YouSaid · the spoken record

Ellen Shell

lines on the record: 85
first: 2019-01-28
most recent: 2019-01-28
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

“And the sanctity of the cog. You're a cog. In the book. We talk about Right A factory job and this to be. So, what is now happening? Is that going back to entrepreneurial? Because one of the things I talk about a lot is that if we don't educate people on the entrepreneurial again, we are getting nowhere with this next stage. Because if you're not entrepreneurial, you are almost unemployable. You know what I mean?”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's a priority for them. But the machine age brought with it a kind of those kinds of challenges, those kinds of new things of showing up for work every day. And it also brought this whole notion of unemployment. So that could be taken away from you. And that was devastating. And again, that's new. Before your job really couldn't be taken away from you. I mean, maybe you had a bad crops and that wasn't good. But the next year you try again. So this is handing over the power of your work life to an employer is actually a relatively new thing.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Entrepreneurial. It was more entrepreneurial. We don't think of it as entrepreneurial because now we associate entrepreneurs with Silicon Valley and folks like that. But actually there were many, many more entrepreneurs, people who work for themselves or work for their family. That was the most common form of work. So machine age brought with it this notion of a job and the sanctity of a job. You're a cog, you're a cog. You're a cog. But certainly since, you know, since we think of it in the machine age, you know, factory work, which by the way was very appealing to a lot of people because people work for different reasons. And I deal with that in several chapters in the book. Talk about that, the psychology of work. Like, why do people do different jobs? What do they seek in a job? And it's different for everyone, right? But those kinds, so people work in factories often really relish the kinship they get in a factory job and the stability that they get in a factory job.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So, this whole notion of having a job is a relatively new thing. You didn't really want to have a job because that meant you worked for someone else. That means you were like a farmhand rather than a farmer who owned his own land or who owned her own land. Or you were a craftsman who owned his or her own business, right? You didn't really want to be to have a job.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To manufacture, which is slower than people. Yeah, yeah. I mean, look, just over 100 years ago, most Americans were farmers, right? I mean, the vast majority of Americans were farmers, worked in agriculture in some way, right? Right. So here's the interesting thing. Most people didn't have jobs.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Similar but not the same. It's not the same. Some people call it the second machine age. There are all sorts of digital age. I mean, they're all different kinds of names for it. All of them are a little, you know, not quite right. But that's, you know, that's what people tend to call it. And moving from agriculture, you know, this is, again, extremely fast. Compared to the”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, right. So it did open access to all sorts of things that were available. But now that we can automate some cognition, okay, now we can't, I don't want to exaggerate what we can do, but we're certainly on that trajectory of machines that can teach themselves. That's a very exciting thing that's just happened the last few years. You know, machine learning, machine teaching itself without needing a human to teach it. It's pretty amazing stuff, right? So that changes everything because what is left for humans? And we have to think very carefully about that. And all of us have some ideas. None of the ideas are very good yet. But this is a new day and a new time, and it's time the opportunity is here to get that to a minute, but I want to...”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But mostly the physical. You brought an era. Absolutely. Of course, women have always worked. Yes, of course. No, I get that, but I mean, in terms of the”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“That's another issue. Well, they haven't, whether or not they care about it, they haven't thought a lot about it. Not one because they don't want to take responsibility for it. I understand, you know, that's not their job. So it is quite different because certainly in the manufacturing era, you know, what happens automated, right? Physical work. But the brain was still kind of a human thing, and we didn't have AI. We didn't have machine learning. We didn't have all those things that we have today. And so our intelligence, what made us human wasn't really exactly the cognitive aspect was not really under threat, right? So great.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right This is the Silicon Valley thing I hear all the time. Mark Andreessen, I had a big argument. It's like farming to manufacture. I'm like, is this? And then they don't care about the transition. That's another issue.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, right. Absolutely happened. And I think the mistake we've had is looking at history and assuming it's going to repeat itself, right? So we've looked at history and said, yeah, well, you know, nobody makes buggy whips anymore. That's the cliche.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Go okay, you're still at it, you know, when they're gonna get it absolutely, as the minimum wage gets pushed upward, those burger flippy machines are going to look more and more attractive. So this is something we have to plan for. I'm not scared of it. I think we should stop being scared of it. I argue let's face reality and deal with it and plan for it and get technology under our control.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Looking at slides of cancer cells, things like that, it's not perfected yet by machine. And radiologists have to supervise the machines, but we're getting closer and closer. To diagnostic. To diagnostics, automated diagnostics. I mean, we've all heard of Watson at IBM. There are other places working on this. So it's something that's a really, it's kind of the holy grail. Can we automate the high, the fancy jobs, okay? And actually some of the lower level jobs, say, for example, flipping burgers and McDonald's, well, guess what? There are burger flipping machines and they've been out there for quite some time. But those are such cheap labor, you know, buying the machines, it's not worth it, right? Right. We got some new ones.