Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley • Hacker News Board

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#51

Post by rchaud » Sat, Mar 26, 2016, 6:45 PM UTC

Negative1 wrote: post #43

Truly an inspiring man. Jobs for the uneducated are disappearing and saying "well lets just educate everyone" is not enough. I'm racking my brain trying to come up with ways that tech can solve that problem but it seems like an upward battle (e.g. Uber makes anyone a cab driver, but in a few years, will fire all those people when automated cabs hit the road).

In my mind, this isn't a problem requiring a complicated tech-based solution, but one that requires a mindset change. Community colleges have long offered the sort of "job-ready" technical skills related to using machine tools, auto and home repair, electric, HVAC, aka the types of services that cannot be offshored.

But at least in America, public consciousness is still fixated around this Cold War illusion of the American Dream that necessitates a 4-year college education. America seems to prize entrepreneurialism, only when it's the white-collar, Mark Zuckerberg variety because of the promise of fantastic wealth; people running their own businesses in plumbing, home repairs etc. don't get anywhere close to that level of respect.

To some extent, technology-based solutions are already in play, with hundreds of thousands of people using online resources to learn web development and other skills. The vast majority however are learning these skills to simply keep up with the needs of their job or the job market, as with shorter average job stints these days, employers won't find it worth their while to provide or pay for that type of training.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#52

Post by forgetsusername » Sat, Mar 26, 2016, 6:46 PM UTC

jordanb wrote: post #30

twoodfin wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prosperity for whom? Certainly not Western Europe. And yeah, when you're the only major industrialized power not to be horrifically bombed, you may enjoy "unprecedented" economic activity in the following decades.

> Certainly not Western Europe Certainly not? These years were known as the "Trente Glorieuses" (glorious thirty) in France. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trente_Glorieuses

Yeah, it was great for the survivors. Not so much for the 10's of millions of dead.

In retrospect, WW2 had positive economic consequences. But let's not pretend it was a "good" thing.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#53

Post by rorykoehler » Sat, Mar 26, 2016, 6:46 PM UTC

Negative1 wrote: post #43

Truly an inspiring man. Jobs for the uneducated are disappearing and saying "well lets just educate everyone" is not enough. I'm racking my brain trying to come up with ways that tech can solve that problem but it seems like an upward battle (e.g. Uber makes anyone a cab driver, but in a few years, will fire all those people when automated cabs hit the road).

It's not a tech problem, it's a social and political one. The first issue to deal with is to ask; what is the purpose of the job? If the purpose of the job is to provide a stable society then we can look at other solutions to providing a stable society too. The job does not necessarily have anything to do with the problem. It is only lifelong conditioning that would lead anyone to start from the premise that we must have jobs in order to solve the problem of maintaining social stability.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#54

Post by roymurdock » Sat, Mar 26, 2016, 6:52 PM UTC

luso_brazilian wrote: post #9

> "There was room for improvement, he argued, for what he called “job-centric” economics and politics. In a job-centric system, job creation would be the nation’s No. 1 objective, with the government setting priorities and arraying the forces necessary to achieve the goal, and with businesses operating not only in their immediate profit interest but also in the interests of “employees, and employees yet to be hired.”…

You are invoking the famous, often-misunderstood fiscal policy outlined by Keynes. Here is the often-paraphrased text from The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money Book 3 Ch.10 Section VI [1]:

"Pyramid-building, earthquakes, even wars may serve to increase wealth, if the education of our statesmen on the principles of the classical economics stands in the way of anything better...If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coalmines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course, by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and, with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is. It would, indeed, be more sensible to build houses and the like; but if there are political and practical difficulties in the way of this, the above would be better than nothing."

Keynes was specifically referring to a community in which the aggregate propensity to consume (spend) is much closer to 1 (spend 100% of wages) than 0 (save 100% of wages):

In actual fact the marginal propensity to consume seems to lie somewhere between these two extremes, though much nearer to unity than to zero; with the result that we have, in a sense, the worst of both worlds, fluctuations in employment being considerable and, at the same time, the increment in investment required to produce full employment being too great to be easily handled.

If Keynes were observing the situation today in the US, he would probably posit that the marginal propensity to consume is closer to 0 for the US as a whole, as "the increase of employment will tend, owing to the effect of diminishing-returns in the short period, to increase the proportion of aggregate income which accrues to the entrepreneurs, whose individual marginal propensity to consume is probably less than the average for the community as a whole." I.e. the rich have a much lower marginal propensity to consume than the poor, so when wealth accretes at the top, the velocity of money slows, and the economy slows.

He would also argue that because we are at the "natural rate of unemployment" of 5%, that government public works "may become a more doubtful proposition as a state of full employment is approached. Furthermore, if our assumption is correct that the marginal propensity to consume falls off steadily as we approach full employment, it follows that it will become more and more troublesome to secure a further given increase of employment by further increasing investment."

The point? We shouldn't be afraid to take a "job creation" stance when necessary - in times of widespread unemployment, when wealth is distributed more equally and the average propensity to consume is closer to parity. But it should be viewed as a tool that needs to be properly used WRT fluctuating economic and political circumstances.

[1] https://www.marxists.org/reference/subject/economics/keynes/...

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#55

Post by rgbrenner » Sat, Mar 26, 2016, 6:56 PM UTC

ArkyBeagle wrote: post #32

afarrell wrote: post #25

There is a conflict of values to consider here: Do we we place a higher value on preventing relative poverty in the United States or extreme poverty around the world? """Poverty rates started to collapse towards the end of the 20th century largely because developing-country growth accelerated, from an average annual rate of 4.3% in 1960-2000 to 6% in 2000-10... China is responsible for three-quarters of the achieveme…

I think that Americans place a higher value on preventing extreme poverty around the world. When faced with picky eaters, before around 1970, parents all over the USA would use the cliche that "children are starving in China."

