Things Have Changed

Send a text Happy Labor Day Weekend for our American listeners! We hope you have a long and restful weekend! We're revisiting some of our episode favorites - and for this week - we're doing the gaming industry! In the last decade, the gaming industry has been smashing Hollywood’s earnings out of the park! Just in 2021, the Global “Games Market” had a whopping $180BN in revenue. In fact,...

Send a text THC Turns 2  🎉🎉🎉 Hey THC listeners! Its been 2 years since we started Things Have Changed, and we just wanted to take this time to say thank you for all the love and support! We wanted y’all to be more involved with how we create our weekly show, and so, starting from today, we’re going to put out a 1-month challenge until September 15th for you to give us feedback on a couple thing...

Send a text Since the start of the pandemic, there has been one app that has taken over Social Media. Tiktok is the most downloaded app in the App store & despite being the new kid on the block, the Chinese company is breaking records that the incumbents could only dream of. From launch to a billion users, Tiktok only took half the time that Facebook did to get there. It’s insane! The company...

Send a text With a historically tight labor market, why are some tech companies laying people off? With Inflation not slowing down and the economy showing signs of a possible recession, companies are preparing for the worst. Layoffs are sweeping across American businesses, specifically in growth companies in tech in 2022. Shopify, Netflix, Peloton, Tiktok, Robinhood, and Coinbase are only some of...

Send a text Airlines globally have cancelled hundreds of flights, citing labor shortages. They blame COVID-19, uncertainty, and the tight labor market for leading causes for flight cancellations and delays. The result has been long queues at airports, lost luggage, long layovers, and loads of disappointment. It’s gotten so BAD that Heathrow airport, historically Europe’s BUSIEST airport, is now te...

Send a text Hey THC Listeners! Jed and Shikher will be taking a super short summer break to build the next pipeline of guests for Things Have Changed. Stay tuned on our coverage of the labor market on July 25th! As always here at THC, STAY CURIOUS! Support the show Things Have Changed

Send a text According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 47 million Americans quit their jobs in 2021. So.. During the Pandemic, the definition of “work” drastically changed. Millions of Americans learned how to work from home and even more were forced to risk their lives, being front-line workers. This event pushed many to re-think what they want from work… many factors impacted th...

Send a text 32 years ago, Mcdonalds opened a restaurant in Moscow. Many people interpretted it as a soft integration to the west. In 1990, 30,000 people lined up for the opening at Pushkin Square, for many, it was the first taste of western consumerism . Since then, the Russian people have fallen in love with the Big Mac and the chain has grown all over the country.  But today, the American fast-f...

Send a text As one of the worlds most televised conflict rages on in Ukraine, western countries, not directly involved, look to utilize a weapon that is forged by economists.. The sanctions imposed on Russia are some of the largest and far-reaching the world has ever seen.. with western countries and international corporations completely cutting ties with the once major emerging economy.. But is t...

Send a text The Great Deceleration in housing might just be bigger than a seasonal cooldown. The economic shock of higher mortgage rates means borrowers are getting stretched thin to a degree unseen since 2006. And home shoppers in April and May are finally backing away from record home prices. On Thursday, Freddie Mac deputy chief economist Len Kiefer tweeted about what this downward shift means:...

Send a text Nearly three-quarters of Americans say owning a home is a higher measure of achievement than having a successful career, raising a family or earning a college degree, according to a new survey. Record high housing prices and rising mortgage rates are causing the housing market to cool. For the 3rd straight month, sales have decreased at the slowest pace since the earlier months of the...

Send a text At the closer end of 2021, inflation started to scare the average person. Prices getting higher was something that not only worries the average consumer, but the Federal Reserve. The exist mainly to control this inflation - and in 2022, they realized they had to do their job. The Federal Reserve started raising interest rates at a fast pace. If you’ve been listening to THC, you know th...

Send a text As cities come back to life with the influx of people returning from their COVID getaways, the rise of rent prices are hurting us all. Some cities are even seeing 60% rent increases year-over-year. Just when we thought inflation was going to come under control with the Fed rising rates, we might have been too optimistic. Rent or housing on average is the largest expense an American has...

Send a text In our previous episode, we talked to Dr. Seth Benzell about How the Pandemic Changed Global Labor Markets and in this episode, we talk about the work he's done to find a solution to the age-old issue of rising automation.  The automation scare is not new.  Since the luddites in the 19th century, we've heard the laborers complain about automation. In fact, it is the new stand...

Send a text Automation has been a recurring theme in corporations quest to improve their bottom line and stay competitive. So what has changed post the pandemic? Today we have  Dr. Seth Benzell   returning on Things Have Changed after 2 long years, and he's here to help us understand the incredible trends shaping  the economy.  Dr Seth is a Digital Economist, an Assistant Professor at Chapman...

Send a text In the past few weeks, we’ve talked a lot about gaming, the big trends shaping this massive and growing industry, and how Metaverse fits into all of this... We’ve learned why Facebook changed their name to Meta, how Microsoft is uniquely placed to be a titan in this virtual experience through Xbox, and what the current representation of the Metaverse is. But what do we at THC love abou...

Send a text In our last episode, we spoke about how big tech was looking at gaming as a growth strategy. And the way to own the future. The metaverse future! With FB, Microsoft and Apple pouring billions into this virtual reality, what does the metaverse look like today? Are there some current gaming ecosystems that could be the foundations of the what the metaverse looks like tomorrow? One of the...

Send a text So... 6 months ago, Facebook did something that very few companies in the world of business has ever done. They changed their entire business philosophy and mission, pivoted a $700 billion dollar company into something that does not exist currently. We are talking about the metaverse and why FB rebranded themselves to META.. In 2021, Meta reportedly spent $10B on Facebook Reality Labs,...

Send a text If you’ve ever played games on a console before like the xbox, playstation, nintendo, or even the game boy, you probably remember how expensive it was to have all the games you wanted to play. I mean, each game could cost you over $50! Not to mention then console you needed to have to play it! To give you an idea, an Xbox series X costs half a GRAND today! Well, it’s never been a bette...

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Send a text In 2020, Out of 3.4 million electric cars sold in the world, only 328K was in the US... Compared to 1.39 million in Europe and 1.33M in China. Why is it that the US seems to have only a quarter of the sales than China and Europe? I think the answer lies in effective government incentives. Similar to the GPS, General Satellite technology and the internet revolut ion (Think DARPA), the g...

Send a text The growth of EV’s have gotten a lot of people excited... but has gotten environmentalists torn. Think about it... the more important materials for the batteries in your phones, laptops, and more importantly your future electric car, are typically composed of Lithium, Nickel, and even Cobalt. If you have paid attention to how these materials are extracted, it is plagued with issues lik...

Send a text As the world leans more into electrification, people learn the importance of energy storage. In our previous episode with battery people, Yen Yeh and Nicholas Yiu, we spoke about electric vehicles and the opportunities in the battery industry. In this episode, we’re gonna dive deeper into the world of batteries by taking a look into the supply chain and why it’s soo problematic. Lithiu...

Send a text A global transition to clean energy is underway.  What technologies will be essential to this zero emission future? Governments and Companies across the world, have set ambitious goals to achieve net zero emissions in Transportation, Heating and Cooling and even the Industrial sectors by the middle of the 21st century. This move to renewable energy means that the future of batteries is...

Send a text For most of your life, borrowing has been relatively easy. Think about it.. It’s been rather easy to get a credit card, get a loan for a new car, or even to get a mortgage for that house you've been eyeing. But with Inflation running high, the Fed is planning on raising rates in the next year. But how would this affect you? Well this decision is quite big for everyone in the econo...