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“As I said, is actually not inevitable. Those particular jobs, yes, obviously those jobs have been automated and they're not going to come back. There's no real reason they should if a machine can do them better and cheaper and cheaper, especially absolutely. And machines are expensive, by the way. So no employer is going to invest a machine and then think he's also going to have the same labor costs, right? Right. So once you put out for a machine, you hope that's going to take away some of the need, certainly for the higher priced labor, right? So ironically, I think it's really kind of interesting. I've talked to a lot of computer scientists about this. It's not necessarily the low-level routine jobs that they're most excited about automating. They're actually very excited about automating more high level complex jobs because those people cost more.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, the Halloween nuts, we can think of it things like travel agents, right, was a mid skilled job. For many people, very interesting job, a desirable job, but it's become automated, largely automated. We go online, we book our own travel, and there still are travel agents, but many, many fewer of them. As we all know, we can name just dozens of job categories or scores of job categories where that has happened where automation bookkeeping, for example, many functions in accounting. All these things have been obviated by technology or almost obviated toll takers, which actually was a very well-paying job on the throughways and the highways, that's being very rapidly automated. And these are jobs no matter how we may think of them, that were actually jobs people, many people were very desirable and people really enjoyed them and made a good living at them. So that hollowing out.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I get that that's their jobs, but maybe we need to get them to do something else And the. Of this day Right. Talk about the mechan”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Even though politicians say we're going to bring back the jobs, I'm like, why would we want to? I get that that's their jobs, but maybe we need to get them to do something else. I want to talk about where jobs are going, but talk about the mechanics of the hollowing out of how that happens, because you're right, there's the low-end jobs and the sort of piecework. It's piecework of this day, and the high-end jobs.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“They're interesting, experiential, right? Exactly Talk about the mechanics of it, like what happens. So you have jobs and they shift. And later I want to get into the idea of whether, as you said, you said briefly here, maybe they just should. Coal mining. Probably robots should do that job. Probably not good for humans to do it.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because they're interesting, experiential, right? Exactly. So, you know, interestingly, independent bookstores have seen something of a revival in recent years, right? They were really in rapid decline. Now they're sort of crawling back. It's also true of a lot of boutique stores and discount stores are doing quite well. It's big discount stores and big box stores are doing quite well. What's losing ground are the department stores that your parents and my parents and I also used to go to and those mid-level stores that offered some level of quality and some level of service, maybe not the fanciest stuff, but good, durable stuff. They're the ones that are really in trouble.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“We didn't do a lot of things. We don't wash our clothes with rocks on a river, right? So it's inevitable that this is the way we're going. Now, however, you mentioned stores. Good point. Are we not going to have brick and mortar stores anymore? Well, what has happened again is that hollowing out. So we have actually more boutique stores than we have in the past. Boutiques are actually”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Change. Yeah, yeah. I think that, I mean, it's a really interesting question. And I think what you said is true. Anything that can be digitized will be if it can be done more cheaply and better than humans. So no question about it. It remains to be seen whether things like the law and medicine as a whole will be done better by digital technology. Certain parts of it, no question. You know, radiology already documents searches in the legal area have become a lot of them have been outsourced or to some degree automated. So absolutely no question that that's the direction we're going. It's probably the direction we should go. You can't really stop that. That notion that, you know, we're going to beat the machines is really kind of a lost battle.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Number of jobs, but Okay, so Skills One of the things I say, and I sometimes just say things just to cause people to start talking about them, like that will, like the other day, I was like, there will be no stores in 20 years. I was like, there just won't be stores. You won't have stores the way we look at them or you won't own a car. It'll be like owning a horse. I just try to like get the discussion going, which I think directionally is correct is mostly directionally. And one of the things I say all the time is this concept of everything that can be digitized will be digitized. And I'm talking about work. So any job that you can imagine being digitized, whether it's manufacturing or any or lawyers or radiologists or something like that, talk a little bit about the mechanics of what's happened with technology included in that, that these are jobs that will be gone or”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There are a good number of jobs, but the jobs that are most rapidly growing in number are jobs at the low end. So that middle level job, which requires skills, has really been hollowed out. And technology is doing that very, very quickly. And we actually don't know where it's going at this point. So this was a very interesting puzzle