Linkedin's Work In Progress

When we talk about the current realities of work and how it’s changing, there’s one thing we can all agree on: to survive, learning new skills — or switching jobs entirely — will likely be essential.  And as daunting as that prospect may sound, this isn’t the first time the American worker has had to adapt to get ready for the workforce of the future. With that in mind, what lessons can we learn from the Great Recession to help everyone rebound more quickly?  This week, we hear from Amy Goldstein, a staff writer at The Washington Post and the author of Janesville: An American Story. Her book focuses on the closing in late 2008 of the oldest-operating GM plant in the country and how workers in the area fared in the five years that followed. One of her findings is that workers who went through retraining programs often ended up worse financially than those who didn’t. Chip and Caroline dig in to what went wrong and what lessons can be learned.

Leaders across tech are convinced that diversity in the workplace — that big issue that you can’t go anywhere without hearing about — will be a non-issue within five years. The problem? Very few are doing anything to make that prediction come true. This week, Chip and Caroline discuss the results of LinkedIn’s latest diversity in tech survey, which found that despite the seemingly daily revelations about sexual harassment in tech, venture capital, entertainment and politics, how both investors and founders are treating these issues is largely unchanged. New America CEO and President Anne-Marie Slaughter joins them to bring more context to the results and share her take on how heightened media attention on abuse can benefit the American workplace.

America needs more people working in home healthcare, and we need them quickly. With the U.S. elderly population doubling from 40 million to 80 million Americans in the next 20 to 25 years, the Bureau of Labor Statistics is predicting that “personal-care aide” will be the fastest growing job category in the next decade. There is just one problem: Working in home healthcare is unpredictable, underappreciated and underpaid work. This week, Chip and Caroline explore the fragmented market of home healthcare by speaking with entrepreneurs trying to fix the system and workers trying to make a living within it. Seth Sternberg, the CEO of Home healthcare startup Honor, joins Chip and Caroline to discuss why he thinks scale — and thinking of caring for the elderly as a bi-partisan issue — could solve the problem.

In Silicon Valley, working “9 to 5,” is for the weak. Startup founders celebrate never sleeping. Venture capitalists brag on Twitter about not taking a vacation for over twenty years. But while the tech industry may be getting all of the attention, workers across industries are feeling burnt out, overworked and stressed. This week, LinkedIn Managing Editors Chip Cutter and Caroline Fairchild talk to two entrepreneurs based out of Chicago who are bucking this trend within their own startup. Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson are the co-founders of Basecamp and have been speaking out against the tech community’s extreme work ethic for years now. Fried and Hansson give their take on why working around the clock now seems necessary, and share the simple ways they think the American work week can be improved by using technology differently.

If you speak to workers across the country, a lot of them will tell you that the economy is broken. Everyone from cashiers at grocery stores to doctors in hospitals have shared stories with LinkedIn about striving for more, but the deck not being stacked in their favor. In this episode, Chip and Caroline talk to future of work expert and O'Reilly Media Founder Tim O’Reilly about why exactly that is. Explaining how the economy is optimized for corporate profit rather than for the American worker, O’Reilly unpacks some key lessons from the technology industry that he thinks can be applied to “debugging” many problems plaguing the world of work.

The manufacturing industry is changing fast, and American workers are feeling the impact on their jobs and wages. As more and more manufacturing jobs move to AI, to robots, or abroad, this episode explores the future of the industry and how Americans are and will continue to be effected. Chip and Caroline talk to manufacturing workers around the country and to McKinsey Global Institute Chairman and Director James Manyika about the increasing skills gap, humans and machines learning to work together, and the potential for the US to return to the #1 global manufacturing spot.

In the wake of Hurricanes Harvey & Irma, communities across Texas and Florida are facing a combined $200 billion in damage. There is a dire need for immediate rebuilding efforts, but there is already a labor shortage in the construction industry. Some construction workers are seeing this disaster as a potential "gold rush" for job opportunities, and construction companies and contractors are already rushing to the disaster zones to find work. In this episode, Chip and Caroline speak with the Chief Economist of the National Association of Home Builders, Robert Dietz, on the current state of construction and the potential for automation. They also speak with several construction workers who are considering relocating to find work after the storms.

162 million people in the US and in Europe engage in independent work as a primary or supplemental source of income, and this number is growing quickly as people are taking advantage of tech-driven opportunities. But the opportunities are changing just as quickly, and while there is a desired flexibility to this type of work, there is also a lack of security or benefits. Chip and Caroline speak with Stacy Brown-Philpot, the CEO of TaskRabbit, to discuss what, if anything, society and education are doing to keep up with this growing and changing gig economy.

