Both of you make excellent points. My only comment is that it seems like the government (or at least the current administration, despite its multitude of shortc

Both of you make excellent points. My only comment is that it seems like the government (or at least the current administration, despite its multitude of shortcomings) wants to revitalize the American manufacturing industry. They are just failing in their approach (e.g. tariffs & trade wars). I believe with some guidance from the private sector or simply a good pitch, the feds could be quite receptive to the idea of funding programs aimed at building-up next gen manufacturing in the U.S. (particularly if project proposals can be expressed in # of manufacturing jobs that would be created). As a side note, I haven't heard of "Elon Musk’s alien dreadnoughts — giant state of the art factories producing every conceivable kind of product, at the highest possible quality and lowest possible cost" but I share the enthusiasm for such gigafactories. Next gen factories should certainly bake-in flexibility. Machines that act more like 3D printers than injection mold-ers(?), and have the ability to switch from making, say, car parts to ventilators and N95 masks without a massive effort (or simply switch from making product A to product B depending on consumer demand trends). Lastly, just a thought, I'm sure VCs have been pitched hundreds of times on specific 'market disrupting' products from wearable tech, to drones, to personal jetpacks. But I wonder how many times they have been pitched an idea for funding company that could make all of these things, and aims to significantly lower the barriers to rapid prototyping of physical goods. meh?