A striking example comes from Uber. After a lengthy investigation, the New York Times journalist Noam Scheiber discovered that the company was using insights from behavioral economics to get its drivers to work longer hours.25 One trick capitalized on the human preoccupation with goals. Drivers would be prompted with messages such as “You’re $10 away from making $330 in net earnings. Are you sure you want to go offline?” The number was arbitrary, and the goal essentially meaningless. But for the goal to work, it didn’t have to mean anything. It just had to be slightly out of reach—much like
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