Name: Average is Over
ISBN: 9780525953739

Average is Over

There are more rich people and more poor people in our country than ever before. That widening gap means dealing with one big, uncomfortable truth: the middle is growing thinner and thinner. Globally renowned economist Tyler Cowen explains how this happened: high earners are taking ever more advantage of computers and achieving ever-better results. Meanwhile, low earners who haven't committed to learning the new technologies have poor prospects. Nearly every business sector relies less and less on manual labor for high-value jobs, and this fact is forever changing the world of work and wages. About 3/4 of the jobs created in the United States since the great recession pay $13.52 an hour or less--there is no longer a steady, secure life somewhere in the middle. Here, Cowen reveals what the new features of this economy mean for taxes, government spending, employee benefits, debt and education. Most importantly, Cowen identifies the best path forward for workers and entrepreneurs and provides readers with a road map to a new economic landscape.--From publisher description.

What Hacker News says

sneha1995Jul 2023

Which book has had the strongest effect on how you make products? And why?

To be honest many books left an impression on me.

Those that I found to be most interesting are:

Paypal Wars by Eric M. Jackson

Think and Grow Rich, Napoleon Hill

Average Is Over: Powering America Beyond the Age of the Great Stagnation by Tyler Cowen

Data Smart Using Data Science to Transform Information into Insight by John W. Foreman

can recommend a book Shoe dog describing a product-centric approach of Nike's founder and his belief in what he was selling. Build something you belive in and and would use yourself. If you will love it there's likely somebody else in the world you would find it irreplacable too.

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ZhuanXiaMay 2020

A few years before I started working, I read Average is Over. Made a good case that labor power's decline would ramp up ever further. People like to poo-poo AI, but I have been following AI since the dark times before 2012. Winograd schemas, style transfer, GTP-2, image recognition - it is hard for people now to understand how impossible these tasks seemed at the time. The rate of progress is insane and it is foolish to bet against it.

Perhaps we are approaching a time where capital can be converted directly into labor in a way that scales. If this is the case the market is ridiculously undervalued, almost comically so.

I have maintained high savings rates and acquired capital ever since I read that book, regardless of valuations. I consider my portfolio insurance against this scenario.

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oceanghostSep 2019

"Average is Over" by Tyler Cowen. It maybe isn't revolutionary, but it tied up a LOT of loose ends in my head about where we are and where things are most likely headed.

His thesis statement is that scientific and social progress is now largely in the hands of AI and that those best able to utilize those technologies to augment their decisions, and everyone else will suffer.

I think he overestimates AI in the short term, but in the long term, I don't see how he's wrong. I've started to study AI again (having worked in an AI lab 20 years ago).

From Wikipeida:

Cowen forecasts that modern economies are delaminating into two groups: a small minority of highly educated people who are capable of working collaboratively with automated systems will become a wealthy aristocracy; the vast majority will earn little or nothing, surviving on low-priced goods created by the first group, living in shantytowns working with highly automated production systems.

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whatyoucantsayJan 2018

It's because the "talent shortage in tech" meme is a lie.

Nobody wants a competent employee in 2018. They want badass, unicorn, ninja rockstars!

There's nothing "wrong" with you. It's just that the minimum bar is higher than you imagined. Keep hustling and you can clear it.

Suggested reading: Average is over, by Tyler Cowen

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culturalzeroNov 2017

I think the jobs listed are simply ephemera of the current state of the internet, technology, and media rather than a reflection of 'the future'. Although, I do agree that with the thread that jobs of the future have little promise of widespread prosperity, which Tyler Cowen details very, very well in 'Average is Over'

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bynkmanMar 2017

Average is Over by Tyler Cowen. About educated middle class workers working with collaborative automated systems vs non-educated and a changing society.

Who Moved My Cheese by Spencer Johnson. An allegory about how our modern jobs are changing.

Mindset by Carol Dweck. About the belief of fixed mindset vs a growth or learning mindset, and the effects of both.

The Icarus Deception by Seth Godin. How our industrial (conformity) economy has evolved into a connection (post-industrial) economy, and what it takes to survive in this new world.

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