to understand. One of the things I always say,”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“The job. Sure. As I said, I had written this book called Cheap. And the corollary was, well, what is it, you know, the notion of cheap goods, meaning cheap labor, right? Right. So I got really interested in that. Now, as it turned out, it's a very complicated issue, a very interesting issue, lots of history and politics involved. But you're right about technology because technology has changed everything very, very quickly, right? So up in the 20th century up till around 2000, technology increased the need for skills. So people were all training up, you know, madly trying to keep ahead of technology, you know, all that stuff. But what was interesting is, and I don't know how many people know this, but since around 2000, a little thereafter, the demand for skills has actually declined. Human skills has actually declined”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And for workers. But that book came out in almost nine, eight, nine years ago. And at the time, I was really interested in what economists call the externalities of low price. What are the consequences of having such low prices? I know included. Well, when I concluded was a lot of low prices, come on the backs of workers. Right? I mean, how do you get prices so low? What do you sacrifice? Cutting labor costs is often the easiest and quickest way to lower prices. So I was really interested in that and wrote a book about it. And of course, that led me to, you know, my next book, which is about work per se. You know, the job is really about work in the 21st century.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Price, the so-called perfect price. Yeah, well, she was an interesting journey for me because I did learn about the history of discounting and how it all got started, you know, the white sales in the late 1800s. What originally was a really good thing. I mean, it made goods accessible to people who couldn't afford them. And it was met in, you know, to be the best of possible things. It also interestingly kept people employed. So Whitaker, who was a department store, guy, a famous one in Philadelphia at the time, would lose his employees, would have to lay people off after the Christmas rush. And he didn't like doing that because he was a really good guy. And so what he did is he invented the white sale to bring people back to stores in January to buy white goods. You know, sheets, towels, stuff like that. So he could keep his people employed year-round. So sales at the, you know, originally the so-called sale discount, were a really good thing for employees.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I had to learn. You were sort of early this idea of what happens in this era where prices become. And one of the questions I had Janet Yellen on stage at an event yesterday, and we were talking about whether the presence of algorithms and say Amazon has created a situation where prices are always the right price.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But then you moved on to cheap. So talk about that because you were very early, this idea of what discounting because you don't know this, but I wrote a lot about Herbert Haft, who did the, do you remember him? He was the one who did, he did had a discount drugstore and it was a Supreme Court decision that allowed people to discount.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And some of your genetic background does determine how much you eat in a given environment. So that was very interesting to me.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Right, right. So I did write a book. What's my first book, my second book on, it was called The Hungry Gene, and it was, I was very interested in the time, you know, that was the early 2000s. And I was really interested in the biological basis of behavior I had some questions about whether that notion that biology could direct our behavior was being exaggerated, but then looking at it carefully, I found, well, eating behavior is something that is to a certain degree biologically directed. And the hungry gene is about the discovery of the OB gene in mice and later in humans and people who lack that gene are uncontrollably. Hungry all the time. Now there are very, very few people globally like that, but there is a constellation of genes that are involved in this.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, my students are all graduate students and they have, most of them have at least an undergraduate degree in a science, and they're interested in talking to the general public about issues in science. And a big part of their job is analysis. So it's not just reporting on science. It's kind of Unpacking science and explaining, talking about its significance and its relevance A general audience”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And then moved on to longer form. And as you mentioned, I had a long affiliation with the Atlantic. Magazine in Boston. And now I'm a professor at Boston University have been for quite some time. I direct the graduate program in science journalism. And as well”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Oh, well, going way back when, as I said, I was trained in biology. Always had a great interest in public communications, also in film. I started off as a film critic. Not many people know that. Very, very long ago, Seattle, Seattle Times.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've written my background technically way, way back when is in science and biology. And I've written a lot on science, but I try to bring the kind of rigor that we bring to covering science into other areas. And at least the last decade, I've been focused on issues of economics, which I think are very, very compelling, especially now.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Hi, I'm Kara Swisher, editor at large of Recode. You may know me as the new host of the apprentice. I forgot what happened to the old guy, but in my spare time I talk tech and you're listening to Recode Decode from the Vox Media Podcast Network. Today in the red chair is Ellen Shell, a correspondent for Atlantic Monthly. Her latest book is all about one of my favorite topics, the future of work. It's called The Job, Work and Its Future in a Time of Radical Change. Welcome Tariko.”
2019-01-28 · Decoder with Nilay Patel · Recode Decode: "The Job" author Ellen Shell · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT