Getting The Future Of The Gig Economy Right with Uber's Dominic Taylor – The Mentor Podcast with Mark Bouris

Uber is now a staple in the lives of the Australian population. Arguably it has become the poster child for the gig economy (also known as the platform/app/sharing economy). Dominic Taylor is the Managing Director of Uber ANZ and back in 2014 he describes how it was a fledgling 7-person strong outfit in Australia taking on the behemoth taxi industry. Fast-forward a bit over a decade and Australians have ridden a Uber more than 700m times and ordered more than 450m Uber Eats meals.

It is commonplace for legislation needing to play catch-up to innovation (think the recent Buy-Now-Pay-Later credit regulations). What has been so great about the gig economy is the flexibility it provides for all parties of the ecosystem. However, changes to regulation are required as to ensure the massive workforce behind the gig economy are well governed but equally do not become shackled with inflexible laws that would ultimately penalise the consumers. Taylor & Bouris discuss ideas around how to best position the gig economy for regulation without over regulation and cite overseas examples where it has worked both well and not so well.

Fun fact… the term ‘gig’ in ‘gig economy’ has its origins back to the jazz music industry in the 1910s. A world away from the economy of today!

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Link to Podcast

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