Year 2025

Year 2035

The following is a speculative business fiction. I imagine something that would have appeared as a profile article in Wired magazine.

It's coming up to 2036 in a few months, robots are everywhere now. The startup GearsUp is now a big player, projected to corner the market on robotics in another ten years.

GearsUp was founded in 2026. They do not make robots themselves. Hundreds of robot manufacturers worldwide make robots that run on GearsUp's platform.

Why do they do that? The reason is what business gurus call continuity. Consumers like you and I like GearsUp because they keep our robots alive forever.

You see, robots are same like all hardware, they go through wear and tear. When a robot breaks down eventually, a new replacement could resume having the same skills and past memories. So long as they run GearsUp.

Let's recap how society has changed. The import of foreign human labors has dropped 95% in ten years. Market for robots are multiple times the total addressable market of foreign human labor.

GearsUp effectively turned human-resource (HR) has turned into robot-resource (RR).

Robots have gotten cheap enough for businesses to acquire. One reason for that is financiers have caught up. Loans-for-robots have become new source of revenue for banks. On top of that, GearsUp offers rental/subscription payment model. As long as the cost matches the use of foreign labor, cost is not a concern to B2B customers.

At home, the stories are similar. Financing makes it feasible to own domestic robots. After all, people are buying less cars after they became self-driving. Banks need new source of revenue and are happy to lend.

But trends are suggesting these robots are not staying domestic for long. Many kids grow up having a robot companion at home. Some are bringing these robots to schools and everywhere they go. Parents demand it in the name of keeping their children safe. In truth, it's mostly because children are attached to these mechanical nannies.

Gartner estimated that by 2045, every person will have a personal robot by their side, in addition to smartphones.

The robot ecosystem have created cottage industries around it. All robots come with insurance coverage because the banks demand it. Security services exists to protect robot against hacks and physical harm. There's a growing amount of accessory makers because humans feel the need to dress up their robots in order elevate their status.

GearsUp was founded with the core thesis that owning the robots is the way to capture long term value. Owning the hardware side of robots isn't enough, it's the software that matter.

In a way, it's the story of PC and smartphones all over again. Robots are the new platform where new values are created.

GearsUp started with the simple approach: distribution. In the early years they were in the business of selling every brand of robots available (they were not too many) straight to industries and consumers.

They created an ecosystem of service and maintenance providers. These are the places where the smartest humans control robots that repair other robots.

But this is not GearsUp's objective. During this time, GearsUp created a new layer of technology aiming to run on all robots. What Java did to servers, GearsUp do to robots.

People started to associate GearsUp with robots. Having gained market access, GearsUp had the muscle to pressure robot makers to run their software.

Now that all robots run GearsUp software, software developers build new "applications" on top of GearsUp.

You see, it's impossible for any robot-maker to incorporate all imaginable skills into their robots, just like why Apple could not create every applications for iPhone. So when a human needs a specific skill from his robot (say, to climb roofs and replace tiles), he can buy an ability and have it installed.

GearsUp owns the store that sells hundreds of thousands of such abilities. What Steam is to games, GearsUp is to robots.

The early years of GearsUp was spent establishing customer relationships through service and maintenance, such that customers identified with GearsUp more so than robot manufacturers.

Owning the customers acquired them the leverage to move down the value chain, establishing technical standards, dictating how robot makers build their products. Owning a standard became a valuable asset to GearsUp.

From there, GearsUp came up with cloud services that allow robots to maintain continuity even when hardware breaks down.

Without this platform, it's safe to say the entire profession of robot-trainers wouldn't have existed for humans.

Similarly to how smartphones created unique, unforeseen social problems in the past, the ubiquity of robots makes people question their self-worth. The one thing humans can't shake is their dependence on them.

What's eternal is this: where there are problems, there will be opportunities.