Automation happens and it's frequently disruptive. Look at these pictures carefully. That’s Fifth Avenue in New York City Easter morning in 1900 (top) and again in 1913 (bottom). For centuries, man had gotten around on horseback or in carriages pulled by horses. Then in 1885, Karl Benz introduced the world to a small engine-driven means of transportation. However, road networks were built for horses and carriages and certainly not for anything like Benz’s invention. 

Fifteen years later, not much had changed but change was on the horizon. For evidence, look at the photo from 1900 and the lone auto among a sea of horses. Enter Henry Ford and the Model T in October of 1908 and a mere five years later, New York was awash in automobiles and largely void of horses. You can see that in the photo from 1913 – same street, same day (Easter).  

This was highly disruptive to farmers who had sold hay and grains for feed. Blacksmiths would no longer have as many customers needing horseshoes, and farriers who trimmed horse hooves would have witnessed a rapid decline in business too. However, what grew out of this disruption were auto repair shops, spare parts and fueling stations, road engineers and road workers, and so on. A couple of hundred years ago we called this “Yankee ingenuity.” We found plenty of opportunities for everyone out of this incredible change. The cycles of disruption are now more frequent and dramatic. Rather than trying to tell the ocean to stop rolling in at high tide, we need to embrace what’s in store for us and prepare people for new employment opportunities.

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