A version of this article appeared in the Spring 2022 issue of strategy+business.
Christopher Mims, a technology columnist at the Wall Street Journal, is one of the leading chroniclers of the increasingly intense and complex tango between humans and the software and hardware that governs their lives as professionals and consumers. In his recent book, Arriving Today: From Factory to Front Door—Why Everything Has Changed About How and What We Buy, he delves deeply into the constellation of issues raised by our long supply chains and continually optimizing logistics functions. These challenges have been thrown into sharp relief not just by the pandemic, but also by a wider understanding of the human costs of the systems that deliver efficiency and delight to consumers. In a conversation with strategy+business, Mims describes how his efforts to trace the path of an object from a factory in Asia to households in the United States raised important questions about the trading systems, managers, employees, and technology that make supply chains work, for better and for worse.