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In the 1960s, IBM embarked on what Fortune called the $5 billion gamble. It was a bet-the-company investment on a scale nobody had seen before. The payoff was the legendary System/360 mainframes, which revolutionized computing and set the stage for two decades of IBM dominance. That $5 billion would be roughly the equivalent of $50 billion today, but even that princely sum is dwarfed by the $364 billion that tech giants are expected to invest in artificial intelligence this year. And the spending wont stop there. McKinsey projects that building AI data centers alone could demand $5.2 trillion by 2030. Today, the AI investment boom is probably the single biggest factor propping up the US economy. However, there is cause for concern. Throughout our history, great technological advances have led to overinvestment, the crowding out of traditional industries, and, eventually, a collapse triggering economic upheaval. Indicators suggest thats where were headed now. The booms and busts of railroad barons In terms of economic impact, the closest comparison to the AI boom was the railroads in the 19th century. Then, like now, there was a revolutionary technology with unprecedented potential for impact. The railroads promised to connect production to markets like never before in human history. Another striking parallel was government support and subsidy for investment. The Pacific Railroad Acts of 1862 and 1864 authorized vast land grants and the issue of government bonds to finance the construction of railroad infrastructure. These effectively guaranteed profits for private investors, while the public bore the risks. Railroad barons such as Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jay Gould, and Leland Stanford made enormous fortunes and came to dominate the era. They created huge monopolies that stifled competition and squeezed farmers and small businesses. If the local railroad wouldnt give you a rate, you couldnt get your goods to market. Greed, arrogance, and overinvestment fueled massive and repeated boom-and-bust cycles. The panics of 1873 and 1893 led to massive financial crises followed by years-long economic depressions and political instability. As historian Richard White explains in Railroaded, while eventually railroads would be valuable for America, the corruption, monopoly power, public cost, and repeated crashes were unnecessary and avoidable. The Second Industrial Revolution After the panic of 1893, hundreds of railroads went bankrupt, which created an opportunity for financiers like J.P. Morgan. As industries consolidated and competition decreased, stability returned and the Gilded Age roared back to life. The locus of power shifted to Wall Street as Morgan and his colleagues organized the American economy into great trusts like U.S. Steel. It was in this environment that the Second Industrial Revolution took hold. Driven by technological breakthroughs in electricity and internal combustion in the 1880s, it fueled the emergence of entirely new industries, such as automobiles and radio. By the 1920s, the electrification of factories powered a productivity boom. Much like today’s AI boom, the Second Industrial Revolution seemed to change everything. The confluence of electricity and internal combustion, along with the secondary innovations they spawned, led to mass manufacturing and mass marketing. Improved logistics reshaped supply chains and factories moved from cities in the northclose to customersto small towns in the south, where labor and land were cheaper. These genuine innovations and the resulting improvements in productivity, combined with lax regulation and easy credit, led to overinvestment and an enormous stock market bubble. The stock market crash of 1929, along with the poorly advised Smoot Hawley tariffs led to the Great Depression of the 1930s. The pattern mirrored the railroad busts of the 1800s: Genuine innovation, poor government regulation, overinvestment, boom, and bust. The dot-com boom and bust I was working on Wall Street in 1995 when the Netscape IPO hit like a bombshell. It was the first big internet stock and, just like that, a tiny company with no profits was worth $2.9 billion. Soon, productivity growthdepressed since the early 1970sbegan to surge. Economists explained that certain conditions, such as negligible marginal costs and network effects, would lead to winner take all markets and ncreasing returns to investment. Companies such as Webvan and Pets.com, with no viable business plan or path to profitability, attracted hundreds of millions of dollars from investors. In a sign of the times, America Online (AOL), merged with Time Warner, the biggest and most prestigious media company on the planet to create a $350 billion megagiant that would straddle both the old and new worlds. By 2000, the market peaked, the bubble burst, and the AOLTime Warner merger became a cautionary tale. While some of the fledgling Internet companies, such as Cisco and Amazon, did turn out well, thousands of others went down in flames. Other more conventional businesses, such as Enron, WorldCom, and Arthur Anderson, got caught up in the hoopla, became mired in scandal, and went bankrupt. Like the railroads and the Second Industrial Revolution, a bust followed a boom, but this time, there was no depression. While some