Good column in the Washington Post by Barry Ritholtz about disruption:
"There are many lessons to be learned from Uber, the taxi- and car-hailing start-up that came out of nowhere and is valued at $41 billion," he writes. "Less than three years ago, Uber had zero drivers. Now it has more than 160,000 active drivers who have collected $656.8 million in net fares (net of what they pay Uber).
"Among the lessons, some point to the rise of the sharing economy, which also includes firms such as Airbnb, Snapgoods, RelayRides, TaskRabbit and Lending Club. Others talk about the 'on-demand economy,' which creates a new class of labor that straddles the line between being self-employment and working for a firm.
"I prefer a Big Picture view to get the proper perspective on these start-ups. From this 30,000-foot perspective, we see what all of these newcomers have in common: They attack an existing market dominated by entrenched incumbents that are inefficient, expensive or both."
And, Ritholtz writes: "No one saw taxis as an industry ripe for disruption, and I bet that lots of other markets we hardly even think about are similarly ready for competition. I have no idea which market the next generation of disruptive technology will focus on. Whether it's the college admission process or virtual reality or 3D printing or advanced robotics and drones or autonomous vehicles or next-gen genomics is almost beside the point. The one thing you can be assured of is that no industry is safe from disruption."
You can read the entire column here.
"There are many lessons to be learned from Uber, the taxi- and car-hailing start-up that came out of nowhere and is valued at $41 billion," he writes. "Less than three years ago, Uber had zero drivers. Now it has more than 160,000 active drivers who have collected $656.8 million in net fares (net of what they pay Uber).
"Among the lessons, some point to the rise of the sharing economy, which also includes firms such as Airbnb, Snapgoods, RelayRides, TaskRabbit and Lending Club. Others talk about the 'on-demand economy,' which creates a new class of labor that straddles the line between being self-employment and working for a firm.
"I prefer a Big Picture view to get the proper perspective on these start-ups. From this 30,000-foot perspective, we see what all of these newcomers have in common: They attack an existing market dominated by entrenched incumbents that are inefficient, expensive or both."
And, Ritholtz writes: "No one saw taxis as an industry ripe for disruption, and I bet that lots of other markets we hardly even think about are similarly ready for competition. I have no idea which market the next generation of disruptive technology will focus on. Whether it's the college admission process or virtual reality or 3D printing or advanced robotics and drones or autonomous vehicles or next-gen genomics is almost beside the point. The one thing you can be assured of is that no industry is safe from disruption."
You can read the entire column here.
- KC's View:
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I guess this suggests one question that everybody in every industry should ask themselves...
Are we in an existing market dominated by entrenched incumbents that are inefficient, expensive or both?
Because if you are, you'd better start rethinking the way you do business.
