Market design & Agentic commerce : Part 1 | Scott Kominers

Описание: With Episode 6 of The Coordinate, we are taking the podcast to a whole new level by kicking off a series on post-AGI economics.

Recently, there has been a sharp rise in discussions around agents engaging in commercial activity, with some even projecting that agentic commerce could eventually eclipse the human-based commerce we know today.

But many of these conversations stop short of exploring the deeper question: how do markets need to be designed or redesigned to accommodate our silicon-based counterparts?

To unpack the nuances of agentic commerce and the market design it will require, Sreeram Kannan and Soubhik Deb had the wonderful opportunity to sit down with the one and only Scott Kominers, Professor at Harvard HBS and Research Partner at a16z.

What began as a planned 90-minute recording session turned into a 3 hour conversation in aggregate, so we decided to split the episode into two parts. Today, we’re releasing Part 1.

In part 1, we cover:
• What market design is in plain English
• Why prices alone are often not enough
• How Uber, Airbnb, food delivery, and auctions reveal deeper market structure
• Stable matching and the medical residency match
• Privacy, transparency, and information in markets
• Why crypto and AI could transform agentic commerce

If you’re curious about market design and the future of agentic commerce, this episode is for you.

This is Part 1 of Episode 6 of TheCoordinate. Hope you enjoy it!

0:00 Introduction
0:22 Why this episode matters: economics, market design, and software agents
1:52 What market design is in plain English
5:13 Why prices alone are not enough
8:33 Uber as a market design case study
16:16 Information, pricing, and why markets need infrastructure
22:06 Opting in and out of markets: Airbnb and One Fine Stay
27:25 What are the goals of market design? Sustainability, fairness, and social value
33:26 Stable matching and the medical residency match
41:48 Privacy, transparency, and information revelation in markets
51:54 Crypto, AI agents, and the future of agentic commerce