The economic conversation today is around how to combat rising income inequality and stop the Tech Industry from automating all the “Good Jobs”. You can’t vote your way to a better society. You have to create it.
Without the ability to create wealth, people at the bottom just end up giving it right back to those at the top. The Internet is decentralizing production and ushering in the Distributed Economy. We’re not in the 20th century anymore.
You can have disruption without change, but you can’t have change without disruption.
The times they are a changing. A friend of mine in Toronto owns a clothing line with customers in North America, Europe, South America, and even Australia. Where do they find him? Instagram. YouTubers and Viners are becoming the new celebrities. I saw a job post for an Arduino prototype developer just a few months ago.
The secret is out. The businesses of the future are helping more people to become makers and creators. My own startup is building tools to help developers create their own unique and competitive business model faster.
Stripe, Bitcoin, Slack, Amazon, Github, CoinKite, Linux, Kickstarter, Shopify, Twitter, Twilio, Etsy, Medium, the list goes on. They’re proving the Andrew Carnegie saying that’s becoming the central economic principle of the Internet Age: No one gets rich unless they enrich others.
I love when people create services that disrupt an entire industry that screws people over.
I love when people brag about how Uber or AirBnB has given them new sources of income they couldn’t have on their own.
More than anything I love when people finally let go of old ideas and behaviours that are keeping them from embracing the future.
But, there is one thing about people I do not love.
People are scared of disruption.
