Employment Trends

Horses are unemployed today. Not because they're lazy. Because of technology.  The same fate awaits doctors, lawyers, white collar professionals and even baristas.  The far right —and people in general— need to wake up and smell the coffee. More and more, people are finding it difficult to find good employment because they're becoming obsolete. Not because they're lazy welfare queens trying to live off of others.  We need to stop the hating and start thinking.  http://kottke.org/14/08/humans-need-not-apply

In Spite of 2nd Place in Market Share, Apple Has Built A Monopoly in Value Creation

 Horace Dedui:

To earn profit is hard, to do so in an outsized way is very hard and to do so with consistency shows a defensibility of market access that is rarest of all. The only cases where this typical is in a monopoly or protected market situation (aka cronyism.) Apple’s lack of market monopoly coupled with a (near-) monopoly in profits can only be explained by disproportionate value creation.

The mystery then is how is it possible to build a monopoly in value creation.

Microsoft, Past and Future

A key reason I started this blog was to help myself keep abreast of, and communicate about, disruptive technological change. In that vein, Horace Dediu has quantified something amazing, writing:

If we include all iOS and Android devices the “computing” market in Q3 2008 was 92 million units of which Windows was 90%, whereas in Q3 2013 it was 269 million units of which Windows was 32%.

Today as Microsoft announced its new CEO, John Gruber published a fascinating look at Microsoft, Past and Future.   I highly recommend it.