“Future of work” discussions tend toward two extremes: breathless excitement at the brave new world that provides greater flexibility, mobility and entrepreneurial energy, or dire accounts of its immiserating impacts on the workers who labor beneath the gig economy's yoke. As an academic who has studied workplace laws for decades and ran the federal agency that enforces workplace protections during the Obama administration, I know the way we define, measure and treat gig workers under the law has significant consequences for workers. While there are benefits for workers for this emerging model of employment, there are pitfalls as well.