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Nasir and Matt discuss working as a freelancer and what both employees and employers must know to make sure it is done correctly. Full Podcast Transcript NASIR: All right. Welcome to our podcast where we cover business in the news and add our legal twist for you, the listener. My name is Nasir Pasha. MATT: And I’m Matt Staub. NASIR: Welcome. Welcome to our podcast. MATT: Business in the news. Business news. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: News about businesses. NASIR: Legally Sound Smart Business. MATT: Well, you know, I know you hate… NASIR: I hate a lot of things. What do I hate? MATT: I could have stopped there and we could have filled the rest of the episode with things you hate. It’s weird. For sure a nice guy, you do hate so many things. I don’t really understand it. NASIR: Yeah, it really should just be, “I know you hate,” and that’s it, just period. MATT: Anything. We have to talk a little bit about Uber in this episode, but we’re not going to really focus on it. NASIR: I think that’s, like, six weeks in a row, but that’s fine. MATT: It’s not the focus of the episode, but it’s just the precursor to the main topic at hand. So, we saw this story this week – or I guess last week now when it comes out – about an Uber driver who makes $252,000 a year which seems pretty high for driving people around. NASIR: A little, yeah. MATT: What this guy does is he is a typical Uber driver – drives people around from Point A to Point B, gets paid for that – but he also has this side business where he sells his custom jewelry which – I don’t know if you took a look at it – some of it’s actually pretty expensive. NASIR: The question is how do I get this guy to ride with so I can take a look at his jewelry to buy? MATT: Well, he has a website. NASIR: Oh, no, no, no, I want to buy it like everyone else – get in his car and be pitched. MATT: An in-car purchase? NASIR: I guess he doesn’t pitch people though, right? MATT: Yeah. So, basically, just a little bit more on this guy, he respects the customer’s privacy if they’re on the phone or don’t want to talk, but a few times a day or however many rides he does, he will get people that are engaged to speak and then he kind of talks to them about this little side business that he has and makes them jewelry sales on the side. I have a lot of questions about this but one of them is I’m sure there are times when he just finishes a ride, has tried to close a sale, and he’s sitting there for ten minutes, hopefully the customer isn’t getting charged for that in terms of the Uber ride, but I guess he probably has the power to turn that off. NASIR: Yeah. MATT: So, the point here is this sort of freelancing or side project work. What Uber says is, “One of the greatest things about the Uber platform is that it offers economic opportunity for a variety of drivers – full-time, part-time, veterans, teachers, artists, and students. More than 260 cities around the world, supporting and fueling the local economy is important to Uber and our driver partners to help us achieve this goal.” So, my question is how much do you think they paid Forbes to produce this story to make this seem like they actually were these actual independent businesses and bypass this employee independent contractor issue? Because I think that’s the real thing. NASIR: Yeah, you’re right, I agree. I think that’s a very big point you’re making because, on one hand, we already know Uber’s techniques in marketing so I wouldn’t be surprised. To be fair, there is a disclaimer at the end, I don’t know if you read that. It said disclosure, this is the author, they thanked a couple of people for the actual article, but at the end it says, “I work for Google whose Google ventures as an investor in Uber. However, I’m not involved with Google ventures and I wrote this story completely independently.” So, okay, let’s give them that benefit of the doubt. But, of course, who pitched it to them and how did this come about?