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Maybe capital growth is decoupled from job growth, but why is it that Apple and Google and Walmart and Target and Whole Foods and Starbucks and GE and your loca

Maybe capital growth is decoupled from job growth, but why is it that Apple and Google and Walmart and Target and Whole Foods and Starbucks and GE and your local busy restaurant and market and machine shop are still hiring like bananas? Demand causes job growth. No amount of automation is going to prevent an Apple Store from needing a genius or a Gap from needing shirt folders. We still need plumbers and nurses and CNC machinists and spot welders and longshoremen. Why is Kia still hiring in West Point, Georgia? And, where are those robotic unbuttoned-shirt baseball-cap-cocked-to-the-side douchebag bots that greet my nephew at Abercrombie? Oh, right, they're still human. A lot of industries and companies are still trying to climb out of the 5 year funk we're arguably still in. A lot more companies realized that they could simply work their remaining people into the ground, create an atmosphere of uncertainty and abject fealty, and pocket the difference rather than increase headcount. My theory? We're in a whole new ballgame full of the following people: * Those who are willing to get their hands dirty * Temporary workers and those who like part-time work for the flexible hours and variety of gigs * Those smart enough to get degrees and certification past their high school diploma or GED, and get those in-demand technical jobs in manufacturing, healthcare, technology, and services * A bunch of people who are either unwilling or unable to accept any of the above and/or are still looking for Dilbertesque nothing jobs in cubicles in office parks overlooking other office parks in positions at whatever companies and having longer titles than responsibilities (e.g., Assistant to the Regional Inside Sales Manager, Northeast US [except NY]).

