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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

#421

Post by vsskanth »

ArkVark wrote: post #397
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.

America is under-investing in technology and investment because the US is increasingly filled with people who aren’t American, and don’t ever aspire to be American – they just want what Americans have. The social and cultural values that allowed America to become the light on the hill, to generate the sort of excessive social capital that allowed the Apollo program, now needs to be diverted to support those who just…

Would like to hear more of your thoughts on this, but in simpler terms.

If I'm understanding you correctly, you're claiming immigrants are here primarily only for the money, but don't want to culturally integrate ?

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

#422

Post by d0gbread »

crazygringo wrote: post #408

> And that's one of the key reasons why China has been able to catch up... he thinks the US is still ahead of China in tech innovation, for now. But that the gap is narrowing fast. Which is awesome . Because framing it as "ahead" or a "gap" is completely backwards. Innovation isn't a competition or zero-sum game. Innovation coming out of China benefits the world , just like innovation coming out of the US does. What…

Is it awesome? The Chinese government has such power over the people and businesses innovating that there could be significant implications for Chinese citizens, neighboring countries, and the world. Where innovation happens first and how closely it's held affects so much. Your comment strikes me as dangerously optimistic.

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

#423

Post by Caylio »

normalnorm wrote: post #409
giancarlostoro wrote: post #359

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google definitely could of created a research laboratory. Wasnt it not long ago that companies would invest a lot more money on research? That was why we got so many impressive projects out of Bell Labs and I am sure other companies. Its a shame that horse race ended. Whats worse is Google wants all their software to be as intangible as possible by forcing it all on their servers. Google hasnt had many desktop apps y…

> could of I am not a grammar nazi. I am not even a fucking native English speaker, but what the fuck??? Why is this mistake so prevalent these days?

Grammar nazi.

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

#424

Post by thelastname »

TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #405
Zigurd wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That may be true but it does not address the kinds of large-scale, national policy issues Schmidt is talking about. We have lost our way in technology strategy. Instead of welcoming foreign students we chase them away. Instead of integrating tech markets globally to extend our soft power, we practice knee jerk techno-nationalism. It is not even done competently. The "advisors" pushing these policies are known for bei…

The trend against immigration was caused by a combination of unchecked illegal immigration causing economic and cultural pressure against the lower class combined with nearly unchecked immigration causing pressure on the middle class(see H1B exploitation by Disney, tech contracting companies, etc). Fix these issues, and you will fix much of the disdain towards immigrants shown by modern-day Plebs.

> Plebs

Workers.

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

#425

Post by clankyclanker »

crazygringo wrote: post #408

> And that's one of the key reasons why China has been able to catch up... he thinks the US is still ahead of China in tech innovation, for now. But that the gap is narrowing fast. Which is awesome . Because framing it as "ahead" or a "gap" is completely backwards. Innovation isn't a competition or zero-sum game. Innovation coming out of China benefits the world , just like innovation coming out of the US does. What…

> US innovation is slowing compared to itself in the past somehow, that actually measures total results rather than government-funded inputs

Schmidt might say you’re missing the point: government funded science is a leading indicator of future results because the government is the largest body investing in and sharing the results of basic, foundational, non-product research in the weirdest variety of subjects. Turn that off and you turn off the fountain from which innovations can be productized.

https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/who-should-fund...

> [in 2017] the federal government funded less than half of all basic research in the country for the first time since World War II.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/03/trump-once-again-req...

> [2019:] For the third year in a row, President Donald Trump’s administration has unveiled a budget request to Congress that calls for deep spending cuts at many federal science agencies, including a 13% cut for the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and a 12% cut for the National Science Foundation (NSF)

Cutting funding for the NSF is and will continue to decelerate the pace of innovation because the basic research is no longer being done.

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

#427

Post by sgc »

dgellow wrote: post #267
rjknight wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no "Europe", though. France and Germany speak different languages and have different legal systems. Spain is different again. And Poland. And Greece. And Ireland. And Italy. Put it this way: if products depend on viral growth, then European countries are socially distanced from each other as a result of these barriers.

People downvote this comment, but it is correct, the EU has A LOT of fragmentation at the national level.

It's obviously a complex situation, but I think the regulation of small business has more to do with it than the social diversity in the EU (which matters as well). By the time a company in the EU is big enough to go from national to expanding into the wider EU markets, it has capital to do so, and there is no shortage of local experts to help with that. But getting to that scale, or really to anything that requires more than a couple employees, is the big hurdle to overcome. I am not sure how to overcome that and respect employee rights, since a strong progressive tax on corporations that would subsidize some of the employment costs of smaller businesses would make the larger EU companies noncompetitive internationally. So in a real sense the failure of international labor laws is partially responsible for the difficulty of EU companies to innovate (or more precisely, to profit and grow based off their innovation).

Another point is that historically the US tech sector took off fast and takes off fast, so they are awash with cash based on being first movers, and they have a competitive advantage when it comes to attracting talent. I think that advantage has been perhaps completely destroyed in the last 4 years due to local political and social issues making life there unattractive. Sure many people will run for the money, but perhaps now not enough to create imbalance in the labor market. Also, companies today understand better how fast things scale in the US due to the single market/language/comparatively lax regulations, and they know to focus on that market much earlier in their growth cycle. This contributed to the success of Spotify, Zendesk, etc. So if I had to predict there will be a rising percentage of successes out of the EU in the next ten years compared to the last ten years. But it's always going to be hard to start.

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

#428

Post by mondoshawan »

wombatmobile wrote: post #256
mondoshawan wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not really. The vast majority of the OS was developed after Android was acquired. It wasn't even a shippable product before then. Source: I have a Sooner, the first ever android phone, abd I wrote software for it.

The value of Android to Google is that it enables them to gather vast quantities of data from their users. Google uses this data to enhance the efficacy of its advertising, by predicting what people will click on.

I'd be curious to know what hard evidence you have to back this claim up with, otherwise its just hearsay.

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

#429

Post by jnwatson »

vsskanth wrote: post #407
gonzo41 wrote: post #398

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Apples research is seeing what happens when you sit on a quarter of a trillion dollars. Without veering far off topic. I don't think apple really has a culture of innovation anymore. Each rectangle looks the same. Remember when nokia had all their crazy feature phones. Taking a 30% cut on apps isn't that.

Counterpoint - A Series Chips. And now MacBooks on Apple Silicon

That’s not research. That’s just vertical integration development.

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

#430

Post by jnwatson »

alpineidyll3 wrote: post #406
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…

Just look at tensorflow. It masquerades as enabling open source ai, while really pushing people to pricey, proprietary google cloud compute. How these ppl can keep a straight face, I have no idea.

Huh? I run tensorflow locally with no problem.
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