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Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

bbc.com

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Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#121

Post by sorval »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #29
didibus wrote: post #19

> "America does not have enough people with those skills." Seriously, I feel the US has a big education problem, with part of it being cultural I think. Seems being educated, knowledgeable, having expertise, learning about science and technology, medicine and law, just isn't valued anymore, in fact it's almost being denigrated and shamed. What I see instead is people pushing for anti-intellectualism and valuing the "…

It's because people being educated has become 'being elite'. Even in our own profession, I find it difficult to communicate with smart people who lack foundational knowledge, falter, ask for help and then ask me how I knew the right answer. I've had more than person tell me that there's no way this was taught at a university (threading, OS knowledge)

Maybe those were older people? Threads came about in 96 and became default in the linux kernel in 2.6 (released in 2003).

Sharing memory between processes was a mess before that. Java green threads (emulating threads in user space, which often blocked badly on IO) were horrifying.

Python threading implementations were even worse of a joke till fairly recently.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#122

Post by tolbish »

scarface74 wrote: post #73
jen20 wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Fi is not Google Fiber - it’s probably the least overtly scumbag-y of the US cellphone networks. That said, I switched away from it today after a few years of OK service because they don’t support Apple Watches.

My bad. I’m looking at their plans. https://fi.google.com/about/plans/ They look worse than T-mobile. https://www.t-mobile.com/cell-phone-plans Unlimited 3G hot spot and $20/month for tablets with unlimited data can’t be beat.

I made the move several years ago when the comparison wasn't close. I haven't had a sim card in years, which is also nice.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#124

Post by anticensor »

lobotryas wrote: post #11
SamReidHughes wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Automatic translation, alpha go, google maps UI, ...

We’re talking about paradigm shifts and not just incremental innovation (both are important, but there is a huge difference).

Paradigm shift can also happen incrementally. Not every revolution is sudden.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#125

Post by fullshark »

softwaredoug wrote: post #24

Why do we persist in this old fashioned notion that Nation States are the axis on which “innovation” turns? The brainpower, resources, and motivation for innovating increasingly lie with huge multinational tech companies, not nation states. And they largely don’t care where you live - if you’re smart they want to hire you (unlike nation states with their Byzantine immigration policies)

Cause Schmidt’s new venture is to ask the government for money, and his sales pitch is “US is falling behind China in R&D, you need to spend more money.”

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#126

Post by petre »

conductr wrote: post #89
ultramundane8 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you elaborate on a plan (of course a really rough sketch) for "creating infrastructure jobs" during a global pandemic? I agree with the premise, but I would like to know how to accomplish something like this. Especially if you have domain knowledge, it could be enlightening to the HN readership. There are a lot of accomplished people who read these forums, and it would be cool to see a seed get planted.

Need an unemployment check? Help build a bridge, road, dam, etc. In my mind it’s super simple. Money for labor. Problem is, most Americans would revolt if you asked them to break a sweat.

Not every unemployed person could operate a buldozer. What would you have them do, lay bricks? Train them to use heavy machinery after working in hospitality services?

Germany does this with some amount of succes but I don't know how they do it. German socialism seems to work at the expense of a zero point growth figure. They still pay the solidarity tax for East Germany.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#127

Post by throwaway189262 »

didibus wrote: post #19

> "America does not have enough people with those skills." Seriously, I feel the US has a big education problem, with part of it being cultural I think. Seems being educated, knowledgeable, having expertise, learning about science and technology, medicine and law, just isn't valued anymore, in fact it's almost being denigrated and shamed. What I see instead is people pushing for anti-intellectualism and valuing the "…

The US has a very capitalistic economy, maybe too much even.

In general, in the US, whenever you hear "there's not enough people to do X" it means "there's not enough people willing to do X for what I want to pay"

The truth is, in the US there's a ton of different well-paying careers. CS isn't like medical in US with artificial limits on the number of doctors that graduate every year. The only thing stopping more people from doing CS is money. If they offer enough money they will have a practically unlimited talent pool.

Tech CEO's are always whining about lack of tech workers so they can abuse H1B visas to get employees below market rates. Since they're basically indentured servants to their employers for years to decades until they can get a green card.

The lack of government money in CS research I think everyone in the tech field agrees with

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#128

Post by thewhitetulip »

didibus wrote: post #19

> "America does not have enough people with those skills." Seriously, I feel the US has a big education problem, with part of it being cultural I think. Seems being educated, knowledgeable, having expertise, learning about science and technology, medicine and law, just isn't valued anymore, in fact it's almost being denigrated and shamed. What I see instead is people pushing for anti-intellectualism and valuing the "…

This anti intellectual push is seen in India as well. The ruling party has worked over time to blame experts and mocking intellectuals on everything

The reason is very simple, ruling party gets vores by fooling people. They announce the same monetary package year after year without actually giving the package and their media i.e. entire right wing funded media starts praising the package and hailing our supreme leader.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#129

Post by searchableguy »

Shivetya wrote: post #9

If you follow the article around you realize this isn't about money invested but simply based on how many scientific articles are being published [0] and not dollars invested even though they toss in one Chinese based companies number. Personally I do not find article count a good number to base the claim on. Percentage of GPD might not be a good reference either but then again I am not 100% sure a dollar for dollar…

There was also this article linked about federal decrease in R&D spending: https://itif.org/publications/2018/12/14/dwindling-federal-s...

Can someone link me historical total R&D spending data for US?

I found https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44307.pdf which states:

> The United States became a global leader in R&D in the 20th century, funding as much as 69% of annual global R&D in the period following World War II. 1 Figure 1 shows the growth in total U.S. R&D expenditures from 1953 to 2018 in current dollars. 2 U.S. R&D in 2018 was 112 times higher than it was in 1953 in current dollars, and more than 15 times higher in constant dollars.3 By sector, business-funded R&D grew the most during this period. However, faster growth in total R&D spending of other nations reduced the U.S. share of global R&D to approximately 27.7% in 2017.

Re: Ex-Google boss Eric Schmidt: US 'dropped the ball' on innovation

#130

Post by sorval »

adamnemecek wrote: post #37

The problem starts with culture. In high school, people want to be athletes and pop singers or idk actors. Social skills are over valued. Also the way science is taught in the US discourages exploration and encourages "draw indide the circle". Not to method how hostile academia is.

Most of the difference between a Sr engineer vs Staff/Sr staff/Mgr is all social skills. Its not just what you get done, but how you get it done and how you leverage other people that matters. Social skills are absolutely vital to climb the engineering career ladder.
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