Big Car

Even though I was flying out very early on a Sunday morning, I got to the airport with a solid hour and change before my flight. You never know when the traffic enroute will be an issue, or the security line will be long, or the gate will be a 20-minute walk from the start of the terminal. And while I hate to kill time sipping overpriced coffee, I'd rather do that than go screaming down the concourse slaloming in and out of people as if I'm Lindsey Vonn.

That said, IF you travel, and IF you aren't too worried about privacy, and IF you have a smartphone, and IF you take the time to check all the options offered in your travel related apps, getting from here to there has become more and more frictionless. You can have a car pick you up (there's a log of where you were and where you are going), you can get through security in a flash (they have a scan of your face, not to mention all your key ID numbers), and in some places get onto the jetway the same way. That all seemed to fall into place on this trip, save for a last moment of hesitation at the touchless TSA Checkpoint. As I walked up to it and the computer scanned my face, I saw the agent looking puzzled. He called me over to see the picture just taken as compared to the one they had on file. I understood his confusion: I looked like I had aged 20 years between them, but he gave me the benefit of the doubt and let me pass.

The hands-off approach continued at the other end. I met a driver who was waiting for me when I landed (again, they tracked my location step by step as I walked through the terminal), and my hotel enabled a digital key so I could skip the front desk and go straight to my room (they certainly knew exactly where I was). The next day I realized that it would be easier have a rental car as opposed to depend on a service. No problem: my account enabled me to pick out a vehicle in advance and go right to it. However, signing into the app I was asked to update my account with a new credit card. I input the info, assuming that was all that was required to get the "skip the line" treatment to which I had become accustomed. 

Not so fast. Before it was willing to grant me preferred status it presented a new box to click. The header was "Connected Cars." I assumed that it was a reference to me "connecting" my phone to the car's infotainment system, which enabled me to use my maps and listen to my music. That's fine, but best practice is to delete that connection and any data when you return the vehicle. I figured this was a disclaimer covering the company from blame and damages in case I didn't do that housekeeping, and someone subsequently stole my info. 

Nope, it was the other way around. It was asking me to agree to let them "connect" to the car I was driving. That would enable them to do things like remotely unlock the doors should I lock the keys inside, and respond to sensors that might indicate I was in an accident. That's all good. But it also gave them permission to monitor my speed, my braking and other driving habits, as well as any cameras or audio. "Vehicle and personal data are collected, used, retained & disclosed," it said, for business purposes. Big Car could watch my every move. That's not so good.

While I had no intention of mistreating the vehicle, plotting a criminal enterprise while driving or using it to overthrow the government, I didn't see a good reason to grant them the OK to sit on my shoulder for the subsequent 3 days and several hundred miles. Yes, I have Google and Apple and Amazon products, all of which are monitoring me in various ways, so call me a hypocrite. But this just seemed like a drive too far. I bypassed that option, which put me back in the general population. And so you'll find me standing in line at the rental counter like a non-connected human.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford rents very basic vehicles His column appears weekly via email and online on Substack and Blogspot as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.

Qualified?

There is no secret that it is a tough job market out there. The turmoil in the economy, coupled with the adoption of AI to do routine and entry level work, has combined to make companies skittish about adding new personnel, whether it be for expansion or just replacing existing positions. That doesn't mean there aren't jobs out there to be had, just that finding ones that fit your skillset for which you are a good match has become far more challenging than it has in years.

As always the best way of connecting with those opportunities is by, well, connecting. Networking is and as always has been the best way to at least get through the front door. While the original way to do that was to meet and greet friends, classmates and associates at parties, social events, and industry gatherings, it was inevitable that it would move online. Multiple platforms have sprung up such as Glassdoor, Monster and Indeed, but all are sandboxes compared to the big playground that is LinkedIn.

Preceding Facebook's predecessor by a year, the company was founded in 2002 by Reid Hoffman along with other buddies from his time at PayPal and Socialnet.com. The first major site devoted to professional interaction, it was acquired by Microsoft in 2016 for $26 billion. Like it or hate it, it has become a de facto job board and networking site for over a billion people.

While Facebook, Instagram, and other social media are optimized for the life side of that ever elusive work-life balance, LinkedIn is focused for other side of the teeter totter. People go there to see prospective employee qualifications, post accomplishments, as well as offer career and work advice. But while keeping abreast of others professional trajectories is nice, the most valuable feature for many is the "connections" listing. There you can see how many degrees of separation there are between you and a company or job of interest, and plot a path to make their acquaintance.

