3 great insites we can learn from Silicon Valley

I  am sitting the airport waiting to board flights back to Australia and have just concluded a three-day trip to the Valley.

Tens of meetings and three days later, I feel exhausted but enriched by what I have learned. While I cant go into the specifics of our meetings but I want to share cultural lessons I have learned.

1. Collaborating and sharing Ideas openly

Ideas are worth nothing - if you cant execute them. Everyone here shares their ideas openly. They are optimistic that their idea will make them a billion dollars but they are not scared of sharing it. They know that ideas are worth nothing if you don't execute. The openness helps with problem solving and collaboration. After all, when you are trying to solve big problems, trying to do it alone makes little sense.

2. Giving generously and sharing connections 

One meeting leads to another, and there is a strong and instant follow up on actions. Prior to the trip, I had a fairly booked calendar of meetings. But once the first meeting started it lead to the next and then the next. Very quickly, I could not even find time to scratch myself. Another thing, I found was people in the Valley are very good at following up. When they say let me connect you to "such and such" person they really mean it. And it happens quickly, many times we had not even reached the car to drive to the next meeting and our next meeting was already set. This leads to a culture of everyone knows everyone and the extent of collaboration is simply hard to comprehend.

3. Culture of Disruption and wanting to change the world 

People in the valley think big and want to change the world. Back in Australia, we think much more about incremental innovation than disruptive, but here in the valley, disruption is the name of the game. And it makes sense, if you don't think big you won't achieve big. When you are there to disrupt, you will fail many many times. That is well accepted here, it is actually a key part of the resume for anyone successful.

In Australia, we cant and don't need to replicate the valley but there are so many lessons starting with learning from their culture.

Let's all of us do our bit and help with this cultural change, our country's future and the jobs of the future are at stake here.

What is your startup or best opportunity?

Name your startup or one that you think is awesome - with the city it is in 

Who will be the next titans

From Heather McGowan www.heathermcgowan.com. 

 We are moving from the 3rd to the 4th #industrialrevolution #4IR or as John Hagel refers to as it from scalable production to scalable learning. 

If you look at our largest companies by market capitalization, 

100 years ago we extracted value from natural assets using access to capital as the key differentiator. 

50 years ago the competitive advantage was rooted in access to both technology and a deployable/trained workforce to produce human made assets at scale. 

Then a trained workforce was one in which predetermined skills and existing knowledge had been codified and transferred. 

Too much of education focused on #knowledge transfer with students as vessels for stored, existing stocks of knowledge (as required to create that deployable workforce to scale production). 

Now as rising #technical #capabilities can do much of what is mentally routine or predictable we need a workforce filled with knowledge generators and value creators. 

• Can we make this shift? 
• For all? 
• Who is responsible? 

We have only digitized about 20% of our economy so much of our workforce came out of the old factory pipeline model of education to work. 

Who helps those left behind? 

Feedback on the Universal Basic Income Column

The Bob Pritchard Column 

Last Wednesday’s newsletter on Universal Basic Income experiments in Chicago, Alaska, Stockton, California, the Y Combinator trials, Western Kenya, Ontario, Canada and Finland received an incredible response from readers worldwide.  I would like to share some readers comments that were interesting and thought provoking.  I emphasize that I do not necessarily share these views.

 

 

The first response was from Colin Fabig, an Australian serial B2C internet entrepreneur, who founded and successfully exited another four tech startups which employed over 400 people over the past 15 years, creating revenues in the hundreds of millions and with total exit values in excess of $350m.  

 

Colin wrote:

 

There are a few issues with UBI:

• In the US it needs to be around $2k p/month to be above the poverty line.
• UBI vs a dole. It's not progressive - why give rich people money then tax them again?
• It's really a form of dole which alongside lots of free state services like health and education is a staple of social democracies from Australia and NZ to the Northern European states which all have the world’s best lifestyle metrics.
• Doles have many different flavors and the vanilla dole of just giving cash without looking at who is getting it and the enabling of alcoholism or drug dependence or simple joblessness has led to digital card doles that can only be spent on certain food and shelter items as well as work-for-the- dole ideas that try to prevent long-term unemployment
• Elementary budgeting and math can show that it is impossible to fund a "living wage" UBI. Let's say 200m adult Americans = 12 months x $2000 X 200m = $4,8 trillion. The entire US government tax revenue is about $3,8trn. Even if you halved that to $1k per month = $2,4 trn - there is not enough left to pay for government services. And that's the idea!
• UBI is a libertarian idea to get rid of most government services. No hospitals, no free education, no roads, no parks, no EPA, no SES, no infrastructure - leave it all to the market.

A far better idea is a livable wage for every adult via a progressive negative tax with provisos that they are contributing to society in some way (from volunteering to creative efforts to caring etc. or are physically or mentally unable to. So, if you earn zero, you get a rebate of $24k. If you earn $12k - you get a rebate of say $14k. If you earn $18k - you get a rebate of $8k, if you earn $24k you get a rebate of $6k and at say $30k. Up to $40k you get an extra $2k etc. Then progressive tax from there with top rates of say 60% over $1m per annum and progressive capital gains tax from say 20% at $1m to say 50% at $10m and above. 

