Mentor
Distributed Economy and Sustainable way forward
Many confuse it to be same as a co-operative model. Perhaps, it is being human, we tend to relate anything to our past experience or knowledge. This perhaps is the closest but again, this has sustained livelihood of the contributing individuals and entities but not really in getting them to enjoy the collective value of the effort entirely. Some even assume it to be Circular economy. While, Circular economy is an evolution of Industrial economy driven by the concept of Productivity, which invokes the innovative abilities of the individuals measured on productivity to minimalism, reuse and reduce waste. This is essential for the large corporations and people from developed nations, who approach the world and its resources with a sense of abundance and entitlement. But, this can be a great start for large corporations to get started in their journey towards Distributed economy.
Various Business models have been in practice particularly since the dawn of the Digital economy. Digital economy began with the first phase of Digital Computer application in late 1930’s it took almost 4 decades for them to start getting into homes in the second phase. In the third phase came the Internet era that almost got much of the world connected. It is the fourth phase that saw the transactions in multitudes happening on phones and smart devices, which is now. While this opens up a huge opportunity for Businesses to engage in various Business models, Ventures did come up with inspiring models and so much so that much of the new wealthy and powerful in the world owe it to their unique models working with in the fourth phase of the Digital economy era. But, so much for the models the Businesses have managed to create incredible wealth while all of the value has been realised by the few founders and the investors only.
Uber had reached a high of $82 billion in valuation and the highest a Uber driver ever made is little less $24 an hour, which will not cross $60K in a year without considering the extra hours. The platform based business models delivering convenience to consumers, and customer access to Businesses, on an asset light model sustained livelihood for many but all the value has been exclusively for the founders and Investors. Businesses like Amazon, Google, Facebook have gone on to capture the consumers data while facilitating the Brands to use those data for a fee to sell their products and services. The value they have created out of the users data and influence they have been able to generate based on that is far greater than the most powerful armies across the world. Even, when Businesses who have taken all the risk and investments such as Hotel owners, have been able to create huge value for Businesses like OYO at around $9 billion.
Uber had reached a high of $82 billion in valuation and the highest a Uber driver ever made is little less $24 an hour, which will not cross $60K in a year without considering the extra hours. The platform based business models delivering convenience to consumers, and customer access to Businesses, on an asset light model sustained livelihood for many but all the value has been exclusively for the founders and Investors. Businesses like Amazon, Google, Facebook have gone on to capture the consumers data while facilitating the Brands to use those data for a fee to sell their products and services. The value they have created out of the users data and influence they have been able to generate based on that is far greater than the most powerful armies across the world. Even, when Businesses who have taken all the risk and investments such as Hotel owners, have been able to create huge value for Businesses like OYO at around $9 billion.
Many of the Technology ventures started Employee Stock Options and obviously its effective on going IPO. But this was a big step and at least it did provide an opportunity for the Founders to share the value with its employees though not all of the stake holders. This largely remains a practice among the Technology companies only so far. But this demands going Public and then, much of the value is realised by the investor community rather than all the stake holders responsible in creating the Value. Going Public has lot more complexities, and even though there are SME exchanges, fundamentally the decision to go Public is not really about sharing the collective value with all the stake holders but just about getting more access capital and also about realising value for many of the early investors and share holders.
Here is our opportunity to change this all. Create opportunity for individuals and businesses to work to sustain their livelihood, create wealth and generate value, huge value and also get the share of the collective value each one has contributed to in building. A truly distributed economy, not just in theory but in practice. Not just in goodwill but also in deed. This is to invite every Individual and Enterprise who wants to be part of the Distribute economy model, which is about creating wealth for each of us and sharing the collective value among all of us. Every good effort starts with good intent, every collective effort ensures wealth creation and every wealth creates better value and every value is better realised collectively.