YouSaid · the spoken record

Ania Smith

lines on the record: 98
first: 2025-06-09
most recent: 2025-06-09
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“It feels like If you love doing it, you should absolutely be doing it. And you live in a neighborhood where, you know, I think there's a lot of people modding TVs.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We have some very fun things coming up, but one of the biggest things is, you know, Ikea is a partner and it's been a very successful partner. And so we believe that we can have other very successful partners. So we've just rolled out a suite of products that will allow us to speak to those partners via an API and much faster to hopefully be able to ensure that their customers can come and use TaskRabbit services. So we're really excited about that opportunity. And then the other thing that's really big is continue evolution of how we match the client and a tasker. And so the way you may see that as a client or a tasker on our apps is just a more seamless way to know that you're getting the right person in your home to do that mounting TV task that's on a brick wall.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It is. It is. But, you know, at the end of the day, I think it's just the first step. And I think Google is going to continue to evolve there. And so I don't want to say which way, because I think eventually all of these platforms will build products that will make it much more seamless for the customer to do the things that they want to get done. And so, you know, we just want to make sure that we're involved.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, at the end of the day, it's the people who are paying for these services. So in our instance, it's the clients who need things fixed around the home. And I think whatever is easiest for them is eventually what's going to work. Now, I know Project Mariner kind of seems odd. You're kind of just watching this mouse move around.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, that to me seems like I don't even know how to describe it. That's a Rube Goldberg machine, right? Like, why are we APIs exist? Like we know how to make computers and databases talk to each other. This is fully ridiculous. Then there's new age ways of doing it, right? Like MCP where the agents have a more structured way of communicating. And it's kind of just APIs, but they're like cooler APIs. Which of those things?”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I would say that's still somewhat rudimentary, right? I think you can do better. But again, it's just a first step. It's okay.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely. But let's make sure that we're involved. But I think it is the right answer. You know, we're part of the demo with Google last week. So we're definitely more than tipping our toes into it.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm not sure, so I wouldn't want to sort of put words in our mouth. I know that AI is a critical investment for them, and I know that they're looking at it in all parts of the business, but I wouldn't be speaking for them to know exactly where they see most innovation.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I don't not yet, right? And I see, I understand their point. I mean, it's pretty remarkable to take Waymos in San Francisco. And, you know, I remember when seeing these, um, I used to be at Walmart many, many years ago. And so Walmart's offices are right across the street from YouTube when Google bought YouTube and when the whole thing, there was just a lot of Waymos or self-driving cars they were not called Waymos then, driving around and they looked so foreign. And obviously they had drivers in them. And now look, so this will happen. But I understand the excitement. I just think we're further away from that in home services.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because, you know, when you talk to one of the car companies, they think all their growth is coming from the cars driving themselves, right? Like they can see the massive. But you don't have that opportunity. Do you think”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think for us a task rabbit how we really optimize the match between the client and tasker is going to change. We can continue to get so much smarter. I think how clients will come to our platform will change. I think just the sort of the basic sort of how SEO and SEM works barely will apply and that will happen much sooner than lawnmower or a robot that can hang up your TV. So I think that pace of that change is much more accelerated.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, but like they don't work very well, you know, the internet didn't work very well, you know, 20, 30 years ago whenever it started. The cell phones that we had were didn't work very well. So it will evolve. I think we're still quite far.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“From a software platform perspective, 100%, from an actual what happens in someone's home, I really don't see a robot mowing your lawn just yet. But it will happen.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One of the things that I'm thinking about a lot is where the automation comes, right? Where does it go? It's interesting TaskRabbit. Don't seem easily automatable from the jump, as you're describing. A lot of these tasks are really, really hard, and even the robotics to begin to try to solve hanging a TV or emptying a dishwasher many, many, many rounds of innovation to come to make that viable. Other similarly situated competitors you might have or peers you might have like Uber, you can see how automation will change their business, right? The cars will drive themselves. That's going to change their business in radical ways. And we'll see how that goes. Do you see any automation that might change how TaskRabbit works in the near future?”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hung up This person was very adamant, but you know, anytime that I'm sort of listening to any work that is being done sort of in a physical space, you know, it's still really far. They're working on robots trying to empty the dishwasher. And that's a really complex task. Really complex when you really think about it. And there's still a lot that has to happen.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They are and I was just at a conference where someone was adamantly telling me that it's only three years before there's a robot hanging up a TV.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The concept of having this agent to do many things for you is very interesting. And if you kind of take it forward a lot further, you know, eventually, in theory, there's just sort of like we don't even have laptops and we don't even have our Kindles or whatever it may be because we just have agents that are constantly doing things for us, maybe on other types of devices or whatever else. And so I think it's super exciting to be a part of that journey, but I think none of it has been proven out and we're still actually, I think, pretty far away. Although the technology is changing so quickly, it's quite remarkable actually to watch it.