Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Andy Grove: How To Make An American Job Before It's Too Late

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 166 posts

Re: Andy Grove: How To Make An American Job Before It's Too Late

#141

Post by yummyfajitas »

Kadin wrote: post #103
CamperBob wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My real point, though, is that consolidation is inevitable. Production jobs ("Scaling," etc.) are going to become less important over time, not more important, whether they're in China or America. Any forward-looking argument that doesn't take that fact into account is flawed from the outset, and I think Grove's piece falls into that category. Is it really healthy for Silicon Valley if Apple has a factory cranking ou…

> Is it really healthy for Silicon Valley if Apple has a factory cranking out iPhones in Cupertino You're begging the question; there is a country beyond Silicon Valley, and Grove's argument is that what is best for Silicon Valley (meaning, the bottom lines of a few tech firms which together only employ a small percentage of the U.S. population) isn't necessarily what is best for the country as a whole. Put more dire…

Suppose, hypothetically, that we really do reach a stage where we have a small number of highly productive individuals and a large number of unskilled people without manufacturing work to do.

In that case, it is likely that the skilled will hire the unskilled as servants, making the skilled people even more productive (every hour spent doing laundry is an hour spent not designing the latest iPhone). People will probably also work fewer hours, and take productivity gains in the form of leisure rather than money.

Re: Andy Grove: How To Make An American Job Before It's Too Late

#142

Post by _debug_ »

Just thinking aloud : please humour me. Since technology is getting robotized, and even Chinese labour is at risk of losing jobs...Organ Farming. If and when the technology matures : You take my cells, convert them to stem cells, and workers help grow a perfect heart / liver / other organ, nudging it along it's growth to perfection. It's like working in an iPhone factory, except, it's really life-saving / preserving.

Re: Andy Grove: How To Make An American Job Before It's Too Late

#143

Post by known »

mkramlich wrote: post #60
known wrote: post #46

Due to Globalization, America will be saturated and will be inhabited by people who will live on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_income

When I read your sentence, right before I got to the very end with the link to Wikipedia, I was thinking you were going to end it with something like "soylent green."

I think privatizing profits and socializing losses will result in passive income society.

Re: Andy Grove: How To Make An American Job Before It's Too Late

#144

Post by binaryfinery »

CamperBob wrote: post #80
binaryfinery wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can not make labor in the US as cheap as it is in China because if you did they would not be able to afford food.

You can not make labor in the US as cheap as it is in China because if you did they would not be able to afford food. I wonder if that's really true. Food's pretty cheap nowadays.

Even with government subsidized corn, its still not cheap enough. I suppose if we round them all up like we did in the 18th century we could manage it. Put their children to work too. Make them slaves in everything but name. Yes, this is what the founding fathers meant by freedom!

Re: Andy Grove: How To Make An American Job Before It's Too Late

#145

Post by binaryfinery »

3d3mon wrote: post #116
CamperBob wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My real point, though, is that consolidation is inevitable. Production jobs ("Scaling," etc.) are going to become less important over time, not more important, whether they're in China or America. Any forward-looking argument that doesn't take that fact into account is flawed from the outset, and I think Grove's piece falls into that category. Is it really healthy for Silicon Valley if Apple has a factory cranking ou…

> Trade policies and externalities have absolutely nothing to do with that. You're right on that since we're clearly talking past each other :-) Yes, businesses become commodities over time. We agree here. However this is orthogonal to innovation and job creation. If an old mature industry is on its last throes, then by all means, farm that out. Those jobs are gone. But that's not what we're talking about here. We're…

Except that if we do, China will simply stop recycling its share of our government debt and the US government defaults. It will take a president with huge balls to call China on its trade war, and risk having to monetize that debt.

Re: Andy Grove: How To Make An American Job Before It's Too Late

#146

Post by Aaronontheweb »

cia_plant wrote: post #133
anamax wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would be the EPA that is blocking the use of many oil skimmers in the Gulf and forcing the ones that they approve to run at about 1/6th efficiency. And that's the department of labor that is keeping experienced crews from running the skimmers that the EPA approves. I forget which department decided that oil in sensitive wetlands was better than putting up sand berms.

Citation?

Seriously? Have you been living in a cave for the past two weeks? Try using Google. Ok you know what - I'll do it:

The sandberms fiasco was the work of the Fish and Wildlife Service: http://www.wdsu.com/news/23997498/detail.html

The "A-Whale" fiasco appears to be a joint fail between the Coast Guard and the EPA - among many other things they've had to sit around and wait for an EPA permit before they can start the work, and now that they're actually in the gulf there are even more problems:

http://www.dailypress.com/news/oil-spill/dp-nws-oil-skimmer-...

http://www.wwltv.com/news/gulf-oil-spill/A-Whale-Of-A-Skimme...

Re: Andy Grove: How To Make An American Job Before It's Too Late

#147

Post by hga »

WRT to US startups, how relevant is this anymore?

I.e. with the exception of sports (in the biological sense) like Tesla (also a big political factor there), what new Intel like startups are going to get the serious funding they require in today's political and economic environment.

As far as I can tell, the period of the big VC funded company like DEC or Intel lasted between the late '50s (there's a certain bit of legislation that pushed the concept over the top) to the early '00s, when SarBox was the last straw that ended the game.

Pretty much all of us who are here for the startup game are here for the small capital web/Internet/software type of companies. E.g. I don't see where the next FPGA like think is going to come from (well, in the US).

Re: Andy Grove: How To Make An American Job Before It's Too Late

#148

Post by rationalbeaver »

mkramlich wrote: post #60
known wrote: post #46

Due to Globalization, America will be saturated and will be inhabited by people who will live on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Passive_income

When I read your sentence, right before I got to the very end with the link to Wikipedia, I was thinking you were going to end it with something like "soylent green."

Man, don't eat that stuff. Soylent green is people.

Re: Andy Grove: How To Make An American Job Before It's Too Late

#149

Post by _delirium »

yummyfajitas wrote: post #141
Kadin wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it really healthy for Silicon Valley if Apple has a factory cranking out iPhones in Cupertino You're begging the question; there is a country beyond Silicon Valley, and Grove's argument is that what is best for Silicon Valley (meaning, the bottom lines of a few tech firms which together only employ a small percentage of the U.S. population) isn't necessarily what is best for the country as a whole. Put more dire…

Suppose, hypothetically, that we really do reach a stage where we have a small number of highly productive individuals and a large number of unskilled people without manufacturing work to do. In that case, it is likely that the skilled will hire the unskilled as servants, making the skilled people even more productive (every hour spent doing laundry is an hour spent not designing the latest iPhone). People will proba…

If there's ever a situation where the majority of Americans are working as mere servants for the wealthy, I think simply taking the wealthy's money and redistributing it will be the more likely outcome, and that's if it's done peacefully. A situation like India's, where there's such huge income inequality that there's strongly differentiated classes, between the servants and the people who have lots of servants, isn't sustainable. People are only willing to protect the prerogatives of the wealthy if they think that overall the system is reasonably fair, supports opportunity and income mobility, has benefits trickle down substantially to everyone, etc.

Re: Andy Grove: How To Make An American Job Before It's Too Late

#150

Post by _delirium »

ericd wrote: post #83
lokiujhytyu wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only purpose of a public company is to make money for shareholders. Not make stuff, not employ people, not even turn a profit - just increase the share price / pay dividends

This is an extremist point of view. Realistically they have a lot of purposes that should be kept in mind.

In particular, if that were the only justification for corporations, we wouldn't have them. There would be no reason not to abolish them. The argument for permitting corporations is that they have a lot of benefits, such as, for example, creating jobs.
Post reply on HN