Startups are Experiments

The unbundling of the firm has been in flight for decades. Increased access to global labor markets brought us outsourcing. The proliferation of cloud computing and mobile took this a step further, making it possible to externalize an increasing number of key operational functions and allowing for more asset-light business models.

Writing in the Harvard Business Review in 1998, the organizational theorist Thomas W. Malone claimed “electronic networks” would dissolve the corporation as the main unit of the economy, and replace it with “flexible, temporary networks of individuals” who self-select their work. The next decade saw dozens of platforms launch with some version of t... See more

The notion of the “organization man”—a term popularized by William H. Whyte’s seminal 1956 book that describes the subsuming of individual agency in service of a large corporation—is giving way to the rise of “micro-entrepreneurs,” or free agents, creators, freelancers, and independent workers who utilize digital platforms to make a living by lever... See more