 

The outcome of this will be:

a) Massive ongoing Keynesian demand stimulus from poor people spending money vs rich people hoarding cash in fixed investments and capital stagnation.

   b) Massive new business and jobs creation to satisfy new demand form the poor.

c) The US could actually expand social services like universal healthcare and possibly college education.   

   d) all funded though demand lead and progressive tax.

 

Oren Castro from Burnish Creative in the United States writes:  

Bob, there’s one piece missing here. In Alaska they have oil revenue to pay for this.  Everywhere else is looking at a 7-14% VAT tax increase or else how is it paid for?   So, get a free check in the mail, but everything you buy gets more expensive. 

Isn’t that basically a wash?

 

Allen Phillips, B.B.A., of Atlantic Speakers Bureau in Canada wrote:

Bob, the new Premier of Ontario, Doug Ford, and his cronies are having none of that. The Ontario basic income pilot project is coming to an end, says Children, Community and Social Services Minister Lisa MacLeod.  MacLeod said Tuesday that the project was expensive, and "clearly not the answer for Ontario families."

 

Philippe Lewicki, from France says:

Bob, you want to check into France's RMI and RSA programs the RMI exists for 30 years now. It’s way more than a pilots.

http://www.rmi-fr.com/      http://rsa-revenu-de-solidarite-active.com/

 

The results of this universal basic income program are very mixed and once you start them its complicated to change or revert without big social and economic impact

History of Money - Crytpocurrency is the next logical evolution

Is “digital cryptos” the next logical tool to be used  for between humans? 

The current currencies used to be backed by the gold standard - it is now not underwritten by anything except the whim of governments who use money as a form of controlling their particular economy. 

Cryptocurrencies is the next logical step in a fair and pure capitalistic currency.

What do you think? 

Universal Basic Income Trials around the world

The Bob Pritchard Column 

Universal basic income, a system in which everyone regularly receives a check from the government regardless of income, has been growing in popularity over the last few years. Basic income is being considered as a partial solution to the loss of jobs caused by robots and AI.

 

In Chicago, a bill has been proposed to provide 1,000 families with $500 a month in a pilot that would make Chicago the largest US city to try a basic income program. The bill was introduced because of concern that automation could leave millions of people without jobs.  Beyond Chicago, a number of cities and countries around the world are running their own experiments.

 

 

Many economists and tech experts say they support basic income because it could keep people from poverty as they look for new jobs. A number of big names in Silicon Valley have voiced support for universal basic income as well. Mark Zuckerberg, for example, advocated for the system during his commencement speech at Harvard last year.

 

Critics of basic income, meanwhile, say such programs would cause people to stop working and create a society that lacks motivation.   Here are some of the biggest experiments:

 

Alaska residents receive up to $2,000 each year.  Each year, eligible Alaskans receive a check of up to $2,000 as part of the Permanent Fund Dividend.  The program was established in 1982 and is financed by the state's oil wealth. Anyone who has lived in Alaska for a full year is eligible to receive the funds as long as they have not committed a felony or misdemeanor that year.

 

A 2017 survey from The Economic Security Project shows that 81% of Alaskan residents believe a cash transfer program run by the state makes a positive difference in their quality of life.

 

Stockton, California is launching the first universal basic income experiment in an American city.  The city plans to give $500 a month to some of Stockton's low-income residents. The trial is expected to last 18 months.

 

Y Combinator aims to provide basic income to 3,000 Americans. YC will choose 3,000 people from two states and split them into two groups. One-third of the participants will be put in a group that receives $1,000 a month for up to five years. The remaining 2,000 people will be treated as the control group and receive $50 per month.

 

Thousands of people in western Kenya receive $22 per month. The charity GiveDirectly is providing  16,000 residents in forty villages with a universal basic income for 12 years.  GiveDirectly provides each resident who had lived in the village for at least one year about $22 per month. For many of the recipients, that meant their income was doubled. Another 40 villages are receiving the same amount for only two years.  In addition, 80 villages received a lump sum equal to the two-year amount, and 100 villages that are acting as the control variable received no money.

 

More than a year after the study launched, GiveDirectly said it believes the UBI is reducing poverty.

 

The Canadian government launched a three-year basic income pilot in Ontario to test whether a basic income can improve education and health outcomes for low-income individuals.  About 4,000 people across three test locations were selected for the pilot. To be eligible, residents had to be living in one of the three areas for a full year leading up to the pilot. Only low-income residents between the ages of 18 and 64 were considered.

 

One person could receive up to $16,989 per year, minus half of any earned income. Couples could earn up to $24,027 each year, minus half of any income they earned, and anyone with a disability could receive an extra $6,000.

 

Finland is now ending its two-year basic income trial.  The two-year pilot program is set to end in January 2019. Finland  pays 560 euros (about 680 dollars) per month to a random sample of 2,000 unemployed people.  Recipients keep receiving the monthly amount even if they got a job during the trial.  The country's social security agency has refused to release any data until after the pilot ends, citing privacy reasons and a desire to avoid bias.

Australia - Don’t we already have this withthe Dole?  

The evolution of the employee