Fortune - 04.2020

(Wang) #1
32 FORTUNE APRIL 2020

BEFORE THERE were influ­
encers and algorithms, there
was just a baker’s dozen
of employees huddled in a
small office space outfitted
with Ikea furniture in San
Francisco determining what
was “Instagrammable.” In
No Filter (Simon & Schus­
ter), Bloomberg reporter
Sarah Frier chronicles the
rise of the photo­sharing
social network from scrappy
startup through its $715 mil­
lion acquisition by Facebook
(cobbled together over a
weekend barbecue at Mark
Zuckerberg’s house) to the
ad­driven juggernaut it is
today. Interviews with key
executives, venture capital­
ists, and most­followed
celebrities get to the heart of
what has made Instagram a
cultural phenomenon, as well
as the tensions between its
founders and corporate own­
ers. No Filter might be the
most engrossing book about
Silicon Valley drama since
Nick Bilton’s Hatching Twit-
ter. But instead of cofounder
infighting, the focus here is
on the battle for Instagram’s
soul, which has far­reaching
consequences for society
and its relationship with
technology.

REVIEW

PICTURE NOT
SO PERFECT
BY RACHEL KING

A CAPITALIST SOCIETY measures value by what
it’s prepared to pay for people’s time. So, what
to make of the fact that when it comes to the hard
work of care, Americans pay the most—$14.80 an
hour—to the people who walk their dogs? Those
who tend to children and the elderly make consid-
erably less, according to PayScale, a compensation
data and software company.
But don’t blame free-market forces, says Sudar-
shan Sampath, PayScale’s director of research. Dog
walking is a competitive business, while roughly
70% of home health workers are paid by Medicare
and Medicaid. The government caps reimburse-
ment for the service at a rate that—given operating
costs and margins—makes for paltry wages, says
Jeounghee Kim, an associate professor at Rutgers
who studies the care economy. Parents, meanwhile,
tend to pay for childcare and often rely on family
members or unlicensed providers; for regulated
services to compete, they have to keep wages low.
With a senior population that is expected to
double in the coming decades—not to mention
a shortage of professional caregivers already—
Sampath sees the artificially low wages as a real
issue: “The economic case doesn’t make sense
anymore.” Kim calls it a crisis that has so far proved
“too expensive to fix.”

SERVICES

Are We

Caring for

Carers?
Thanks to caps on
reimbursement for
senior care, dog
walkers are leading
the home-care
pack. BY ERIKA FRY

THE BRIEF

Pounding the pavement
with pooches could
prove a better career
than senior care.

MEDIAN
ANNUAL PAY

Dog walker
$31,300

Senior caregiver
$26,200

Childcare provider
$23,300

HOW THEY
COMPARE

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CRE.W.0420.XMIT.indd 32 FINAL 3/9/2020 11:51:57 AM

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