His main thing is starting weird, little, niche businesses. He's not a wiener dog enthusiast or anything. But we should say right off the bat here, Ramon's main thing is not wiener dogs. MALONE: The guy who sells ramps for wiener dogs is named Ramon Van Meer. Today on the show, how a guy selling ramps that let, like, little wiener dogs get up and down the couch with their little wiener dog legs - how that explains a surprisingly large amount about this 21st century economy. The way Jacob sold it to us - wiener dogs. MALONE: And sure, that is one way to sell this episode.
And recently for this show, for "What's Your Problem?" I interviewed a guy who really did help me understand this idea we're talking about, Kenny, this idea that, you know, the giant tech companies both enable and also sometimes really mess up new, little companies. The show is called "What's Your Problem?" And on the show, I talk to entrepreneurs and engineers about the problems they're working on right now. GOLDSTEIN: And I'm Jacob Goldstein, used to host PLANET MONEY. MALONE: Hello, and welcome to PLANET MONEY. (SOUNDBITE OF JUSTIN DOUGLAS PERROW'S "COULD BE") MALONE: However, if you are one of those small companies building on the backs of giant companies, like a tiny feeder fish swimming next to sharks, once in a while, one of those sharks might just flip its shark-y fin and totally destroy your company. GOLDSTEIN: And a lot of that 90%, a lot of that reason that it's so easy to start a small company today is because of a few giant companies - giant companies that have made it very easy to do a lot of the core things you have to do to start a company - you know, things like finding customers and getting paid. But today, if you want to start a company, you got a laptop, you got an internet connection, you're like 90% of the way there. You sometimes needed millions of dollars. It used to be that to start a business you needed connections, capital, like, brick-and-mortar space.
One of those - the third industrial revolution has made it easier than ever to start a business. But there are aspects of this third industrial revolution that we don't talk about that much and that are really interesting and important and big. In fact, we think about it, talk about it all the time - iPhones, Facebook, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. 3 - the one we are living through this very moment - computers and the internet. We are in the middle of an industrial revolution - the third industrial revolution.
SYLVIE DOUGLIS, BYLINE: This is PLANET MONEY from NPR.
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