THANKS, COVID:

The hierarchy has a long history; the network is a more modern arrangement, he said. Forty years ago, the idea that you might rent your home to a stranger for a few days, (as with Airbnb), would have sounded nuts he added. "No one in America would have said yes to that. In a world that is comfortable with the network, comfortable with the idea of flexible, open, decentralized arrangements, it makes sense."

Which model is better? Hierarchies and networks each have strengths and weaknesses he said. "The important question is, which of these two models is winning?" Before the pandemic, both models were common, sometimes in harmony with each other and sometimes in conflict, he said. "What I think has happened with the pandemic is, the network has won. What we are going to take away from this experience is a clear preference for that way of organizing ourselves over the old one." This is happening in part because of the big lesson we've all learned about remote work and flexible work. "We had a system that had been in place for hundreds of years where employees went to a specific place at a specific time every working day to be supervised by a more experienced manager. Overnight, we took that system and we just threw it out the window."

The triumph of the network was evident in the vaccine rollout, he added. A hierarchy lover like himself would have hired a retired general to oversee the operation and given everyone a number based on their Social Security number. Everyone would have gotten an email or text telling them exactly when and where to show up for the vaccine. Instead, he said, "We did it like a network. States, cities, do whatever you want. People take charge, figure out where you can go. We'll change the eligibility rules every couple of weeks and it will be on a website which you can find." The result of doing it in that open, flexible, decentralized way? "Probably, outside of Israel, the best vaccine rollout in the world," he said. 

In other words, the network has won. "We have had proof of just how good networks are at solving modern problems. I don't think we can go back."

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