This week, Marcus speaks with Founder/Author, Jeff Wald, about giving away a $10m prize in 2040, the future of jobs and work and his book, The End of Jobs: The Rise of On-Demand Workers and Agile Corporations.

Jeff is  Founder of Work Market, an enterprise software platform that enables companies to manage freelancers (acquired by ADP). Jeff has founded several other technology companies, including Spinback, a social sharing platform (eventually purchased by salesforce.com). Jeff began his career as Managing Director at activist hedge fund Barington Capital Group, a Vice President at venture capital firm GlenRock and various roles in the M&A Group at JP Morgan. 

Jeff is an active angel investor and startup advisor, as well as serving on numerous public and private Boards of Directors. He also formerly served as an officer in the Auxiliary Unit of the New York Police Department. Jeff is the author of The Birthday Rules and The End of Jobs: The Rise of On-Demand Workers and Agile Corporations. Jeff frequently speaks at conferences and in media on startups and labor issues. Jeff holds an MBA from Harvard University and an MS and BS from Cornell University. 

Jeff lives in New York and never had internet before Covid!

Jeff is giving away 10m for the Future of Work Prize – he’s a huge X-Prize fan – and explains why, when – and to whom, he will be awarding the $10m.

Jeff talks about the intellectual antecedents (including OnForce) to his startup, Workmarket – the Freelance Management System that was eventually purchased by ADP.

Jeff describes the market conditions in 2010 that allowed them to become successful, including efficiencies and compliancy. He touches on the prediction that by 2020 the On Demand workforce would grow from 25% to 50% of the workforce.

He then goes on to talk about the challenges they faced to raise their first $6m – and the strategy they took. He supports the notion that it’s crucial to get to market as soon as possible – you don’t really know what’s going to happen next until you get the product out to your first 1000 users. Instead of  “The are using it wrong”  they took the position that “They are using it right – we built it wrong”.

Getting going out of the gate with 10-15 enterprise customers allowed them to generate $1.5m in the first year.

The elevator pitch from origination is discussed – Workmarket is enabling corporations to efficiently and compliantly organize, manage and pay freelancers.

Quotes: “Ideas are cheap – the will to execute is expensive”. “Doing it” is what separates people. “Release early, release often”

Advice: If you don’t have technical chops – be very careful about how you spend your money! Get a technical cofounder immediately.

(Jeff is open to people (in his network) presenting him ideas). Marcus is going to pitch him!

Marcus questions Jeff about the title of his book, The End of Jobs, the Future of Work. (Link)

Jeff thinks that he might change the title of the book given a chance – he was not in love with it, and thinks the irony of the title might be lost due to the economic repercussions of the Covid pandemic. He might have caledl it “The Future of Work is Here”

Jeff shares thoughts on his “Labor equation” to evaluate the shape of the workforce and how to engage labor.

Jeff cites Historic trends, data patterns, corporate decision making and even brings his Mum into the conversation!

The duo talk about regulatory changes due to the pandemic and the impact moving forward.

Jeff does not like “non data-driven” predictions – talks about de-globalization, remote working and Robots and AI.

10-15% of jobs are going to disappear in the next 20 years – but there are plenty of jobs that are going to be created that will come close to balancing the equation.

Marcus asks if the human aspect (in recruiting) can be automated.

Mechanization, electrification and computerization are cited as previous drivers of major shifts in the workforce and the oncoming first services revolution is going to be the catalyst for some major retraining needs.