4 ms·

Consumers will pick the best cheap gadget regardless of origin. Investors want maximal profits in a 1-3 years time frame. The system unfortunately does not affo

Consumers will pick the best cheap gadget regardless of origin. Investors want maximal profits in a 1-3 years time frame. The system unfortunately does not afford much wiggle room for ethical and national duty when working with those constraints. Grove's outlook also colored by difficulties of semiconductor industry. Asia in addition to having cheap labor, governments would prop up barely profitable fabrication companies as national champions, give them subsidized loans and regulatory favors. American investors & management, perhaps rightly, balked at trying to compete on that front.

ethbro 11y ago
> The system unfortunately does not afford much wiggle room for ethical and national duty when working with those constraints. This is strictly true, which is one of the reasons I think the onus of long-term thinking has sadly but rightly shifted to regulation over altruism. Whereas in the past you might have had a titan of industry decide that dumping chemical byproducts of manufacture into the water supply of surrounding farms was "wrong", now the CEO will be voted out if he or she fails to make the profitable choice.