prestigious companies failed, investors lost money, and genuine malfeasance was exposed, the Internet economy wasnt quite big enough to pose a significant systemic risk. The recession that followed was relatively mild by historical standards. Is this the perfect storm? Looking at the AI boom from a historical perspective, the similarities to earlier technological cycles are striking. We see the same excitement, the same calls for government regulators to get out of the way and let the technological and market forces do their work. We also see the same pattern of massive overinvestment. The only part we havent seen is the bust . . . yet. There are also signs that this particular cycle has the potential to be worse than anything in the living memory of anyone under the age of 100. As investor Paul Kedrosky points out, the size of investment in data center infrastructure has already surpassed that of the dot-com boom and is beginning to approach levels last seen during the railroad frenzy of the 19th century. And for all the hype and hoopla, were not seeing much of a boost in productivity growth. A study by the St. Louis Fed suggests a 1.1% increase in aggregate worker productivity, with much of that concentrated in the tech sector. A paper by Nobel laureate Daron Acemoglu, looking at total factor productivity (TFP), a measure which takes use of capital into account, sees a 0.66% increase over 10 years, translating to a 0.064% increase in annual TFP growth. Finally, there are signs of growing systemic risk. Kedrosky notes that, increasingly, tech giants are choosing to finance much of their infrastructure build-outs with Enron-like special purpose vehicles, which cost more but keep the debt off their balance sheets. That risk, in turn, is increasingly being passed to more traditional investors such as real estate investment trusts (REITs). So, whether you like it or not, were all deeply invested in this AI boom and there will surely be rough waters ahead. We need capable governance if were going to navigate the rapids and not end up crashing on the rocks. Who, if anyone, is at the helm?
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E-Commerce
Those who work a 9-to-5 know nabbing one of the few available weekend slots with your hairdresser or nail technician requires a huge amount of forethought. Or how time-consuming it can be to get your oil changed, buy your groceries, or wait in line at the post office. The two-day weekend is simply too short to squeeze in all the errands and life admin that builds up throughout the week. So rather than wasting precious leisure timeor worse, PTOsome workers are going ahead and scheduling their appointments on company time. A little reminder to everyone who works in corporate that no one at work actually needs to know what your appointments are for, one viral TikTok post suggests. I booked a haircut and blowdry, and then felt like getting my nails done. So now I’m on my way to do that, but they didnt have to know that. In the caption, she tactfully caveats: for legal reasons this is bad advice. Those in the comments backed up the sentiment: I just put leaving early for an appointment. Doesnt matter if its therapy or my hair. None of their business. I said I had an appointment and asked to leave at 3:30 . . . it was for Botox, another added. Just block it in the calendar, another suggested, saying of beauty appointments: Its essential work. As companies efforts to force staff back into the office drag on, many employees are finding more and more creative ways to cling to the flexibility they enjoyed during the remote-work era. That might look like scheduling personal appointments during the day or trialing microshifting (breaking up the work shift into shorter bursts based on productivity levels). How transparent you can be about your midweek blowout or personal training session depends on your relationship with your boss, as well as company policy. If youre leaving work early, coming in late, or leaving for an appointment in the middle of the day, your employer might have policies around this, Marta Říhová, HR expert at Kickresume, tells Fast Company. In some companies, it might be acceptable, especially if you and your colleagues work flexible hours. You might just be asked to make up the time later on. Those hoping their bosses will enact a relaxed, blind-eye policy, however, should be cautious. Bear in mind that if you say you have an appointment without specifying what kindhoping your boss will assume its medicalthey might ask you for proof of a doctor’s appointment, Říhová says. Your employer cant ask about the nature of your illness. But they can ask for proof that youll be at the doctor during this time. Recent research from video conferencing company Owl Labs found that employees are prepared to give up 9% of their annual salary for flexible working hours (and 8% for a four-day workweek). Flexibility is no longer just a perk; for many, its a requirement. Workplaces that expect their employees to use precious PTO for personal appointments (or email proof that they were where they said they were) may find themselves fighting a losing battle. Many workers may just keep scheduling errands on the clock anyway. And companies could also risk losing their employees altogether. As one commenter on the viral TikTok wrote: I have an appointment (another interview).
