It’s coming. When it comes, Uber will win. The taxi companies will lose. The cities that charge a million dollars per cab will lose. No more medallions!
By Friday, the Financial Times reported Apple had started hiring employees from the automotive industry for a secretive new research lab.
One of those hires includes Johann Jungwirth, formerly the president and CEO of Mercedes-Benz Research & Development. This was further bolstered by a report on Friday from The Wall Street Journal, claiming that Apple has “several hundred employees working secretly toward creating an Apple-branded electric vehicle.”
According to the Journal, the Apple car project was approved nearly a year ago by CEO Tim Cook. Steve Zadesky, a longtime Apple veteran and former Ford engineer, is reportedly leading.
Then on Saturday, Reuters jumped into the fray to say that “Apple is learning how to make a self-driving electric car and is talking to experts at carmakers and automotive suppliers.”
These stories are all speculative, are all unconfirmed and could all ultimately lead to nothing. Still, as with past rumors about Apple’s entry into tablet and wearables, there is simply too much reporting — and from sources with too strong of a track-record — to dismiss the idea of an Apple car out of hand.
Step by step, Moore’s law is making itself felt in the job markets. Computer chip density doubles every year. That’s 1,000 times in a decade, a million in two decades.
This is being done on a decentralized basis, all over the world. No government agency can regulate this.
Information is moving away from the center. A smart phone keeps getting cheaper . . . and smarter. Government regulators cannot keep up. The illusion of government control will weaken. The Internal Revenue Service still uses legacy code that goes back the the Kennedy era.