jiggy2011 14y ago
The Apple example is interesting, when you consider their market cap vs the number of people they employ (around half a million in the US according to http://www.apple.com/about/job-creation/ http://www.apple.com/about/job-creation/). Now, I imagine that most of these jobs (in the US) are going to be store workers. Consider that Apple used to exist without any Apple stores at all. There will come a point when they have a store in every town that matters and they will mostly stop hiring store staff (apart from as replacements). In fact you could even consider the possibility that they could probably close all of their stores without damaging their market cap that much, but it would be devastating from a job creation point of view. Think of the other tech giants like Facebook, Google etc. How many jobs do they create vs their revenue?
- jfoster 14y ago
  Exactly - those companies are hiring because they're successful. Why are they successful? Because they have better margins than their competitors. Sure, they're hiring, but they have the most attractive (from their perspective) ratio of employees to revenue.
NoPiece 14y ago
Abercrombie isn't going to buy a robot greeter to a replace a human employee, they are just going to close more stores and get rid of the greeter, the folder, the cashier, the manager, the janitor, and the driver. http://investorplace.com/2013/02/abercrombie-fitch-to-close-up-to-50-stores/ http://investorplace.com/2013/02/abercrombie-fitch-to-close-... Think about how many human hands would be displaced if when I ordered an Abercrombie shirt online, it was shipped to my house directly from a factory in China. That may not be happening yet, but there is still that potential level of disruption ahead. You'll probably still need your barrista though!
- zanny 14y ago
  I think this is a major revolution coming. The entire service industry is built off people having to drive to stores, interact with humans, and buy things there. It is much more demand reactive and inventory efficient to ship from the source the things we want, planning them in advance, and delivering them directly. I mean, I would personally never have a waiter at a restaurant. Put a touchscreen on the table, let me pick what I want, and either I'll go to the kitchen and pick it up (and why can't a robot do the cooking?) and take it back, or even better, have it delivered to the table. Why am I in a restaurant ordering? Why can't I just order take out and have an automated car delivery service drop it off?
  - VLM 14y ago
    Its much more expensive to have human restaurant staff, and fundamentally doesn't matter if you're willing to admit it or not but dating and "conspicuous consumption" already drives those expenses. Unless you've never gone on a date fancier than a picnic or perhaps McDonalds and then bragged about it to friends... The startup lesson for today is the first SUCCESSFUL game changing industry altering automated restaurant is going to sell $500 steaks out of a vending machine not $0.50 hamburgers. And its not solely because of simple marketing buzz either. It needs to be the most expensive place in the market. Look at peapod, by far the most expensive possible way to get a bag of cheetos in my cabinet, even though its probably the cheapest to supply (aka the most profitable way). The ipod did not succeed because it was the cheapest player on the shelf at walmart.
jodrellblank 14y ago
No amount of automation is going to prevent an Apple Store from needing a genius or a Gap from needing shirt folders. Really? You can't imagine a robotic shirt-folding device could ever be invented? Whatever tech news you're paying attention to is about 70 years out of date. That's not counting that if shirts were on hangers and you could easily get a hanger of "everything that fits me well" then they wouldn't need folding at all.
- ximeng 14y ago
  To help the imagination along: https://www.google.com/search?q=shirt+folding+robot https://www.google.com/search?q=shirt+folding+robot
- VikingCoder 14y ago
  You two make me laugh. You just invented a robot that fits on the back of a horse, picking up the poop, putting street-cleaners out of business. I don't think there's going to be a robotic shirt-folding device. More likely, shirts will be "printed" on demand. No store necessary.
  - bd_at_rivenhill 14y ago
    Actually, I will need a robotic shirt-folding device, but in my home. Folding shirts sucks.
    - VikingCoder 14y ago
      So, dissolve the shirt at the end of the day, and "print" a new shirt for every day.
notdrunkatall 14y ago
Well said, with one caveat: that ballgame isn't new; it's the same ballgame that's been played, with the same players, since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. The sky has been perpetually falling for 300 years, yet here we are, banging away on our keyboards in our climate-controlled abodes with full bellies, worrying about whether we'll get rich or merely live comfortably. The capacity of people to believe that the end is nigh via any of a seemingly infinite number of imaginative scenarios despite the historical precedent to the contrary is simply stunning.
- venus 14y ago
  I understand what you're trying to say, and I agree to some extent, but you're making some very big assumptions. > The sky has been perpetually falling for 300 years, yet here we are Maybe the sky takes 300 years to fall. Did you think about it that way? > The capacity of people to believe that the end is nigh [..] despite the historical precedent to the contrary What historical precedent? Come on, tell me what happened to the last human civilisation to go through industrialisation and computerisation and, lastly, robotification. I'm dying to know what happened to them and see what lessons we can learn from how they handled the utter demise of manual and low-skill labour in their societies.
  - notdrunkatall 14y ago
    Don't be obtuse. I'm referring to the historical precedent set by the last million times some group believed that the world was going to shit, and that their group knew exactly how. Historical precedent clearly tends towards continuation and solutions for the problems that plague us rather than death and destruction because we could not figure them out. Of course I've thought about it that way, but now let me ask you this: why do you want to think about it that way? What is it inside of you that drives you to believe that THAT way is the correct way to think about it? Doesn't the fact that you are worrying about it mean that the problem is comprehensible to the majority of the human race, that there are probably also millions of other people worrying about it, that the more of a problem that particular problem becomes, the more people will think about it, and that a solution will probably be found? How many times does that situation have to play out before people no longer listen to that demon inside of them which says that the unknown will destroy all of us? Answer: never I hope, because it is that demon which saves us, time and time again.

jiggy2011 14y ago

The Apple example is interesting, when you consider their market cap vs the number of people they employ (around half a million in the US according to http://www.apple.com/about/job-creation/ http://www.apple.com/about/job-creation/). Now, I imagine that most of these jobs (in the US) are going to be store workers. Consider that Apple used to exist without any Apple stores at all. There will come a point when they have a store in every town that matters and they will mostly stop hiring store staff (apart from as replacements). In fact you could even consider the possibility that they could probably close all of their stores without damaging their market cap that much, but it would be devastating from a job creation point of view. Think of the other tech giants like Facebook, Google etc. How many jobs do they create vs their revenue?

jfoster 14y ago
Exactly - those companies are hiring because they're successful. Why are they successful? Because they have better margins than their competitors. Sure, they're hiring, but they have the most attractive (from their perspective) ratio of employees to revenue.