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, I think that there are so many different economic structures that can work here. We're very early stages. And I think you don't even, we don't even know. We may all think and guesstimate that this is the right structure and then a year in can decide, wow, this doesn't work for us or this doesn't work for the third party or this doesn't actually work for the clients. We're not getting enough people to actually do this. So there's a lot of try and error here. And so it's too early to be saying this is the right model and this is the right structure.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Do you think it's different because you are not a Legion model? I think about your thumbtack, for example, at some point, right, they're just there to deliver demand to a bunch of HVAC technicians or whoever was in that demo. And maybe Siri delivers that demand and Thumbtack gets totally disintermediated. You're saying that's not your model and you're not worried about it and you're charging the customer anyway. So would you just charge a higher rate for an agent and that would just solve the problem?”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We close the loop. But, you know, again, we're still quite far from where that could go. But I think the possibilities are endless and we have to go where the customers. If everyone all of a sudden goes and talks through their phone and that's how they order things or talks to theory or whatever, I don't know how we would choose not to be there.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, look, we're very different than Thumbdack because Thumbtack is a lead gen product that it's very hard to close that. Whereas we provide the experience all the way through. So at the end of the day, on the demo that you described, the client still has to go and work with whoever the provider or the end provider is, in this case, someone to fix your dishwasher. This isn't something that we have to do, right? Our product would look very differently because we are able to shepherd the entire experience through.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm with you that it hasn't been proven to work, but I also go to the events and I watch Amazon executives demonstrate the next version of Alexa where the dishwasher is broken and it just books an appointment on Thumbtack. And I can see how maybe you want TaskRabbit in that mix, but then you are just next to Thumbtack. And you might, the agent might just pick the lowest price, right? Like, especially if you're charging the customer, you might pick the service the lower toll.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But that gives us a chance to test a lot of different models and understand what works best for the task or for the client and then also in this case for the two parties involved.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think it's a little bit different when you look at a gig economy marketplace. I think at the end of the day, it takes a lot of work to bring together a set of taskers or set of hosts or a set of Uber drivers. It's just really hard. And to acquire these folks and to make sure that they provide the quality that you want. And I don't see other companies being able to do that. And I think it's also too early. There's so many ways that we can figure out how to test this and how to make it work. The example that you provide, we're still not quite there, right? Like there's many things that it sounds great, but there are many things that are still hindering that actually to be a seamless experience. There's payments and how do you, there's logging in, there's accounts. There's all sorts of ways that this is still, all of this can be resolved and it will be resolved.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Network of thousands of taskers, and we've cultivated that network. We know who they are. We understand their skills. They've all been background checked. Siri's not going to do that or Apple or whoever, they're just not going to be able to do that. We will always have the strength and supply and we will continue to go where the customer is to make sure as many of them have access to our platform as possible.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Absolutely look forward to the problem. I look at it a little bit differently. I think If those agents exist, you have to go where the customer. So obviously, we have people that come into our sites every day. But if people want to come to IKEA and book a tasker via IKEA, we're not going to say no. And if they want to come to Target and do that, we're not going to say no. And if they want to come to Siri and do that, we're not going to say no. I think sort of it's very easy to fall behind the, but then I don't own the customer and then I don't know what's going to happen with the customer. The customer will know that this is a tasker, or we can make sure that they know that this is a tasker. They can understand that they're working with another party and they can come back and go directly or they don't have to. And then there's some economic way that we can figure out a system where it works for both parties. Siri in this case wants to be able to provide these types of services and they can't really do it without TaskRabbit because only TaskRabbit actually has a”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So much. Make it simpler. Always make it simpler. Make it easier. And sometimes I may not care to choose who the tasker is. I just want to make sure that it's going to be a person who can do the job really well and do it as affordably as I can. So sometimes having a bit more help in choosing would be appreciated. So we're working on that.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He doesn't notice that it's broken, and then he doesn't notice that it's now fixed. It's just the house runs. This is okay. And so, you know, I had someone come in here the other day and mount a bunch of in my son's room a bunch of pictures. I have someone coming in to assemble furnitures like these bookcases behind me. I have someone coming in to help with my lawn. There's infinite number of ways to get someone to help you in your home.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Okay, so, you know, and I don't tell my husband this because, again, he still pretends that he can do these things, but he really doesn't.