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

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

#371

Post by LostTrackHowM »

88840-8855 wrote: post #248
fvdessen wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was still not that long ago an incredible amount of innovative companies and products in Europe. But at that time companies were still built for their home markets first and on that regard the USA is big and unified. Since software is mostly winner takes all it means that when the USA companies came to Europe they had already won the USA and could steamroll the local competition There is for example no way a sw…

I like your points and agree on your conclusion. Further, I would like to add a few ideas: - innovation in Europe can only scale if we achieve a higher degree of unity in Europe, including one common language, one common jurisdiction and law framework. Localization is just too expensive in Europe and hinders scaling. - a certain degree of protectionism is good. I am a big fan of how China made it. They have a really…

innovation in Europe can only scale if we achieve a higher degree of unity in Europe, including one common language, one common jurisdiction and law framework. Localization is just too expensive in Europe and hinders scaling.

Obviously we already have English, nearly universally spoken as a second or third language in the EU. So I assume you mean English, or some other language as the first language.

Which I think means all other languages would after a few generations become nearly extinct. Like Latin these days.

But despite how much I wish we had more innovation, I don't think losing all languages is worth it.

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

#372

Post by traceroute66 »

wbl wrote: post #286
fvdessen wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was still not that long ago an incredible amount of innovative companies and products in Europe. But at that time companies were still built for their home markets first and on that regard the USA is big and unified. Since software is mostly winner takes all it means that when the USA companies came to Europe they had already won the USA and could steamroll the local competition There is for example no way a sw…

Europe has the single market, and lots of English speakers. But it also has very conservative capital and tax and employment systems that make entrepreneurship difficult. Some of that is easy to fix, some hard to fix.

> has very conservative capital and tax and employment systems

I agree with you to a degree on capital and tax (although there are exceptions within Europe if you take the time to look).

However, if you say Europe should be adopting the US employment system, I'll tell you right now that you can stick that where the sun doesn't shine. Sure the European employment model is not perfect, but by god is it a gazillion times better than the Wild West model deployed in the US.

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

#373

Post by citrin_ru »

dayjobpork wrote: post #139
lgleason wrote: post #69

"This high skills immigration is crucial to American competitiveness, global competitiveness, building these new companies and so forth," he said. "America does not have enough people with those skills." Translation -- US software engineer salaries are still too high for his liking, so he wants to dilute the market with more to lower the overall cost.

Bingo It really annoys me when they bitch about not being able to bring in skilled workers from overseas because they can't find skilled people here... Hey, maybe they should fucking train someone! Usually when a tech boss is complaining about not having skilled staff locally it's code for "... I want to find someone cheaper overseas". It's like seeing a job ad that wants a wizard at everything but has terrible pay,…

> maybe they should fucking train someone!

Training of a highly educated person takes at least 15 years starting with elementary school. Looks like the US school system is in bad shape, but it a bit strange to demand from Eric Schmidt to fix it. Immigration is a way to get skilled workers which doesn't require waiting many years for the results, but it doesn't preclude fixing education meanwhile.

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

#375

Post by [deleted] »

nine_zeros wrote: post #367
rjkennedy98 wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Xenophobia and nationalism sure don't help. But somehow China a country with even more Xenophobia and nationalism is catching up to us. And the U.S. used to have more Xenophobia and nationalism in the past and was also substantially more innovative. Maybe the real problem is that the U.S. (all the way up to the top) has become anti-intellectual. We have completely dumbed down our culture so that children today want…

But Chinese xenophobia is not American style. Sure they lack immigration but so many Chinese travel outside for education and business that they are in fact hyper aware of cultural differences and are upskilling themselves en masse in dealing with various cultures. They bring that skill back home to build companies and sub cultures that ape the best of other countries. This is very unlike US style xenophobia where Mu…

[deleted]

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

#376

Post by betaby »

wbl wrote: post #292
lgleason wrote: post #69

"This high skills immigration is crucial to American competitiveness, global competitiveness, building these new companies and so forth," he said. "America does not have enough people with those skills." Translation -- US software engineer salaries are still too high for his liking, so he wants to dilute the market with more to lower the overall cost.

Immigration increases labor demand as well as labor supply. It also permits more specialization.

Doesn't work well for Canada in reality, https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/immigrants-and-wages... https://www.collectionscanada.gc.ca/obj/s4/f2/dsk3/SSU/TC-SS...

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

#377

Post by softwaredoug »

creato wrote: post #77
softwaredoug wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The fact is it’s extremely valued, in the economy [1]. And that value - the resentment thereof - is why many without the education purposely elect buffoonish leaders that choose to be proud of ignorance 1 - 61% of US population above 25 has “some college” https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Educational_attainment_in_th...

Is it really? FAANG jobs are outliers. Some professional fields seem to do OK (medical), but others are atrocious on average (law). Most people see science/engineering jobs as a path to a cubicle for a while with an OK salary before being laid off at 40. And for the most part, they're right.

“Most people” - pretty sure children of educated parents are focused heavily on education and being steered to jobs that require that education. That’s 40-60% of the US population.

They weren’t teaching coding to grade schoolers at scale 10 years ago.

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

#378

Post by soc14lism00 »

bogwog wrote: post #350

Anyone else find it ironic that Google is the subject of one of the biggest anti-trust cases in recent history, and now Schmidt is blaming the US for not innovating enough? Maybe if so much of the tech industry's wealth and resources weren't pooled together into a handful of massive monopolists who have nearly complete control over whether any competitor lives or dies, the US (and really, the entire world) would have…

After WW2/Korea (I forget the exact time frame) IBM was making money just fine and refused to take a risk on then modern transistor computing machines.

The US Government spent the money and effectively donated trillions in profits to the rich elites of today.

I find it hilarious how ignorant we are of the last 50-70 years of details of our history. Basically the lifetime of Bezos, Gates... their parents changed the rules to benefit their mini dictators

Here’s a hint: no different than what’s happened with covid handouts, government pays out big dollars to their buddies, we all get to then fight over a seat at the hand chosen ones table

Free market isn’t anything more than a simple propaganda line

Anyone that can believe human biology has evolved away from the behavior of a generation ago is a childish fool

Keep sequestering social power into the hands of a minority of barons and lords, everyone. That’s the goal, no different than a church; keep you focused on their lofty ambitions and need for capital at the expense of your own.

Our biology is just as susceptible to blind faith as our ancestors.

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

#379

Post by scottlocklin »

puranjay wrote: post #351
usrnm wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Russia we have several successful competitors to Google Maps and even a search engine that's actually good. Competing with Google is extremly difficult, but possible

Yandex Maps is much better in Russia than Google Maps. I also found Yandex's image text translation capabilities to be much superior than Google

Yandex is a great example of a company which absolutely squashes Google on technical chops wherever it has tried to compete; and it only has 9000 employees (compared to Google's 120,000).

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

#380

Post by trenchgun »

fvdessen wrote: post #217
emsy wrote: post #195

Tangential, since this article is about the US and China. But if the US has dropped the ball, then Europe (or the EU specifically) didn't even bother to go to the game. The only thing we're innovative at is coming up with regulations. And I say this as someone who thinks the US tech sector should be under much heavier regulatory scrutiny.

There was still not that long ago an incredible amount of innovative companies and products in Europe. But at that time companies were still built for their home markets first and on that regard the USA is big and unified. Since software is mostly winner takes all it means that when the USA companies came to Europe they had already won the USA and could steamroll the local competition There is for example no way a sw…

Of google maps competitors, Here is based in Europe. Currently Netherlands. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Here_Technologies
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