The Paradox of Productivity
And how a lazy generation of couch potatoes will change it
Researchers’ predictions for what’s in store for Gen-Yers are all over the place. Some call us “lazy underachievers,” others have dubbed us “the generation that will fix all the baby boomers’ problems.” And while I’d agree many of us are lazy, I don’t think Gen-Y, myself included, will be able to solve the mess of problems baby boomers and generations before created for us.
As many know, one of the side-effects of mass population growth, scientific invention and economic growth is a deteriorating environment and crowded streets. This paradox of productivity is the reason that for every problem we solve, ten others pop up like a game of wack-a-mole meets rabbit reproduction.
We created faster transportation and got this
Then we created a cleaner source of energy to reduce pollution seen in the image above and experienced side effects of the image below
Time after time during the 20th century and early years of the 21st, we as humans have learned, re-learned and then learned once more that the world is an extremely complicated zero-sum game.
At times it has felt like for every step taken forward, we take two backwards. For every 100 inventions comes one inhumane misuse of technology that destroys an entire culture or population. And for every point of GDP growth we celebrate with cake placed on paper plates made from fallen trees.
Despite this trend of mounting complexity, we will continue to innovate as a generation. And I predict that in the process, the very laziness that scientists point to as our generational pitfall will actually become our greatest asset.
In the process of “changing the world,” I believe we will begin to take two steps forward and only one backward and see the paradox of productivity slowly disappear.
It was 9:30am on Saturday, October 19th and I was late to a very important date.
I had been in Silicon Valley for exactly two weeks by the time Startup School rolled around and I was starting to get the lay of the land. By this point I had a bike and a familiarity of local roads and paths. But none of this changed the fact that I had overslept my alarm due to a late night of “boardgames” at one of Stanford’s fraternities.
Fortunately, one of the many benefits of living in the startup capital of the world is access to the latest products and services. In the last couple decades, Palo Alto and surrounding cities have become what I’d liken to a sandbox for genius tinkers to experiment in. Couple that with the growing supply of capital and you have a lot of really cool products and services. And more importantly, of course, a solution to my problem of being late to Startup School.
After jumping out of bed that Saturday, shocked at what time it was, I grabbed my phone and opened Uber, an app that allows you to order a taxi or limo to your phone’s current location. Uber conveniently tells you how far away your taxi is, so I knew that I had 15 minutes to shower and eat breakfast before heading to Cupertino.
After hearing about Uber’s exceptional drivers and service I decided to engage my driver in some casual conversation. He told me about all the drunk people he drove around the night before, including the guy that wouldn’t shut up. He asked me how my night was and I told him about the many games of “Scrabble” that I had won.
I then asked him how he liked being an Uber driver.
“It’s really good. I used to work a 9-5 job. My boss told me, ‘do this, do that.’ but now I choose when I work. I don’t have a boss anymore. I just listen to music and drive people around all day. It pays pretty well too,” he informed me.
Newspapers and blogs have blown up with articles about how Uber is changing the face of transportation, but what this driver was telling me was indicating something else entirely. This simple ride-sharing app was changing the way this man paid his bills and fed his family. And compared to a typical taxi driver’s job, an Uber driver has the option of deciding when he/she wants to work and now it’s simpler to do than turning a light on or off.
How many jobs have you heard of where you open an app to decided when you work?
Uber isn’t the only company redefining labor, however. Services now allow designers to decide when they want to create infographics, professors are now instructing from the comforts of their home, even miners are making money from behind a computer screen! On the surface it may seem that innovations like MOOCs and Bitcoin are changing education and finance (and they are), but the elephant in the room few are mentioning is potentially one of the biggest shifts in generations. Labor per dollar-earned is plummeting and salary per calorie-expended is skyrocketing like never before due to the power of the web.
What if I told you that your next first day of work would take place on the couch you’re sitting on right now? Some researchers predict our generation is lazy, but what if sitting on the couch is our greatest ally in innovating to solve problems?
Today, the web is acting as a network multiplier. Put simply, we are now able to connect with billions of people and hundreds of thousands of employers. It is for this reason that I am so bullish on the future of social + tangible companies (and so bearish on freemium social gaming apps).
My Uber driver was just one example in a sea of change; the aggregate effects of this paradigm shift in labor are going to be incredible. Artists will be able to pursue their passion because of the increased size of their previously niche market. Software developers in India will be able to alleviate entire communities from poverty due to $100k salaries. Writers will self-publish, entrepreneurs will raise capital and psychology majors will be paid for their research instead of serving coffee.
One of the driving factors in the paradox of productivity is the amount of energy spent per innovation. In his book The Signal and the Noise: Why So Many Predictions Fail-But Some Don’t, Nate Silver writes, “In the 1960s, the United States spent about $1.5 million (adjusted for inflation) per patent application,” but I believe in the next hundred years we’ll see that figure drop substantially. Whereas baby boomers built expensive, energy consuming labs to innovate, we will do so from the comfort of our homes thereby reducing the cost per innovation.
We may not be able to solve all of the baby boomers problems, but as a result of the amazing shift in labor I’ve described, we will become the most efficient generation to walk the planet.
After all, mining bitcoins is a whole hell of a lot more efficient than mining gold.
Follow me on my personal Twitter account @curious_founder. These essays, including this one, are the beginning of a book I am in the process of writing which aims to explore the current state of innovation, a culture where it has become respectable to drop out of school and dozens of interviews with successful entrepreneurs. If you’d be interested in seeing this book come to fruition, send me an email at mthomas.denver@gmail.com with what you’d be looking for. Feedback, both positive and negative is welcome too.
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