The site also seeks to keep you engaged by scanning your own qualifications, then matching them to opportunities that others post. Like Netflix's "if you liked this you might like that" algorithm, it purports to align your skillset with employers looking for people like you. And so to keep users engaged it sends out a steady stream of "you may be a fit for this one" notices. 

Indeed, as I type these words another has popped up on my own feed, with the headline "New recommended jobs based on your profile and activity." To a large extent they get it right. My background in media production matches me with job postings from such companies as Disney and Comcast, as well as other legacy and new media brands. In some cases it's a bit of stretch: I am a tech/production type, and design is not my forte. So "editor" or "producer" are in the 8-point match range, while "creative director" is in the zip code but a bit farther afield. (If you have doubt as to my design chops, one look at my office should convince you I am not droid you are looking for)

But one has to wonder if the site's matching criteria are as tight as they should be. While I am certainly the inquisitive sort, a potential match for me as a Special Agent with the FBI seems a bit of a miss. (I did have a "Get Smart" briefcase with spy tools as a kid, but it didn't really help me solve any crimes). And while I am pretty good at backing my car into the garage at home, a job as Ramp Operations Crew at the airport wouldn't seem to be based on any skills listed in my CV. Still, I've broken just one tail light over the years so perhaps I have potential with larger craft. And who wouldn't like to wave around those red wands?

Looked at another way, perhaps the site is trying to do me favor, by suggesting that my underlying talents would serve me well in branching out beyond my chosen career. Maybe I've been too parochial in my thinking, and not willing to consider the wider set of opportunities for which I might be suited. I used to do work for Kraft Foods, so maybe the job of "Cheese Associate" at a gourmet market in New York might be a good fit.  After all, it pays $23 an hour, and I know my cheddar.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford is not really looking for work anymore. His column appears weekly via email and online on Substack and Blogspot as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

The new smart watch I bought worked fine, but it "needed" a few accessories. A screen protector, an alternate band, and an extra charging cable to throw in my travel bag were a given. Wanting to give it a home each night, I poked around for a charging stand as well. But unlike the established models, this was a newer entry to the class from a niche manufacturer, and so the pickings were slim. 

I scanned a bunch of online message boards to see what others had found. Some pointed to a few bespoke 3D-printed creations on Etsy, but the shipping generally exceeded the cost of the actual item. Then I spotted one link from a user who had gotten a model manufactured for a similar watch which nonetheless worked. I took a look, and indeed, it seemed to be exactly what I wanted. To top it off it was listed at the bargain price of $2.70. Only one issue: it was in China.

Now, I do not profess to be an expert on global trade. Like most, I read the news and see the machinations about shipping and tariffs and blockades, but other than awareness I don't really know how it all works. For sure I see the effects as prices rise and fall, as the supply of certain items seems to dwindle, as merchants apologize for delivery delays or out-of-stocks. I know that China is a threat to us both militarily and economically, and that, whether you agree or disagree with the actions taken, goods coming to and from there are subject to all kinds of regulations and charges and penalties.

On the first issue, while it's possible this little 3-piece plastic nothing is a threat to natural security, I tend to doubt it. Yes, they could be hiding a virus inside a micro-miniaturized chip built into it that will infect my new watch, so that when I sync it to my computer it will reach through the internet and take down all of Google and Microsoft. Likely not. As to the second issue, between tariffs and the elimination of the de minimis exemption, I have seen how cheap little nothings get hit with prohibitively high additional charges. In one case the cost of a fun little keychain I found on the mainland to buy for a gift was just 59 cents, but it was saddled with a shipping cost of $59.41. I gave the person some candy instead. 

Back to the stand: while the price was right, there was the matter of the add-ons. Not expecting a positive outcome, I punched through to the "complete your purchase screen" so I could see the final tally. For sure, a tax was added; 23 cents. But on the line for customs and duties was big fat zero. Likewise for shipping: zip. So the grand total came to $2.93, expressed from Zhejiang, and guaranteed to be on my doorstep in 10 days or my money back. Hoping it wasn't a sting operation by the FBI to paint me as an undercover spy, I clicked "BUY."

