30 years ago, if you were growing up in Roundup Montana, you probably worked in a coal mine.

And if you were working in a coal mine, you knew exactly what your job was to dig coal out of the ground,

bring it up to the surface so that the boss could sell it to someone.

Hey, this is Emily in the Bronx, and you're listening to a special archived episode of Akimbo.

Today, if you work in Roundup, Montana, you are almost certainly not mining coal.

What you might very well be doing is buying huge cases, wholesale lots of odds and ends from Target and other big box retailers.

And then taking those boxes apart, putting them into smaller boxes,

and waiting for a UPS truck to come pick them up because they were sold on Amazon.

The business model has changed.

And understanding where you fit in the system and what model you are working under is essential

if you're going to figure out if you're doing a good job. It's important to understand

before you enter the industry. It's a really good way to figure out if you want to be a customer

or an investor. Business models and how they

fit into the systems of our lives determine what's going to get done and why. The original business

models were super simple. Either you made a thing and sold it, or you bought a thing and sold it, or maybe you

traded something. Every once in a while, there might be a business model like, I run the marketplace

so that lots of vendors can come together. So if that's the business model, if you're running

Smorgasburg, which is a giant

food fair in Brooklyn, New York, you know how to do a better job. Do a better job by getting

better vendors. Better vendors will get you more customers. More customers will help the vendors

justify paying more to be at your food fair. You understand the business

model. You can do the business model better. But business models are getting more complicated,

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