Since 2006, I've been writing here about cities, the internet, and the ongoing collision between the two. Along the way, I've also loved using Tumblr to clip quotes off the web, building on the idea of "the slow hunch" (the title of this blog) and the "open commonplace book" as a tool for tracking the slow hunch over time. Today, I'm launching the next iteration of both: Internet Meets World. On IMW, I'll be tracking the big questions, like:
How can we leverage startup networks to improve civic outcomes?
How can we find opportunities to demonstrate innovation without having to change existing laws?
and more
I'll still continue to blog here, but will syndicate certain posts -- those specifically digging into the macro / legal / policy / societal issues created by the collision of the internet and the world, on IMW. In addition to collecting my own posts, I'll also be collecting other articles from across the web, and will move my quote clipping from tumblr into Medium. I'm also looking for one or more co-editors for IMW. If you're interested, shoot me an email at nick [at] usv [dot] com, including a handful of links / quotes that you think really capture the essence of this conflict / opportunity. Onward!
For some reason I have always liked talking to taxi drivers about their business. Maybe it’s because my dad was a NYC taxi driver back in the 70s, or maybe it’s because driving a taxi is such a classic immigrant path to building a life here. And it’s certainly because of the amount of tech and business model innovation in the transportation space.
Last night I took an Uber home from the airport, and was talking to the driver about his experience with it. He loves Uber — in the past 2 years, he switched from being a Boston city cab driver to being an Uber driver — and in the process traded $4000 / month in cab lease fees (what you pay a garage as a base rate to drive the cab — regardless of how much you earn) for a $700 / month car payment and $400 / month in insurance. And he gets to have a vastly improved quality of work (managing his own business & time, driving in a nicer car, etc).
Of course there are tradeoffs — if the Uber business slows down, he’s still on the hook for that car payment. And it’s possible that the number of Uber drivers will continue to increase (unconstrained by medallion restrictions, which in NYC cap taxis at 13,000), increasing competition and bringing down his margins.
But overall, he said that Uber changed his life (for the better).
