Welcome onboard the first leg of the journey!
You’re receiving this email because you’re part of a community interested in hearing more about the intersection of journalism and the future of work.
I hope my opening gambit set the scene and you’re now motivated to participate… just reply to this email; you can share your thoughts, your feedback, or any interesting things you think deserve our attention.
If you’ve forgotten that gambit here’s a reminder… The Regeneration of Journalism
The future of the web, the gig economy, journalism and social media are converging. Whilst we can’t be certain how this convergence will play out, it’s clearly a direction of travel and something I spend a lot of time thinking about. In the most simple terms the second generation of the internet helped you publish your work, whilst the imminent third generation will help your published work get directly monetised.
My hope for this newsletter is to highlight the best ideas and help us understand what is fast approaching. Essentially this newsletter will be a way for me to do my learning out in the open so when I discover interesting things I’ll bring them here. Expect to receive emails with two or three ideas, once or twice a month. Embrace the journey!
The human micro-entrepreneur loop
Over the last 18 months podcasts have become my primary source of learning and one of my favourites is Reid Hoffman’s Masters of Scale. In this episode he discusses the “human cloud” with Stacy Brown-Philpot, the CEO of TaskRabbit. Reid’s closing thoughts really resonate with me:
"The creation of good and fulfilling middle class jobs is one of the most important goals we can collectively focus on, because when people feel more safe and secure in their economics they feel there is a good future in front of them, and they tend to be more open-hearted, they tend to be more permissive…"
Listen here: https://mastersofscale.com/#/stacy-brown-philpot-keep-humans-in-the-equation-masters-of-scale-podcast/
Facilitating exchange is a sacred position in society
One of the smartest minds in the crypto space is Chris Burniske. In his latest piece he compares businesses as we typically know them with protocols, which he describes as “routers of economic activity”.
Read here: https://www.placeholder.vc/blog/2019/10/6/protocols-as-minimally-extractive-coordinators
The next decade of work will be about passions, not gigs
Read here: https://a16z.com/2019/10/08/passion-economy/