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E-Commerce
Commuting in New York City can be a relentless sensory overloadthe hustling, the pushing, the yelling, the ads whirling from every side. Getting to work can feel like a frantic race of people trying to escape the train station all at once. While the city hurtles past in a blur, Brandon Stanton has stopped to write it a love letteron the walls of Grand Central itself. For the first time, the terminal and its subway station have been completely cleared of flashing advertisements and replaced with art. Brandon Stanton More than 150 digital screens now display thousands of portraits and stories from Stantons Humans of New Yorkthe largest and most diverse collection of New York City portraits ever created by a single artist, featuring over 10,000 photographs and interviews with people all around the world. Running through October 19, Dear New York is a first-of-its-kind immersive experience that vividly celebrates the people of New York. Located in a landmark through which more than 750,000 people pass daily, the station serves as a crossroads for locals, commuters, and tourists alike, allowing the art to reach and touch people from all walks of life. [Photo: courtesy Brandon Stanton] The process of clearing out the space and replacing it with art, Stanton explains, was monumental. I would say it took 1,000 yeses to make this happen. One no could have completely made it fall apart, he says. [Photo: courtesy Brandon Stanton] In a six-month sprint, Stanton had to align a tangle of stakeholdersfrom the MTA and Metro-North Railroad to Outfront Media and the State Historic Preservation Office. It was a mix between a commercial and a political negotiation, he says. [Photo: courtesy Brandon Stanton] Outfront Media owns 80% of the screen time in Grand Central Station and is driven solely by profit, leaving Stanton with no choice but to negotiate pricing to gain access. The remaining 20% of display space is controlled by the MTA and usually used for public service announcements. I had to persuade this bureaucracy that what I was doing was philanthropic for the city, and worthy of this unprecedented space, Stanton says. Nobody had ever spent this kind of money on something completely unsponsored before. [Photo: courtesy Brandon Stanton] Without disclosing exact figures, Brandon noted that he funded the installation entirely from the savings he had built over 15 years from his Humans of New York photo blog and bookwith no sponsors involved. Negotiations alone took three to four months, he recalls, but throughout the arduous process, There were some early believers in the MTA. I ran into so many dead ends and walls while I was trying to make this. But at each point, there would be a person who really believed in it, who gave me energy and strength when I needed it most. [Photo: courtesy Brandon Stanton] He singled out Dorit Phinizy, director of events t Grand Central, as the first person to see him not as a potential revenue source, but as an artist trying to achieve a visionand thinking about how, within the confines of my job, I can help and contribute to this vision. Phinizy’s name appears fourth in the credits as “chief creative consultant,” for her shepherding the project through the layers and layers of MTA approvals. [Photo: courtesy Brandon Stanton] What began as a solo effort quickly expanded into a major collaboration. Stanton later brought in Broadway designer David Korins, who donated his time, and the design firm Pentagram, which contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars in design services, including 3D mapping of the subway. The Juilliard collaboration for the musical component was put together in just a week. [Photo: courtesy Brandon Stanton] The art now stretches across every corner of Grand Central. In the main concourse, 50-foot projections wrap around soaring arches and marble columns, immersing passersby in the citys stories. Subway tunnels, stairwells, and side corridors come alive with hundreds of digital screens, each capturing faces, expressions, and snippets of daily life. [Photo: courtesy Brandon Stanton] Vanderbilt Hall hosts a community gallery featuring work from more than 600 public school students alongside emerging local artists. The crowning touch comes from 100-plus hours of live music, as 50 Juilliard students and alumni perform classical, jazz, and collaborative piano pieces on a Steinway grand. In the surge of commuters, Stanton explains: Many of my quotes on Instagram are much longer, but I distilled hour-long interviews into quick, digestible moments that anyone can absorb even while walking by. He adds: And watching people walk through this busy, crowded place and actually stop to readits very gratifying.
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E-Commerce
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