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Correct, but you know, I'll tell you I have taskers showing up at my house every month or week or however often. And these are people who are really striving to Make an incremental income or make the main income and they love having the opportunity to use their skills to do something to help someone else while making fairly a pretty good wage generally speaking. And so we do, like I said, we've done a lot of things. We try to provide a lot of additional benefits for them. We try to help them and make sure that, you know, they can call us. We have a whole team that is focused just on helping taskers make money. And so this team will help you out to think about how do you price or how do you think about the categories that you're in or how can you make sure that your write up is correct and so on. And again, we're providing a lot of AI tools for taskers to do that as well. But having that humor interaction really helps. And so if you're here on our platform and you want to make money, there's opportunity to make money.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and same with Airbnb. I definitely have a very soft spot for the supply side of the business. And like frankly, this is why I'm doing gig economy. You know, I often talk about when I was younger, my family and I emigrated from Poland. And so, you know, in the 80s, my parents were trying to find jobs with more hours and it was all hourly work and it was hard to make ends meet. And I often wish that these types of platforms existed then because no matter what, you can hustle and you can make more money. And yeah, I definitely have and can relate to the supply side of the business, probably a lot more.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or really the agency to solve those problems, right? And so they are hopefully spending much more time with the customers than even I am and understand that specific problem much better than I do and much better than my team does. So for me, it's really important to empower the team to make decisions. And then most of them are sort of, you have to test and try. And the thing that we keep focusing on is making decisions quickly because really the speed is what I think gets you behind. You can constantly be looking for more data and more certainty. And most of that doesn't exist. You have to start using your gut or your instinct or whatever, however you define that to sort of look at your past experience and you have some pattern recognition. You kind of understand how things may go and you weigh them and you make a call. And doing that quicker, I think, is the most important thing.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I know there are many different answers here, but for me as a CEO, I really think about the decisions that I get to make are the ones that are, you know, I think there's different ways to describe them, but one way door is decisions that you've, I'm sure, heard of. But the things that are really hard to reverse. So closing down the office during COVID or opening up an office or acquiring a company. These are sort of bigger decisions. But I really trust my team and then think a lot about how are they empowering their teams to make decisions. I spend a lot of my times with customers. I think it's really important, right? So whether it's having taskers at my house or spending a lot of time with interviewing taskers or interviewing clients, I think it's really important. But still day to day, I'm not as close to the problem as the people who I want to have the authority.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Do we have? Is it very clear? Have we set the right expectations? These, again, are things that I think are more difficult to answer.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I mean, historically, it's been one core business, but with a delivery piece, it's definitely separate. There are many different things that we need to think about. You know, we need to think about A to B, which we didn't have to think about before. We need to think about all sorts of components that are different than our core business. Still, it's really important to us. We think it's a great opportunity that is very connected to the moving business and so on. And so we are thinking a lot about what does that mean? Do we have a separate moving business business unit and what does that look like? I think, again, at the end of the day, it's not so much the structure. It is much more about the culture and how can we feel a sense of shared responsibility across the company and understanding what our priorities are, what is our vision, what is our strategy. Is it all aligned? Are we all able to row in the same direction?”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Whatever the strategy may be. So, those are bigger problems, and I don't really think that changing the structure gets you to an answer closer. I think these type of adaptive problems that are more difficult to solve are actually more challenging and I don't think changing structure is the answer.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Mean here's the thing. I've gone a lot through that, but there is no perfect structure. If there was one, then we would all be doing that and then that would be, and we wouldn't have to have this conversation. But, you know, if you have a functional structure, it creates certain sets of problems. And then you can sort of fix them by going to a GM or a business unit type of structure, then, you know, not surprisingly, you create other sets of problems. And so to me, it is not so much about the structure. It's much more about the skills and the capabilities that people have, the sort of incentives and how are they uniquely positioned to work across boundaries and across functions and or across geographies. And that's much harder to do. And it really comes back than to culture and what are our values and how do we get people to really think and row in the same direction.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Example in France, there is some local tax law that allows customers who do work on their house to get some tax benefit, which is a great thing. This isn't something we have in the US. And so we want to make sure that customers have access to that. But to do that, you have to build out a different flow and allow them to be able to submit whatever tax documents that sort of say that this is a work that they've done. And there's dozens of these types of examples across markets. You know, marketing campaigns, they're different because people are different in every market and they resonate with different types of themes and different types of creative and so on. And so how do we go broad but also have local capabilities ends up causing tension across the world? And that's what makes it fun. Certainly we don't have it figured out yet.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That in a practice what TaskRabbit makes most of all is a software product, right? So when you're You're saying customers in France have some needs, a customers in the United States don't have. What are those needs and how do they get expressed in the product?”