The news is full of their names, supposedly the vanguard of a rethinking of capitalism. Lyft, Airbnb, Taskrabbit, Uber, and many more companies have a mandate of disruption and upending the “old order” — and they’ve succeeded in effecting the “biggest change in the American workforce in over a century”, according to former secretary of labor Robert Reich. But this new wave of technology companies is funded and steered by very old-school venture capitalists.
In What’s Yours Is Mine, internationally acclaimed technologist Tom Slee argues the so-called sharing economy damages development, extends harsh free-market practices into previously protected areas of our lives, and presents the opportunity for a few people to make fortunes by damaging communities and pushing vulnerable individuals to take on unsustainable risk.
This revised and updated edition of Slee’s original “smart and searing critique” includes a new foreword by the author.