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Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

nytimes.com

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Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#141

Post by mrob »

morgante wrote: post #122
1stop wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because it doesn't. These people wouldn't just hoard their money because there is no ad telling them what to buy... They'd just be exercising their own agency, rather then cokes, or nikes.

They might often buy an inferior product instead. If there were no advertising, not many people would know about—let alone buy—video games. But dollar for dollar video games are much better for them than alternatives like drugs.

I didn't learn about video games through advertising, I learned about them because my friends played them. If you know somebody who's never played a video game then you'll naturally want to show them one. If somebody has the social connections to buy illegal drugs then they almost certainly have the social connections to learn about video games through word of mouth.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#142

Post by WalterBright »

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.”…

But what can be done is to re-examine tax policy and regulation that discourages hiring people.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#143

Post by zmmmmm »

bedhead wrote: post #35
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.”…

Well put. Job creation as a goal is sort of like when public company CEO's have revenue as a goal. Look, if all you want is revenue, that's easy - we can buy companies, underprice business, do all sorts of uneconomic stuff, etc. Same goes for jobs...if all you want is someone working, we can do that pretty easily. While I understand the noble impulse to target job creation, unfortunately it leads to a lot of incentiv…

> The real goal is creating value, or wealth

By itself that isn't sufficient though. The distribution of wealth is important. If you create more wealth by allocating it all to one individual and none to anybody else then that is not superior to creating a bit less total but having the median wealth across individuals be higher.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#144

Post by mozumder »

sp332 wrote: post #126
hueving wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only reason the fly colony would collapse is if it ran out of a resource. No point in giving them an unlimited food supply because it's a resource like any other.

That's exactly the point. Sooner or later, human consumption is going to hit a wall.

Why would that happen? Where is the actual limit to anything?

If we run out of land, we take the sea. If we run out of sea, we take space. And so on.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#145

Post by mozumder »

mistermann wrote: post #104
mozumder wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> These people wouldn't just hoard their money because there is no ad telling them what to buy... wut? People see an ad, they're more likely buy that thing. If they don't see an ad, they don't buy that thing. You think people are still going to be spending their money if they aren't talked into buying things? lol. The economy grows when people spend money. Disincentivizing people from spending money is a good way to…

I don't watch ads and yet I still buy things. Granted, not as much as if I watched ads I'm sure.

If you don't buy something, and hold off on spending, then the GDP goes down, as the velocity of money slows down.

If 1 dollar is spent 5 times a year, that economy has a higher GDP than when that 1 dollar is spent 4 times a year.

Advertising makes sure that money is spent quickly, to increase the GDP by increasing the velocity of money in an economy.

If you get rid of advertising, you slow down the economy.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#146

Post by littletimmy »

narrator wrote: post #136

The mystery at the center of all this is "Why is it so astronomically cheap to do the x in Asia vs the U.S?". Not just cheap as in low wage, but cheap as in finished goods costing less than the cost of materials delivered to the American factory. It's not just manufacturing. In Thailand you can live in a high rise condo with a gym and maid service and eat out every day and do some traveling for $2000/month. That life…

Can you elaborate on your last paragraph please? What is the fundamental cause in your opinion? Or are you saying it's like turtles all the way down?

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#147

Post by id »

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 know that the "laissez-faire" capitalist alternative in this situation would mean that people starve?

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#148

Post by Ericson2314 »

Very simple, in the short turn as others have mentioned, the US's infra is absolutely shit and we need to poor money into that. In the long term, automation will break the Keynesian feedback loops that underlie such new-deal programs, and we should switch to basic income instead.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#149

Post by zanny »

petra wrote: post #65
jessedhillon wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

We don't need brand advertising to achieve any of those functions.It has negative value for consumers. So maybe some form of advertising is useful, but it would look totally different if what drove it was consumer benefit and not producer benefit.

The subset of advertising the superposter is referring to is informational and educational promotion of products rather than advertising.

There is also the conflation that there is some lost potential when advertising can actually sway you into buying something - but the secret is, if you do not already have the necessary economic pressure upon yourself to seek out goods and services in your interest already, that advertising is actually detrimental because it subverts your internal alignment of values through conditioning causing you to make purchases against your base intentions.

The only aspect of advertising of worth is learning products exist, but I would quite easily argue that - especially in the age of social media - word of mouth informance about goods and services that can benefit your life are much more valuable and reasonable and much less detrimental to personal economics than advertising.

How many people bought smartphones because of a TV ad vs their peers telling and showing them how useful they are?

Since we are getting on this topic, I imagine in the case of the downfall of advertising - however that may happen - people would become sociable again amongst each other about what products are good and useful and which have quality. A thousand years ago you would not have known of the quality of rice from a country away but you would know who is the best and worst blacksmith in town and where to get the best ale. We could easily have that again, enhanced with technology to make it a truly global information market.

The private finance of product placement to cause emotional purchases rather than rational ones, by comparison, is dramatically more inefficient.

Re: Andy Grove’s Warning to Silicon Valley

#150

Post by zanny »

scrollaway wrote: post #63
jessedhillon wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

You're conflating the idea of broadcasting and advertising. One is the other, but the other is not the one. Of course advertising has a use, but without advertising it's not like you would "have to research the 85 sushi restaurants" in your neighbourhood. Put it this way: I use adblock, I do not watch TV nor go to places which actively advertise. My life is fine, and I don't have to "actively research" anything unles…

On the topic of Sushi Restaurants, you have two fantastic resources available to you anyway - technology (Google Maps, for example) lets you find the closest restaurants and ratings for those restaurants polled from various resources. If you do not trust Google, use another mapping or restaurant critique service. Alternatively, you can use the ancient-as-human-civilization method of social web information about quality. The vast majority of purchasing decisions are still made through the influence of peers, rather than by advertising, because you trust your peers recommendations way more than what you see on TV - for good reason.

In either case, they provide broadcasting as well, and in all cases, they are inherent to either the Internet Age or human organization, and do the job better than emotional splurge-purchase decision TV ads ever could.

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