The Netflix of: Algorithms as a Service

There is a new form of compute taking place and its under most people radar. Most developers are not even aware they are building it. Platforms like cloud services and blockchains are laying down the pipeline. API’s and smart contracts, respectively are getting created. We are getting to the point where we might ditch the apps and start mix and matching algorithms that help run our lives. Thus, Algorithm as a Service (AaaS) is born.

Algorithms seem like this foreign concept to many people. But it will become a real commodity like choosing a movie from Netflix or picking a special drink from the coke freestyle machine. The algorithm will interface with whatever data, smart contract, api, etc and run jobs to perform some real world experience for the user.

Algorithms will be as prevalent as water or electric. This is why so many cloud services are trying to morph their services into some kind of global computer like Verizon and Comcast are ISPs. Algorithms will be a lot easier to implement when cloud service providers begin to create specialized containers where it’s easily accessible by individual people. An example of this is choosing an algorithm that sends you food everyday without you doing anything. It will randomly choose foods in the local area based on places you have been before using geo tagging. Basically it randomly sends doordash an order from a restaurant and shows up at your house at the right time. This could be one of thousands of algorithms people could choose and apply in their lives.

The future may be a market place of algorithms. The price of each algorithm is governed by the usefulness and the scarcity of the job. When the user sees this, it could possibly look like the Netflix home page with beautiful imagery with a description of what it does and how much it cost. Users will click apply and it starts the job. This may be a soft way to usher in automation.

If you made it this far, then you are link. We talk about it in more detail in the video below.

The Career Singularity

The idea that a career is considered a constant is not a truth anymore. There is automation, robotics, company shifts, market fluctuations, economic and governmental changes. The career is not exactly the same as it was 30 years ago; heck, 5 years ago. But what seems constant is that the career trajectory is moving towards the singularity — The Career Singularity.

What is the Career Singularity? It’s something I have been thinking about for several years. You can almost feel it like the forces you feel when turning a corner on a roller coaster. The gut feeling of what’s next and how do I prepare? The Career Singularity is just that; it’s how people change their career in shorter periods. It’s like Moore’s law but for careers. Every two years, the compute doubles until we reach the singularity. Well, our careers are changing faster and faster until we are changing jobs in real-time.

One might ask, how do we change jobs in real-time? We don’t. It’s not physically possible for people to change jobs that fast. Computers can’t either. That’s the paradox. People are not able to shift their jobs that fast but we are pushing ourselves to the brink of what’s possible. However, we are still early on this curve. We did 30 years on average. Then it was 10 years at a company. We moved to 5 years and around the 2010s, the average tenure was 3 years. In the last five years we have seen jobs average around 18 months. If we keep this up the next time frame will be 6–9 months on average.

Companies also have what we call the “Company Singularity”. Companies are just a much larger version of individual people. Companies also have to dynamically change just as fast if not faster than individual people. The issue is companies can’t change too fast or they could end up falling apart.

The career singularity is what we are all approaching because it’s not just competition or the demand that companies expect, there is also automation and robotics that are coming online this decade. We have had this massive wave of people upskilling and changing their jobs into tech in fear of being left behind. And millions of people are making that dive, especially in tech. They are seeing the benefits of working remote while also making more money. The downfall is many people are unaware that this remote work has a cost. As we have seen recently, tech companies are had big tech layoffs.

Companies know as more people are remote, the more fluid they can build their teams. It’s also like how cloud functions were introduced. Spin up a cloud function when you need them and then turn it off when it’s not longer needed. I’m not saying it’s cut and dry with jobs. What I mean is in the next decade, people might see their career transition into more consultant roles without even realizing it. Thus, that’s why it’s important to us from this stand point that we aid people with tools that are helping them every single day. It’s too hard and far too complex to try to navigate the entire career space alone. Yet we have done this for years. Sometimes we use recruiters, friends, college coordinators, bootcamps and even coaches. All of these are assets. But they are not going to help you day to day working on ways to navigate the complex career. They have a point of transaction and we believe those transactions are necessary to switch from job to job or to take courses or to meet people who can help you for a few sessions.

We believe that people should know what opportunities they want to take. People should know the risk associated with the opportunities and how any action they take towards their career would pan out. We believe people shouldn’t have to operate alone, especially as more technology is built to replace people. By 2025–2028, the career space will be so volatile that this industry will need analyst to see the shifts like the stock market.

Why do I care? Because I noticed that the people around me, including myself, my friends, my family will be outpaced and possibly replaced by both technology and automation. I know there will be a point that I may not do a job fast enough or that my time at a company may not be as long as it used to be due to changes. I know my capacity of compute and I know I can’t read and see everything. But I would like to see and read what is imperative to my livelihood to support my family and my future. Thus, it’s important for me to build cofounder because I need help to keep moving forward and continue to augment what I do so that I can traverse through the career frontier the best I can.

The Career Singularity was a term I thought about because it appears that the world is pushing it limits, thus, pushing its people. We have two choices. We can ring the bell and tap out or we continue to push towards the work that matters. Though, we may think we have work-life balance now, the future seems to reflect us working a lot more to continue to get head but really its the definition of what I call the Career Singularity.

If you made it this far and looking for more. You are in luck. We made a video that talks about this.

Protect yourself if a company rescinds an offer.

Caleb Kaiser AngelList Talent Illustration by David Espinosa

Some companies are going through economic changes. Either they are taking advantage of the market decline or they are really trying to protect the company from dying. Either way companies are making preparations and changes. From Facebook to Coinbase to pretty much all of the tech companies. They have started rescinding offers to and now starting to cut staff.

Companies are doing their best to stay afloat but it creates a very hard environment for employees during an economic recession. Even before a recession is officially declared, companies are already finding ways to increase their runway by reducing cost. The largest cost in any company is human capital. People are typically the first ways companies begin to cut their cost because they want their balance sheet to be healthy.

What you should do during this time?

When receiving an offer letter, that is extremely exciting. But during economic downturn, there are some considerations that should be made.

1. Once you have an offer letter, continue to look for new jobs. Depending on the timeframe work, keep searching for new jobs.

2. Until the company makes its first direct deposit into your account, don't stop looking for jobs.

3. If a company starts to rescind offer letters, it's probably okay to keep your eyes open and talk to your friends about different openings at different jobs.

4. While working for a company, continue to make your public presence known based on your portfolio and the work you can do. Because competition will fierce, it's imperative to show your skillset by producing content of what you can do.

5. Create a YouTube channel and/or blog. Not because you are trying to be an influencer. But you are able to push out what you are capable of doing and giving the world how you solve problems and create solutions.

Remember during an economic turndown, it's best to be proactive. Save money, and work on ways to keep yourself relevant.