"before around 1970"

You know what happened shortly before 1970? The Great Chinese Famine--where up to 45 million people starved in the span of 3 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine

I'm not sure how saying facts out loud indicates a value preference.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#56

Post by ThomPete » Sat, Mar 26, 2016, 6:58 PM UTC

luso_brazilian wrote: post #9

> "There was room for improvement, he argued, for what he called “job-centric” economics and politics. In a job-centric system, job creation would be the nation’s No. 1 objective, with the government setting priorities and arraying the forces necessary to achieve the goal, and with businesses operating not only in their immediate profit interest but also in the interests of “employees, and employees yet to be hired.”…

The problem with a job-centric economy is that it's based on the need of humans rather than the needs of the economy.

In reality technology makes it possible for less and less people to increase their output and span of what they can control via technology.

Some day a few people will be running large systems that requires only drones, AI's and access to resources to create what today takes millions.

By insisting on keeping humans where technology is much better suited for the job we are damaging our own economy because we are creating an artificial reliance on human capital where it's not needed and thus increasing the price for everyone.

This is obviously a huge problem as more and more people will be making less and less income. The only way to mitigate this is by products being increasingly cheaper something that a job-centric economy is hindering.

We should be honest and admit that the Uber economy is a mirror into this reality where the competition heats up, driving prices down and incomes down until self-driving cars is completely removing incomes for working people.

And if you claim like many do that technology creates more jobs than it produces then you are not only wrong you also need to show what new areas you are expecting the millions of people who are already made obsolete to the job market because of technology.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#57

Post by luso_brazilian » Sat, Mar 26, 2016, 6:58 PM UTC

bubbleRefuge wrote: post #20

luso_brazilian wrote: post #9

> "There was room for improvement, he argued, for what he called “job-centric” economics and politics. In a job-centric system, job creation would be the nation’s No. 1 objective, with the government setting priorities and arraying the forces necessary to achieve the goal, and with businesses operating not only in their immediate profit interest but also in the interests of “employees, and employees yet to be hired.”…

It can also be spectacularly successful . Although it wasn't a jobs program, WWII and its aftermath, driven by the state and centrally planned, resulted in great economic prosperity -perhaps unprecedented prosperity. Why can't we have a WWII on infrastructure, green energy, science funding, pollution cleanup, transportation, hyper-loops ?

>> WWII and its aftermath (...) resulted in great economic prosperity -perhaps unprecedented prosperity

I don't think that applies to any other country except the U.S. England, for instance, almost went bankrupt and had to ask for an enormous loan from the U.S [1].

The entirety of the Mashall plan [2], if you only consider the western part of the iron curtain, is definite proof that WWII not only didn't benefit those countries but put those former colonial powers in a position of extreme weakness and external dependency.

Basically the only reason for the U.S. rise from an isolationist country to the superpower it became was due to the distance from the actual fighting and the fact that it had the only intact industry, infrastructure and transportation network of the whole western world.

Wars are great tools for prosperity redistribution from the losers to the winners, and from the parties not involved to the (Eisenhower coined) military industrial complex, but very lousy tools for actual prosperity creation for the same reason the proverbial "broken window" is a fallacy.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postwar_Britain#Austerity.2C_1...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall_Plan

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#58

Post by wott » Sat, Mar 26, 2016, 7:04 PM UTC

jessedhillon wrote: post #50

kiba wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The advertising industrial complex is paradoxically what employers are willing to pay for, but we humans don't need.

Honestly explain this to me: in what sense do we not need advertising? I don't want to research the 200 brands of almond milk or 85 sushi restaurants in my neighborhood -- I want some proxy, however imperfect, for their quality, availability and value. I want someone to come find me and tell me that their milk or restaurant or whatever exists. And as someone who sells things, how am I supposed to make the public awar…

> Honestly explain this to me: in what sense do we not need advertising?

In each, all and every possible sense.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#59

Post by Spooky23 » Sat, Mar 26, 2016, 7:05 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #56

luso_brazilian wrote: post #9

> "There was room for improvement, he argued, for what he called “job-centric” economics and politics. In a job-centric system, job creation would be the nation’s No. 1 objective, with the government setting priorities and arraying the forces necessary to achieve the goal, and with businesses operating not only in their immediate profit interest but also in the interests of “employees, and employees yet to be hired.”…

The problem with a job-centric economy is that it's based on the need of humans rather than the needs of the economy. In reality technology makes it possible for less and less people to increase their output and span of what they can control via technology. Some day a few people will be running large systems that requires only drones, AI's and access to resources to create what today takes millions. By insisting on k…

> The problem with a job-centric economy is that it's based on the need of humans rather than the needs of the economy.

Society is made up of humans. The economy in your case is the tail wagging the dog.

The problem with your train of thought is that it isn't sustainable. When people get fed up and start burning ubers, the folks betting against people will be the ones finding their backs on he wall.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#60

Post by look_lookatme » Sat, Mar 26, 2016, 7:09 PM UTC

dmritard96 wrote: post #47

There is supposedly some reshoring in the US but I don't really see it from hardware startups unless they have something bulky/specialized/low volume. The bigger question is not whether we should employ in one taxation region or another to concentrate wealth as we see fit, but rather how quickly generalized arms, machine vision and new manufacturing processes will impact our ability to rely on labor as a source of so…

The concept of a revival of American manufacturing is a myth promulgated, for the most part, by one company: Boston Consulting Group.

(pdf warning)

http://www2.itif.org/2015-myth-american-manufacturing-renais...