Day by day, hour by hour, I got emails detailing the movement of my purchase. On April 4 at 23:03 it was being packed. It left the warehouse the next day, was received at the sorting center that evening, and was at the airport the day after that. It cleared export customs a day later, and was put on a plane at five in the morning. Some 16 hours later it landed on these shores, and a day later it cleared import customs. Eventually it got picked up by a courier, made its way into the US postal system, and showed up in my mailbox at 1:24PM on April 13, just 9 days after I clicked. The cost, including the product, advertising, processing the payment, taxes, duties, air freight from China, plus last mile delivery to my house in less than 10 days? A touch under three bucks.

Better minds than mine have done the calculations as to how this was a profitable sale. How this de minimus purchase escaped the regulations put in place just for this kind of transaction is probably explainable. And with all that is happening in the world, there is probably a reason that this supply chain was so smooth. Maybe someone can explain it all to me. But I think not.

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Marc Wollin of Bedford buys lots of little things. His column appears weekly via email and online on Substack and Blogspot as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.

Allbird in the Coal Mine?

Roughly forty-five years ago I moved to New York City to start life as a grown-up. It took me a while to find the best local takeout for pizza and sandwiches, and how to negotiate Chinatown. I had to learn the parks in my neighborhood that were devoid of tourists, as well as the best places to run that lacked traffic. And of course there were the logistics of city living, from how to use the subways and buses, to where to get a good bacon, egg and cheese sandwich. 

In the midst of all that my mom called to see how I was doing. A Jersey girl at heart and in practice, she always loved New York City, though her exposure to it was Radio City Music Hall, Broadway and the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. To say her image of the city was a romanticized suburban one was putting it lightly. Still, she liked to read up on it and the high life she imagined it offered to her first born. In the midst of that discussion she passed on that she had just heard about the hottest clubs in town, to which I countered (with love), "Mom, no offense, but if you know about the hottest clubs in New York City, they are no longer the hottest clubs in New York City."

That recalled the famous quote attributed to Joe Kennedy, the father of JFK. The story goes that in the summer of 1929 Kennedy stopped to get his shoes shined on his way to his office. While the boy was buffing his shoes, he started giving Kennedy stock tips on which companies to buy. That led to an epiphany and his supposed utterance, "If shoeshine boys are giving stock tips, then it's time to get out of the market." Kennedy went back to his office and liquidated his portfolio, enabling him to not only survive the Great Crash, but to make a fortune by shorting the market afterward.

While research shows the story is likely more apocryphal than true, it's not wrong. Like my mom's tip, the point is that when people in the least likely position to know something authoritatively profess expertise, there's a good chance that whatever they are talking about is pretty much over and it is time look for the exits. Which brings us to current machinations of Allbirds. 

Founded in San Francisco in 2015, the company started out making sustainable, natural shoes on the crowd funding platform Kickstarter. Their variants were made of wool, and the company promoted itself as an all-natural, environmentally friendly brand. It expanded rapidly in both product line and reach, becoming a fad with well-known customers from Barack Obama to Leonardo DiCaprio. All that led to going public in 2021, with a valuation of about $4 billion. Almost immediately it started to crash, as complaints about its product and balance sheet led to lawsuits and management turnover. Fast forward to January of this year, when it closed all but 4 of its stores. Finally in March it sold its name, assets and intellectual property for less than $40 million, about 1% of its peak. For most companies, that would have been it.

But wait, there's more.

Barely one month after going belly up in the shoe world, the remaining corporate entity (which no longer owns the "Allbirds" brand) announced a new line of business. Rather than make eco-friendly footwear, they would pivot to their adjacent expertise of... wait for it... artificial intelligence. Rebranding itself as "NewBird AI," it raised $50 million from an unnamed institutional investor to acquire "high-performance GPU assets" to begin transitioning into a "fully integrated GPU-as-a-Service." Translation: it's going to buy and rent out AI level computing power to tech startups, competing with companies such as Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. Though not an engineer, my assumption is that the amount of Merino wool in an Nvidia processor is low, but what do I know?

A shoe company plunges into the AI marketplace. If that doesn't raise a few flags as to where we are in the AI timeline I don't know what does. What's even harder to fathom is that some "unnamed institutional investor" thinks there is a chance for success. But stranger things have happened. Or as Yogi Berra commented when he found out about a Jewish man being elected mayor in Dublin, Ireland, "Only in America."

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Marc Wollin of Bedford has given up trying to judge good ideas. Or not. His column appears weekly via email and online on Substack and Blogspot as well as Facebook, LinkedIn and X.