General Partner at a16z, previously Uber, startups. 
-born, Seattle-raised. Plus one: @briannekimmel
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It’s fascinating how many other professions have the structure of licenses plus for-profit schools. It’s not quite as bad as taxi medallions, but close. Needs to get reinvented. “A $21,000 Cosmetology School Debt, and a $9-an-Hour Job.” cc @ljin18https://nyti.ms/2RcIlYH?smid=nytcore-ios-share …
Imho the ubiquity of internet and information about vendors really changes the need and role for licenses for all these professions. Pre-internet, licenses were supposed to ensure quality, training, etc. The gov’t had to step in and help. Is that still needed? Legit question.
Here’s a solid report about 100+ lower income licensed service professions (via @kareems). Bartender, florist, travel guide... really?https://ij.org/report/license-work-2/ …
The worst part of all of this is that it’s adding regulation and unneeded training requirements to the part of the workforce that most needs job opportunities. They don’t need predatory loans to take classes from horrible for-profit schools
In a recent essay that @ljin18 and I wrote on the future of marketplaces, we speculate that there's several ways to use software to solve this: 1) discover existing professionals more transparently. 2) "full-stack" hiring of existing folks to ensure quality
also, 3) expanding/augmenting the pool by teaching them how to get licensed. (Basically becoming a highly efficient/non-predatory for-profit school, but also vertically integrating the marketplace to actually get business. 4) utilizing unlicensed supply. This has the most risk
The entire essay lives here: https://andrewchen.co/how-marketplaces-will-reinvent-the-service-economy/ …. It's a long read, but if you read past the "Managed Marketplace Era" - we get into licensing and the future of these industries
Obv going with an unlicensed model has the most regulatory risk. But a lot of industries having pairs like tutors/teachers, coach/therapist - one name for the unlicensed version and the other for the licensed version. More will come to exist
Rideshare as a metaphor isn't always going to work - however, it's true that it took a licensed profession, made it much better and more accessible/affordable to the market, and the market is much, much bigger. This can happen elsewhere too
Question for y'all, what licensed professions that you think are most likely to get reinvented by tech? Would love to hear speculation? (Real estate agent is certainly one - my partner @arampell @benedictevans have both mentioned)
Also, what are other pairings like tutors/teachers and coach/therapists that exist? If you trained a ton of the unlicensed version and added a layer of trust/transparency/pricing/etc, you could probably get somewhere with that too
Also h/t to @khberglund for this @EconTalker podcast on licensing: https://pca.st/episode/1c838fde-1655-4d4c-ae3d-eebc6bb72eb5 …. “Redbird argues licensing expands opportunity for women/minorities w little impact on wages. Licensing helps historically disadvantaged groups discover ways into various careers.”
Licensing is often a form of worker protection. This lacks systems thinking. You protect a small segment but keep out many capable workers who'd like to do the job, but are excluded. And excl consumers from being able to afford the svc because of cost, due to constrained supply
Btw, for those that think this is a small/weird economic issue. It's not. Nearly 30% (!!!) of workers require some kind of license to work:https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2015/01/27/nearly-30-percent-of-workers-in-the-u-s-need-a-license-to-perform-their-job-it-is-time-to-examine-occupational-licensing-practices/ …
Only 1 in 10 workers had to be licensed, now it's 1 in 3. This is both the growth of the service industry, as well as increasing regulation.https://www.vox.com/2014/5/29/5760220/in-the-70s-10-percent-of-workers-were-licensed-today-its-three-times …
Here's a breakdown of all the different sectors of the service industry and what % of them have to be licensed. Education, in particular, is the one that irks me. We should be making it easier to teach, tutor, coach - yes we need to maintain quality, but we need more supplypic.twitter.com/07g9qLt6NT
I've been working with @ljin18 to keep track of the various startups working in this field. Here's a prelim infographic we've put together. Am glad to be encountering more and more every week!pic.twitter.com/9TJVofkaE1
I haven’t pulled out Capitalism and Freedom in a decade plus, but there was an entire chapter on the folly of occupational licensing in a book from 1962, and it’s only gotten worsepic.twitter.com/zWLeoeUVLy
lol hypertrichologist.
“Land of the free”. This is such a weird US-specific thing. It blew my mind that real-estate agents need a license here.
Trust me, no one wants unlicensed realtorspic.twitter.com/MfSEAOlJZF
What are some of the reasons that you say no one wants unlicensed real estate agents?
Because they’re handling the largest financial transaction of your life and even with licenses some do shady AF stuff
Except that the avg real estate agent actually has very little expertise, as they typically 0 transactions per year. (h/t @arampell's recent real estate preso). And the real estate markets all of the world have been able to make it work, w/o this licensing. Why in the US?
I’m Canadian so we have different rules up here. I know the US is a fan of deregulation so I’m not surprised. I just know I’d never use one.
In the UK, you use a lawyer to do the actual legal transaction. The brokers don’t do the paperwork. Hence the lawyers are licensed and the brokers are not.
That’s the model that makes sense to me personally. I would rather have my transaction covered by a lawyer (and that wouldn’t need to be %-based fee) and could use tools available to myself to locate, or choose to use someone whose job is that in cases where makes sense/is wanted
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