Well, i'm not saying there's never capital investment - i'm saying the us tax structure favors keeping that investment as small as possible. From what little i

Well, i'm not saying there's never capital investment - i'm saying the us tax structure favors keeping that investment as small as possible. From what little i recall of berkshire hathaway's history, textile automation has been getting far more powerful and cheaper for like the last 150 years. lot's of textile companies went out of business from betting the farm on an expensive new machine, and not staying competitive 5 years out - because the new machines are that much better. So with biotech or something, you have all this extra hassle. Super tight environmental control. Special heating and cooling for different resources. Special containment for the lubrication of the machines, so the aerosolized grease won't touch the stuff you're working on - all kinds of crap. basically, all the complexity you have to deal with, plus a million extra constraints. found the old link: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122488966230768509.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122488966230768509.html Fred Smith's argument is it's easier to make money with debt than it is by actually making stuff. US business is forced to optimize around the cheapest possible automation. Maybe that's a good thing, robots keep getting cheaper. Maybe it's a bad thing, it's really hard to get the massive capitalization for these fancy future industries.