NoPiece 14y ago

Abercrombie isn't going to buy a robot greeter to a replace a human employee, they are just going to close more stores and get rid of the greeter, the folder, the cashier, the manager, the janitor, and the driver. http://investorplace.com/2013/02/abercrombie-fitch-to-close-up-to-50-stores/ http://investorplace.com/2013/02/abercrombie-fitch-to-close-... Think about how many human hands would be displaced if when I ordered an Abercrombie shirt online, it was shipped to my house directly from a factory in China. That may not be happening yet, but there is still that potential level of disruption ahead. You'll probably still need your barrista though!

zanny 14y ago
I think this is a major revolution coming. The entire service industry is built off people having to drive to stores, interact with humans, and buy things there. It is much more demand reactive and inventory efficient to ship from the source the things we want, planning them in advance, and delivering them directly. I mean, I would personally never have a waiter at a restaurant. Put a touchscreen on the table, let me pick what I want, and either I'll go to the kitchen and pick it up (and why can't a robot do the cooking?) and take it back, or even better, have it delivered to the table. Why am I in a restaurant ordering? Why can't I just order take out and have an automated car delivery service drop it off?
- VLM 14y ago
  Its much more expensive to have human restaurant staff, and fundamentally doesn't matter if you're willing to admit it or not but dating and "conspicuous consumption" already drives those expenses. Unless you've never gone on a date fancier than a picnic or perhaps McDonalds and then bragged about it to friends... The startup lesson for today is the first SUCCESSFUL game changing industry altering automated restaurant is going to sell $500 steaks out of a vending machine not $0.50 hamburgers. And its not solely because of simple marketing buzz either. It needs to be the most expensive place in the market. Look at peapod, by far the most expensive possible way to get a bag of cheetos in my cabinet, even though its probably the cheapest to supply (aka the most profitable way). The ipod did not succeed because it was the cheapest player on the shelf at walmart.

jodrellblank 14y ago

No amount of automation is going to prevent an Apple Store from needing a genius or a Gap from needing shirt folders. Really? You can't imagine a robotic shirt-folding device could ever be invented? Whatever tech news you're paying attention to is about 70 years out of date. That's not counting that if shirts were on hangers and you could easily get a hanger of "everything that fits me well" then they wouldn't need folding at all.

ximeng 14y ago
To help the imagination along: https://www.google.com/search?q=shirt+folding+robot https://www.google.com/search?q=shirt+folding+robot
VikingCoder 14y ago
You two make me laugh. You just invented a robot that fits on the back of a horse, picking up the poop, putting street-cleaners out of business. I don't think there's going to be a robotic shirt-folding device. More likely, shirts will be "printed" on demand. No store necessary.
- bd_at_rivenhill 14y ago
  Actually, I will need a robotic shirt-folding device, but in my home. Folding shirts sucks.
  - VikingCoder 14y ago
    So, dissolve the shirt at the end of the day, and "print" a new shirt for every day.

notdrunkatall 14y ago

Well said, with one caveat: that ballgame isn't new; it's the same ballgame that's been played, with the same players, since the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. The sky has been perpetually falling for 300 years, yet here we are, banging away on our keyboards in our climate-controlled abodes with full bellies, worrying about whether we'll get rich or merely live comfortably. The capacity of people to believe that the end is nigh via any of a seemingly infinite number of imaginative scenarios despite the historical precedent to the contrary is simply stunning.

venus 14y ago
I understand what you're trying to say, and I agree to some extent, but you're making some very big assumptions. > The sky has been perpetually falling for 300 years, yet here we are Maybe the sky takes 300 years to fall. Did you think about it that way? > The capacity of people to believe that the end is nigh [..] despite the historical precedent to the contrary What historical precedent? Come on, tell me what happened to the last human civilisation to go through industrialisation and computerisation and, lastly, robotification. I'm dying to know what happened to them and see what lessons we can learn from how they handled the utter demise of manual and low-skill labour in their societies.
- notdrunkatall 14y ago
  Don't be obtuse. I'm referring to the historical precedent set by the last million times some group believed that the world was going to shit, and that their group knew exactly how. Historical precedent clearly tends towards continuation and solutions for the problems that plague us rather than death and destruction because we could not figure them out. Of course I've thought about it that way, but now let me ask you this: why do you want to think about it that way? What is it inside of you that drives you to believe that THAT way is the correct way to think about it? Doesn't the fact that you are worrying about it mean that the problem is comprehensible to the majority of the human race, that there are probably also millions of other people worrying about it, that the more of a problem that particular problem becomes, the more people will think about it, and that a solution will probably be found? How many times does that situation have to play out before people no longer listen to that demon inside of them which says that the unknown will destroy all of us? Answer: never I hope, because it is that demon which saves us, time and time again.