Links and Quotations for August 17, 2015: Amazon, gig economy, fast-growing startups, and more

Worth a read, definitely:

Jeff Bezos Says The New York Times’ Amazon Expose Got It All Wrong – TechCrunch

Inc. 5000 2015: The Fastest-Growing Private U.S. Companies – Inc.

The Gig Economy Is Real If You Know Where to Look – Harvard Business Review | 

First, there are clear growth surges in nonemployer firms in each of the two industries associated with passenger ground transit between 2010 (when Uber launched in San Francisco) and 2013, and in the two industries linked with traveler accommodation from 2009 (the year AirBnB opened).  … Second, we do not see declines in payroll employment in the same industries during this period. Instead, we actually see increases in all four—particularly in the passenger ground transit sectors. … Finally, these figures suggest that the trend toward contractors over payrolled employees in the taxi and limousine industry was going on in San Francisco long before Uber’s arrival. If the employment security of drivers is truly the issue, perhaps the debate has to expand beyond concern over platforms like Uber.

This is what happens when a Gig Economy devotee goes full time – FastCompany 

These Uncanny Valley robots will really creep you out – Wired UK – “Japanese robotics professor Masahiro Mori devised the concept of the ‘uncanny valley’ in 1970. It’s the point at which a robot is made to appear so human-like — if not quite human enough — that it inspires feelings of uneasiness and revulsion in we mere mortals. In other words, humanoid robots really give us the creeps. … sit back and try to relax (or, at least, not squirm in too much horror) as you watch our round up of these mesmerisingly uncanny androids.”

The Failure Of Google Plus Should Be A Reminder That Big Companies Very Rarely Successfully ‘Copy’ Startups – Techdirt

Air Traffic Control Is Getting A Much-Needed Upgrade – TechCrunch – “The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is readying the rollout of a new suite of systems called NextGen, which represents the first real integration of 21st century technologies into the air traffic control system.”

Tech’s Enduring Great-Man Myth – MIT Technology Review – 

The idea of “great men” as engines of change grew popular in the 19th century. In 1840, the Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle wrote that “the history of what man has accomplished in this world is at bottom the history of the Great Men who have worked here.” It wasn’t long, however, before critics questioned this one–dimensional view, arguing that historical change is driven by a complex mix of trends and not by any one person’s achievements. “All of those changes of which he is the proximate initiator have their chief causes in the generations he descended from,” Herbert Spencer wrote in 1873. And today, most historians of science and technology do not believe that major innovation is driven by “a lone inventor who relies only on his own imagination, drive, and intellect,” says Daniel Kevles, a historian at Yale. Scholars are “eager to identify and give due credit to significant people but also recognize that they are operating in a context which enables the work.” In other words, great leaders rely on the resources and opportunities available to them, which means they do not shape history as much as they are molded by the moments in which they live. […]

The problem with such portrayals is not merely that they are inaccurate and unfair to the many contributors to new technologies. By warping the popular understanding of how technologies develop, great-man myths threaten to undermine the structure that is actually necessary for future innovations.