Drinking problems (and some solutions)

Image by Samir Weres. Some rights reserved.

“It’s unpleasantly like being drunk.”
“What’s so unpleasant about being drunk?”
“You ask a glass of water.”

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy

I’ve been thinking a lot about our relationship with alcohol recently. This article in the Economist about alcohol misuse in America particularly peaked my interest.

Between 2006 and 2010, an average of 106,765 Americans died each year from alcohol-related causes such as liver disease, alcohol poisoning and drunk driving — more than twice the number of overdoses from all drugs and more than triple the number of opioid overdoses in 2015.

The trend, particularly among women, minorities and the elderly in America is getting worse.

That’s not good because the health implications of alcohol are, as the article implies, very bad. David Nutt is one of the most interesting scientists in the field and in this programme for the BBC he talks about how alcohol would fare in the current testing regime for drugs were it to be tested for the first time today. His conclusion is that by current standards we would recommend something like one glass of wine a year.

The social implications of alcohol are no less problematic. The total tax take from alcohol is about £11 billion but the costs of policing Friday and Saturday night drinking hotspots is billions alone, not counting the impact of crime on citizens.

At the moment Brits drink more than Americans, but the trend on this side of the Atlantic is in the opposite direction. Each year we’re drinking less.

BGV portfolio company Club Soda’s Mindful Drinking Festivals and have tapped into this brilliantly. There are a whole host of new drinks companies springing up and the established brands are also creating new product lines that cater to people who would rather remember their evenings. It’s interesting to watch the large drinks companies realise they have a problem.

I do drink but I’m also acutely aware that alcohol is a habit and the amount I drink is socially influenced, particularly when it comes to work events. I totted it up and I go to nearly a hundred work-related evening events a year and alcohol is the norm. Although it was a bit awkward for us (as Nesta is one of our investors), I did like Laura from Club Soda’s public return of their New Radical Award. Nesta aren’t the only culprits of this but she’s absolutely right.

While we always make sure there are non-alcoholic alternatives at BGV evening events, we do still assume that some people will want alcohol. Perhaps we shouldn’t. This piece by Bethany Crystal at USV got me thinking — it sounds like a worthwhile challenge to create clear-headed evening events.

Labor in the twenty-first century

I’m in America so in honour of my hosts I’ll skip the ‘u’ in labour for this post. Yesterday was Labor Day here which — because I had the day off — got me thinking about what work and labor mean today.

The nature of work and the way it’s organised are two of the biggest issues we face in the twenty-first century. Both are hugely intertwined with technology because very few jobs have been untouched by the information age and we’re now really starting to see changes in the way that work is organised, particularly because of the ubiquity of mobile phones.

This throws up some big questions about the negative impacts we’re seeing like conditions for workers in the gig economy, the debate about automation and the inequality created by tech companies themselves.

The gig economy companies know that they’re in the front line of the upcoming wave of regulation of tech companies that will almost certainly come. If that’s done well (big ‘if’ there) and we avoid monopolistic behaviour amongst the platforms I think things could improve.

Gavin Kelly has done a great corrective job on media hyperbole on how many jobs will disappear because of automation. It’s a risk of course but I agree with Gavin that it won’t happen as dramatically as some reports have said. There’s a big opportunity for automation to create better jobs if it’s done well.

Inequality is a much more difficult issue with no simple answer. I was struck by this graph which is an example of correlation rather than causation but striking nonetheless.

Fred Wilson has written about Union 2.0 and that’s an area I’m really interested in. At the moment though I’m not convinced that existing large unions are where the change is going to come from. They seem to feel they have a lot to lose and are unwilling to take big risks with new services. Ideally new unions should provide services for workers that have network effects.

I’m still to be convinced that UBI is an answer to rising inequality. I get the appeal of it but, as soon as you get into the detail, unintended consequences abound. I think the experiments in Oakland, Finland and Canada are great but I’m not sure they’ll give answers that are particularly transferrable.

At BGV we’ve been searching for and funding startups in ‘workertech’ for almost a year now and have found all kinds of interesting ideas. It’s been really great working with the Resolution Trust who care so much about the issue and have access to amazing data, particularly on the economics of modern work. It’s made me an optimist that things will change for the better as I’ve met so many people who want to make a difference in this arena but there’s still so much more to be done.