More than five million people in the U.S. make a living driving taxis, buses, vans, trucks Uber’s and Lyft’s. Some drive for money part-time, while others do so full-time. But some self-driving car companies are predicting their technology will be on the open roads, en masse, as early as 2020. That means that millions of people could be out of work in less than three years. In this episode, Caroline and Chip speak with more than a dozen drivers about how they are thinking about their career prospects as we headed toward a driverless future. Padmasree Warrior, the CEO of self-driving car startup NIO, also joins them to bring the perspective of an executive who’s helping bring this technology to market.   

Tech titans Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg sparred recently about how artificial intelligence and automation will impact the future of work. Musk says the robots are coming for everything — not just our jobs — and Zuckerberg says that type of thinking is “pretty irresponsible.” How can two leaders arguably more at the forefront of this technology see its real world implications so differently? In this episode, Caroline and Chip get out of the theoretical and into the practical on what the next tech revolution will really mean for work across industries. Box CEO and Co-Founder Aaron Levie joins them to share why he thinks tech will always create more jobs than they will destroy. Meanwhile, Chip talks with workers and employers across the country to see how exactly automation is impact the workplace today.

As America’s opioid epidemic ravages cities large and small, a new problem is emerging: while jobs exist, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find applicants willing or able to pass the drug tests needed to get them, employers and public officials say. In this episode, Caroline and Chip explore the economic side of America’s devastating addiction to prescription painkillers, heroin and synthetic opioids like fentanyl, and how it’s playing out in workplaces. Sam Quinones, the author of “Dreamland: The True Tale of America's Opiate Epidemic,” explains the link between jobs and addiction. Then, Jeff DeFlavio, the co-founder of treatment provider Groups, talks to us about ways he thinks employers can be less impacted by the drug crisis across America.

Over half of American startups valued at $1 billion or more have at least one immigrant founder. When it comes to the Fortune 500, 40% were founded by either immigrants or the children of immigrants. The tech community argues that certain immigration policies proposed by President Donald Trump could hurt their ability to compete by closing down their access to international talent. Yet Americans workers across the country remain fearful that with so many people coming from outside the U.S. to work, there won’t be enough jobs for them as a result. In this episode, Chip and Caroline sit down Cloudera co-founder and CTO Amr Awadallah to unpack the giant chasm between how the middle of the country views immigrants and the coasts and the tech community do. Awadallah, an immigrant from Egypt, discusses his own rise in Silicon Valley, the tech talent crunch and how this whole discussion is about to get a lot more heated as automation continues to take over more jobs.

As the retail industry loses more jobs than during the depths of the Great Recession, Walmart is investing $2.7 billion in higher wages, education and training for employees. Doomsdayers are predicting the end of retail work as we know it. Does the world’s largest private employer see something that the rest of the industry is missing? In this episode, Chip and Caroline head down to Northwest Arkansas to speak with both Walmart executives and employees about what’s really going on in the retail industry. Judith McKenna, Walmart’s COO, explains why the nation’s largest employer is focused on training soft skills as the retail landscape becomes more technologically advanced. Paco Underhill, a retail analyst with more than 30 years of experience, also brings his perspective to the seemingly surprise move by Walmart. 

With some 57% of jobs around the world at risk of being displaced by automation, some members of the tech community and beyond think giving people money, for free, no strings attached, might be the only way to keep the economy moving forward. But what do the workers who are at risk of losing their jobs actually think? In this episode, Chip and Caroline connect universal basic income experts with workers across the country to discuss a future where fewer and fewer of us have jobs. Michael Faye, the co-founder of GiveDirectly, discusses his non-profit’s experiments with universal basic income in Africa and Elizabeth Rhodes, the head of universal basic income research for Y Combinator, reveals some details from pilots the startup accelerator is conducting in Oakland, Calif. Caroline and Chip ask Michael and Elizabeth to respond to the strong opinions against universal basic income that they are hearing from workers across industries.  Hosts: Caroline Fairchild and Chip Cutter. Producers: Dave Pond and Florenci

Last year, venture capitalists invested nearly $70 billion dollars in startups across the country, but close to 80% of that capital went to founders in just three states: California, New York and Massachusetts. In this episode, AOL Co-Founder and Revolution CEO Steve Case joins to talk about how VCs can support entrepreneurs across the country.  The man behind  "Rise of the Rest,”  a nationwide effort to work closely with entrepreneurs in emerging startup ecosystems, Case has been working on this issue for quite sometime. So why do the numbers refuse to budge? Caroline and Chip ask Steve to dissect the issues by connecting him to founders who are trying to start companies in the middle of the country.

Silicon Valley investors pummeled some $188 million last year in voice enabled bot technology. This growing trend threatens to replace some of the most common jobs in America, including cashiers and administrative assistants. In this episode, General Catalyst Managing Partner Phil Libin joins to talk about the issues behind the investments. The founder and former CEO of Evernote, Libin has already invested in several chat bot startups and thinks the technology will revolutionize the way we work moving forward. But what does that mean for today's frontline workers? Caroline and Chip ask Phil to weigh in by connecting him to several cashiers and personal assistants working today across America.