What is the future of work? There are many perspectives to that question. But one thing I can tell you is that gig economy is here, and will be part of the future. Yes, independent contractors of one-man (and -woman) company will drive our future. As technology reduces barriers into many sectors, reducing capital for formation of entities even as it makes it possible to manage disparate distributed “workforces”, the notion of firms will evolve. Uber has distributed workforces irrespective of what it classifies them for remuneration purposes. Airbnb has amalgam of landlords working for it in a solidly designed symbiotic relationship. So, it is not surprising that Wall Street welcomed Fiverr with 90% sipke on its IPO debut. The expected structural dislocation of labour, arising from AI and robots, will make companies like Fiverr and UpWork part of the empires of the future.
Freelance marketplace Fiverr had a good first day on the New York Stock Exchange.
The company priced its IPO at $21 per share last night, raising around $111 million. It then started trading this morning at $26, with shares climbing for most of the day and closing at $39.90 — up 90% from the IPO price.
Fiverr is one of the most well-known companies facilitating the so-called gig economy. When it filed to go public last month, the company said it has facilitated 50 million transactions between 5.5 million buyers and 830,000 freelancers.
Fiverr is an online marketplace for freelance services. Founded in 2010, the company is based in Tel Aviv, Israel, and provides a platform for freelancers to offer services to customers worldwide. As of 2012, over three million services were listed on Fiverr.
LinkedIn Comment on Feed
These kind of companies will play key roles in the future of work, because not many people will be willing to spend a decade in a particular organisation. And with technology breaking many geographic boundaries, you do not need to keep the entire workforce in defined locations.
We cannot talk about ‘sharing economy’ without ‘sharing talent’, so expect great talents to be working for different organisations at the same time.
A serious dislocation on company’s culture is on the way, many things will be reimagined and recalibrated.
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