The success of pro sports unions is a poor model for the general workforce. Teams negotiate with unions because they need access to superstar "rainmakers" (like LeBron James) who generate immense profits. This leverage doesn't exist for the average worker, who is more easily replaceable and cannot demonstrate 10x value.

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The Miami Heat's superstar trio only won championships after adding Shane Battier, a 'no stats all-star.' His value came from making others better—setting screens and ensuring team cohesion. This highlights the critical role of 'glue players' who enable superstars to shine, a contribution often missed by traditional metrics.

While ERGs provide community, they are structurally incapable of ensuring worker safety or advocating for material changes. As company-sponsored entities, they cannot collectively bargain or challenge employment conditions, making them projects of representation rather than instruments of worker power.

The Writers' Guild of America strike offers a sophisticated model for labor unions navigating AI. Instead of an outright ban, they negotiated a dual approach: winning protections against AI-driven displacement while also securing guarantees for their members to use AI as an assistive tool for their own benefit.

In a group of 100 experts training an AI, the top 10% will often drive the majority of the model's improvement. This creates a power law dynamic where the ability to source and identify this elite talent becomes a key competitive moat for AI labs and data providers.

A study found that CEOs trained to prioritize shareholder value deliver short-term returns by suppressing employee pay. This practice drives away high-skilled workers and cripples the company's long-term outlook, all without evidence of actually increasing sales, productivity, or investment.

With Wall Street private equity firms now buying stakes in athletic departments and players earning millions, major college sports are functionally pro sports. The only remaining distinction is the university's non-profit, educational mission statement, which may soon clash with investor demands for profit.

The acquisition isn't a traditional consumer monopoly but a monopsony, concentrating buying power. This gives a combined 'Super Netflix' leverage to dictate terms and potentially lower wages for actors, writers, and directors, shifting power from talent to the studio.

At a small company, one or two big deals can significantly inflate the average productivity per rep. This hides the fact that the majority of the team may be underperforming. As the team grows and these outliers have less impact, the true, often flatlining, productivity of the sales force is exposed.

Biologist William Muir's 'super chicken' experiment revealed that groups of top individual performers can end up sabotaging one another, leading to worse outcomes than more cooperative, average teams. In business, this 'too much talent problem' manifests as ego clashes and a breakdown in collaboration, undermining collective success.

An unexpected side effect of replacing human managers with "faceless AI systems" is the rise of collective action. When gig workers and others are managed by impersonal algorithms, it fosters solidarity against a common, non-human adversary, leading them to form unions and activist groups to reclaim human agency.

Unions Work for Pro Athletes Because They Represent Irreplaceable 'Rainmakers,' Not Average Workers | RiffOn