Скачать или смотреть Why Do Companies Even Exist? (And Why AI Might Make Them Obsolete)

Ever wonder why we organize work into companies instead of just hiring freelancers for everything? The answer reveals something profound about how economies function—and how AI is about to flip that logic on its head.

In 1937, Nobel laureate Ronald Coase solved a puzzle that had stumped economists: if markets are so efficient, why do firms exist at all? His answer: transaction costs. Finding the right person, negotiating terms, writing contracts—it's often cheaper to just hire someone and tell them what to do.

But here's where it gets wild: AI agents are demolishing those transaction costs. Autonomous systems can now search, negotiate, and transact at near-zero cost, performing in nanoseconds what used to take humans days or weeks.

We're heading toward what some call the "Coasean Singularity"—a tipping point where markets become so frictionless that the traditional corporation starts to crumble. Instead of companies with rigid hierarchies, imagine fluid networks of AI agents coordinating production across the economy.

This shift creates bizarre new problems: Who owns your AI agent—you or the platform? How do we prevent millions of bots from flooding job markets with applications? And in a world full of autonomous agents, how do we even prove you're human?

The 20th-century corporation is dying. What comes next might look nothing like the organizations we know today.

Topics covered: Transaction costs, Coase's theory of the firm, team production, AI agents, the future of work, economic coordination