Apr 29, 2014, 11:12 PM ETPanel

Entrepreneurship: A Shingle for Everyone in the New Trust Economy

The global economy is shifting from a model organized around ownership to one prioritizing access to goods, services, and talent.
This transition represents a move away from "industrial revolution" military metaphors (top-down, one-to-many) toward crowd-oriented, peer-to-peer, and community-based models.
Capital efficiency has dramatically increased; a startup requiring $60 million and 325 employees in 2006 would now require only approximately 13% of that capital to launch similarly today.
Traditional metrics like "full employment" are becoming less relevant as the definition of value creation and labor shifts toward flexible, non-traditional roles.
The average lifespan of large corporations has shortened to approximately 12 years, forcing companies to reinvent themselves to avoid obsolescence.

Founded in 2007 to help co-founders pay a rent increase, the platform initially faced rejection from venture capitalists who questioned the viability of strangers renting to strangers.
Scale Metrics: The platform now operates in 192 countries with over 600,000 properties and hosts 150,000 guests per night.
Demographics: Approximately 40% of hosts are freelancers, and the average host income is below the median, using Airbnb revenue to pay mortgages and living expenses.
Economic Impact: In New York City alone, Airbnb is projected to generate $768 million in economic impact over 12 months, with two-thirds of that spending benefiting local small businesses.
Geographic Expansion: The majority of Airbnb's business volume now occurs outside the United States; France is the fastest-growing market in Europe, and South Korea is the fastest-growing globally.
Resilience Events: During Hurricane Sandy, 1,500 properties were listed for free within two days, demonstrating the platform's ability to facilitate rapid community support during crises.
Policy Challenges: Airbnb faces complex regulatory environments varying by city and neighborhood, often conflicting with 30-year-old zoning and hospitality laws.

The company functions as a platform that builds three new consumer products weekly by leveraging ideas submitted by a global community.
Incentive Structure: Quirky shares 10% of revenue with the community based on individual contribution; successful products are influenced by approximately 2,000 community members.
GE Partnership: GE contributed approximately 30,000 patents for non-competitive use, enabling community inventors to commercialize technology (e.g., the "Aeros" smart air conditioner) without legal barriers.
User Profile: Inventors are often older (e.g., a 68-year-old inventor from D.C.) rather than exclusively millennials, driven by the opportunity to have ideas commercialized without corporate gatekeeping.
Commercialization Support: Quirky assumes responsibility for regulatory hurdles, testing, and compliance, such as negotiating new safety standards for a pivoting power strip with UL and ETL labs.

The company is transitioning from a product-based model to a platform model, serving three main sectors: physical infrastructure, manufacturing, and media/entertainment.
User Base Growth: While professional software sold roughly 15 million licenses over 30 years, the consumer/Do-It-Yourer market has reached 175 million users in a short timeframe.
Future Technology: Autodesk is investing in "hardware of the future," including 3D printed tissue, nanoscale robots for drug delivery, and synthetic biology where biological systems self-assemble.
Innovation Speed: The company advocates for agility, noting that traditional product development cycles (3–5 years for automobiles) are incompatible with the 12-year corporate lifespan average.
Global Reach: The "Instructables" platform within Autodesk has 25 million participants globally, fostering a community of makers and engineers across diverse locations.

Regulatory Friction: Existing laws in banking, insurance, and intellectual property are often tied to ownership models, creating significant friction for sharing economy platforms.
Innovation vs. Safety: Regulators (e.g., FDA) often face incentives to err on the side of safety, potentially stifling innovation; the current system is criticized for protecting incumbents rather than fostering new market entry.
Trust Mechanisms: Platforms rely on two-sided reputation systems (guest/host reviews) where negative reputations can lead to removal, serving as the primary enforcement of trust in the absence of traditional guarantees.
Cross-Sector Learning: Lessons in trust and reputation are being applied across industries, including the potential for "Yelp for doctors" to increase transparency in healthcare.
City Adaptation: Cities like Seoul, Amsterdam, and Tel Aviv are increasingly engaging in constructive dialogue with sharing platforms to address capacity constraints (e.g., Tel Aviv lacks the physical space for enough hotels to meet tourism demand).

Vertical Integration Decline: The era of vertically integrated companies (producing everything from raw materials to finished goods) is ending; future resilience will come from agile, platform-based networks.
Product-to-Platform Evolution: Major companies, including the auto industry and hotel chains (e.g., Ritz-Carlton), are expected to evolve into service providers and potentially integrate private home collections.
Global Capacity Utilization: The primary growth driver is the conversion of "waste" or "unused capacity" (e.g., cars sitting 92% of the time, idle intellectual property, vacant rooms) into economic value.
Democratization of Manufacturing: The cost of creating physical goods is dropping, allowing individuals globally to design, prototype, and manufacture products without traditional capital requirements.
Resilience as a Feature: Sharing platforms are proving more resilient to demand surges and disasters than rigid traditional industries, offering scalable solutions for tourism peaks and emergency shelter.