The model of the company is innovative. It takes advantage of a number of multi-lingual speakers. It can access a resource pool of 3.6 billion people. So, for example, if a medical translation needs to be done, a doctor can write it during a break.
The model is similar to the one of Uber. People use a mobile app, describe what they need and agree upon a price. The translation is then provided in real-time, as described by an article on the management-issues.com website.
Future of work
By aggregating the multi-lingual persons, Stepes magnifies economic value creation. It accelerates the expansion of an existing market. Similar expansion came with Wikipedia, which enabled instant access to the largest encyclopedia. However, Stepes pays the people who do the work.
In the future, top-down bureaucratic structures will disappear when networks have achieved critical mass.
Corporations of the future will look very different from those of today. They will be peer-to-peer networks, able to access any talent anywhere in the world. Future work will be performed by collaboration of independent agents.
-jk-