Eric Jorgenson published a thread today about "People Leverage." The thread centers around the idea by Naval Ravikant that "you want the minimum amount of labor" possible when building things.
Eric disagrees — while he accepts that working with people is often messier and more costly than working with computers, people-less projects often reach a ceiling that People Leverage can break through.
In fact, he argues that we're now seeing new forms of People Leverage, outside of traditional labor:
- Open Source Communities
- Collabs/Co-ops
- Creator-Audience Relationships
These models allow us to leverage people without turning them into "labor."
From a post-capitalist perspective, this is something I've been trying to articulate for a while. As we move toward a world that encourages collaboration, community, and more equitable growth, technology can enable us to do incredible things — but not everything.
In a world where technology can handle all of the "manual labor," how do we organize ourselves? Do we move toward worker co-ops, or do developments like blockchain allow for something else entirely — something radically different that we haven't been able to try yet?
Experimenting with humane and mutually beneficial frameworks for "People Leverage" will continue to be a necessity.
I'm excited to further explore what People Leverage will look like in the future, and how technology will enable these evolutions.