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Would like there to be a bit, there's probably a lot of tension between some of the needs that are unique per market or per country versus having fully functional ways of thinking about the problem. So, you know, as an example, there's different competitive pressures in different markets and there's different ways that customers go onto platforms and book their tasks. And so there are specific needs that maybe customers in France have that are totally not applicable to the market in the US. And so how do we make that trade-off? Because of course, France is much smaller overall portion of our business than the US, but you have to continue growing across the world. And so there's healthy tension across there, definitely.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We are structured as many other companies today. We're very functionally focused with a matrix overlay. So we have GMs looking over the US market and then GMs looking over the European market and each country. And then, of course, there is always a bit of tension or I would say maybe not a bit.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Goals are always about growth, right? How do we continue to grow faster and how do we continue to evolve where we're solving the right problems for the customer overall? And of course, Ikea customer as well. So, you know, just recently we acquired a delivery company here in the US that does delivery of big and bulky things so that we can help Ikea deliver furniture to your home. They want to make sure that we are able to expand to other countries. We're only in eight countries, IKEA is in dozens of countries. And so there's still a lot of opportunity for growth that way. There are definitely pressures, but they're similar to what I would say any other parent or any other sort of investor would have.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's just not a problem. We have, and all the countries that we serve, and of course, I alluded to this earlier on the call, but IKEA is much more sort of, it's much bigger in Europe. And so we have a lot of taskers, a larger portion of our taskers know how to assemble IKEA furniture in Europe than in the US. And so because we get a lot more IKEA jobs in Europe, just the IKEA business is much stronger overall. And so, no, we don't keep them separate. We let them, they can choose whatever category. We do not have any challenges with finding supply, though, even in Europe.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They get to choose. So I would say majority of the taskers who assemble IKEA furniture are also really good at assembling furniture for wayfarer and Target and other places. They want to assemble furniture. The way it works in our platform is there's an IKEA assembly furniture category because like you said, it's specialized, but then there's just furniture assembly where it could be a piece from anywhere. And those tasks are definitely cross. Many of them are also handymen. So they will do minor home repairs. Like if you're doornop is loose or other things as well. They have great skills. Some of them want to just focus on IKEA furniture only. But I would say that that's minority. I would say many of them cross into multiple categories.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And that's kind of what I'm getting at it's a specialized skill. And I would actually say putting together Ikea Furniture is different than putting together the furniture you would buy at Target or Walmart. Like they're different companies with different styles. The way the things fit together are literally different. Again, my dream story is that we find rival flatpack design gangs and like put them head to head. I don't know if that's how it works. It's just how it works in my brain. That's a specialized supply, right? Do you keep that pool aside and say, these are the people who are best at assembling IKEA kitchens and we're going to make sure they're available to Ikea.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It's like a whole thing, but I can tell you watching our taskers put together IKEA furniture I mean, it is impressive. Many of them have done, and I know the furniture, right? So they know this and they can do this so well inside and out. They just do it at speeds that. You may be good, but you're never going to be a tasker, an IKEA tasker who is doing this day in, day out.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“One of my dream stories is that we go to a conference of like flat pack furniture designers and the IKEA people come in dressed all in black and everyone's like it's the Ikea designers because it's obviously the easiest to put together but it's like a whole ecosystem”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Connect that to the supply conversation we were just having. I've put together a lot of Ikea furniture in my day. I feel like I'm pretty good at it. That's a relatively specialized skill, right? Like reading an IKEA instruction manual. It's like learning another language in many ways.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Assembled. So that's a great example of how the two companies can really leverage their capabilities. I mean, at the end of the day, IKEA purchased TaskRabbit under a premise that there are some IKEA customers who, or potential IKEA customers who don't want to be an IKEA customer because they feel overwhelmed by the idea of putting together furniture. And so we want to be there to help to solve that problem. And I think we've done a very good job there.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yep, so Ikea. But it works for me. So we meet three times a year. And, you know, we set targets together. And that's it. Now, I do work very closely with IKEA. In a different way, more in a business sense where there is a lot of opportunity for us to ensure that IKEA customers have access to TaskRabbit. And in some sense, TaskRabbit customers have access to IKEA. But IKEA has millions of people visiting their apps and their sites. And of course, they're big stores. And we want to make sure that we have access to those customers in the best way possible. So we've done some great things there. We just recently in the US, but we had done so elsewhere before, made it so that it's much more seamless for our customers or for IKEA customers to purchase, let's say, a desk at IKEA and assembly all at the same time and pay for it a checkout at IKEA versus having to go separately on a TaskRabbit app and then try to put in the very fun article name of IKEA Furniture names and then try to figure out how to get it.”
2025-06-09 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Taskrabbit CEO Ania Smith isn’t afraid of AI robots replacing human labor · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT