Shortlisted for the 2021 Porchlight Business Book Awards, Current
Events & Public Affairs
The Wall Street Journal technology columnist reveals the fascinating
story behind the misleadingly simple phrase shoppers take for
granted--"Arriving Today"--in this eye-opening investigation into the
new rules of online commerce, transportation, and supply chain
management.
We are at a tipping point in retail history. While consumers are
profiting from the convenience of instant gratification, rapidly
advancing technologies are transforming the way goods are transported
and displacing workers in ways never before seen.
In Arriving Today, Christopher Mims goes deep, far, and wide to
uncover how a single product, from creation to delivery, weaves its way
from a factory on the other side of the world to our doorstep. He
analyzes the evolving technologies and management strategies necessary
to keep the product moving to fulfill consumers' demand for "arriving
today" gratification. Mims reveals a world where the only thing moving
faster than goods in an Amazon warehouse is the rate at which an entire
industry is being gutted and rebuilt by innovation and mass shifts in
human labor practices. He goes behind the scenes to uncover the
paradoxes in this shift--into the world's busiest port, the cabin of an
18-wheeler, and Amazon's automated warehouses--to explore how the
promise of "arriving today" is fulfilled through a balletic dance
between humans and machines.
The scope of such large-scale innovation and expended energy is equal
parts inspiring, enlightening, and horrifying. As he offers a glimpse of
our future, Mims asks us to consider the system's vulnerability and its
resilience, and who shoulders the burden, as we hurtle toward a fully
automated system--and what it will mean when we are there.
