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Apple Computers Used to Be Built in the U.S. It Was a Mess (2018)

39 points by ViktorRay 1y ago

lysace 1y ago
https://archive.is/gpNoF https://archive.is/gpNoF (And the MAGA crowd flagged the post, of course.)
ferguess_k 1y ago
Was "Has no manufacturing culture" already a thing in the late 80s? I know the car industry got hit pretty hard by the Japanese during the 80s, but was it already far ahead the US for electronics during the same era?
- DrillShopper 1y ago
  Very much so. They invested in their electronics manufacturing (both public and private investment) and went from the laughing stock of quality to the premium quality choice. This country could have done that, but even in the 1980s, we were on the path to no longer building things here.
  - ferguess_k 1y ago
    Thanks. I wonder how the US can bring the culture back. Or at least part of it.
    - threeseed 1y ago
      Do the complete opposite of what Trump is doing. More immigration. More free trade. More education. Push US higher up the stack so that's its building on top of Chinese parts rather than trying to replicate them.
    - bag_boy 1y ago
      Artificially prop up the salaries, fed and state investment in training, free training…basically incentives from government entities with deep pockets. It will happen soon. If you work with state innovation departments in small states, you can see them souring on SAAS. It’s going to swing to manufacturing.
- cowfarts 1y ago
  [dead]
- SirFatty 1y ago
  People are interchanging manufacturing and quality. There was a huge quality issue in the US.
- nickff 1y ago
  The US auto industry got hurt because the 'big three' operated like an oligopoly, with the United Auto Workers (UAW) acting as the coordinating organization (and reaping most of the 'monopoly rents'). The Japanese were able to disrupt the oligopoly because they weren't beholden to the UAW; many studies were done, and some found that the American companies' costs were simply higher than the Japanese's (due to both direct labor costs, and other costs related to their CBA), so the Japanese could either make cheaper cars, or higher quality cars for the same price as the big three.
  - hollerith 1y ago
    CBA == collective bargaining agreement
- Maxamillion96 1y ago
  >“We don’t have a manufacturing culture,” Mr. Gassée said of the nation’s high-technology heartland, “meaning the substrate, the schooling, the apprentices, the subcontractors.” Silicon Valley still doesnt have any of those.
  - ferguess_k 1y ago
    I guess SV is simply to expensive to have those.
jdabney 1y ago
The article doesn't go into why building the Macintosh or the NeXT machines in the USA failed. I can see the problems of bringing manufacturing back to the USA but why did it fail in the first place?
- jmclnx 1y ago
  When I started programming in the early 80s, it was on an in-house manufacturing system, so I got to know many of the managers and line workers. * Many mid-level managers were heavy drug users, doing cocaine. * High level managers had no clue their direct reports were addicts * I would say about 25 to 40% of the line workers were very drunk after lunch. * Numbers at Month/Quarter end was everything, not quality. That means as Fiscal End approached and numbers were bad, some managers would "cheat". * This cheating would alienate our customers. By the end of the 80s, the company was in bad shape, going chapter 11 in the early 90s. That was my experience in a rather large company. And from talking with friends at other manufacturing companies, things were pretty much the same there too. Now here is hardly no manufacturing taking place in my area. I cannot speak to how things are in sat China, but I kind of doubt it is even close to what I describe above.
  - asdsadasdasd123 1y ago
    this lines up with my experience in America where you can go so far if you just show up sober and put in 8 hours. ive never seen a more socially mobile country
- jchw 1y ago
  The way I read it, the article identifies two problems: the first being the lack of a strong manufacturing culture, and I think that was an issue that the U.S. had been developing by the 80s for sure. The other problem is simply that neither the Macintosh nor the NeXT machines really had the volume needed to make it make sense. Who knows; had they managed higher volumes, maybe the landscape of manufacturing would look different today... Maybe not. I mean, look. I think we all get it, to some degree. Everything from the land to the labor to the materials is pricier in the U.S., for reasons. It will also continue to get pricier in China. We also know that people don't want to do menial factory work for minimum wage, and that automation isn't quite solving that problem as quickly as everyone hoped. So even if we wanted to bootstrap everything in the U.S., from raw materials to advanced electronics, it's all going to cost more and we're not going to have the labor necessary to do it at the scales needed. I think we should absolutely work on this problem, but it's a tough one, and it seems like it only gets harder over time.
ksec 1y ago
It wasn't a mess so to speak. It was simply not competitive, price, policy or any other resources. But it is great at least some MSM are finally brining some history lessons back. Steve really wanted the whole NeXT or even Mac to be Fully Manufactured in the US and Full Automated as in Dark Factory. He was again way ahead of his time. Manufacturing requires Supply Chain expertise. And they are company's closely guarded secret they dont let outsider knows. Unless the US hire a few true professional as advisors they are not going to get anywhere or get anything done.
recursivedoubts 1y ago
Cool. Could it be not a mess? Or do you just mean that labor needs to be paid starvation wages to make the current financial model of Silicon Valley work?
kuharich 1y ago
Past comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18690906 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18690906
HeavyStorm 1y ago
Why is it flagged?
jayd16 1y ago
For whatever reason I'm reminded of the Nexus Q as well. Google's ill fated media streamer that touted US manufacturing. Pretty funny to look back at the overzealous marketing fluff that was abandoned some few months later. https://www.cnn.com/2012/06/28/tech/mobile/google-nexus-q-usa/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2012/06/28/tech/mobile/google-nexus-q-us...

39 points by ViktorRay 1y ago

https://archive.is/gpNoF https://archive.is/gpNoF (And the MAGA crowd flagged the post, of course.)

Was "Has no manufacturing culture" already a thing in the late 80s? I know the car industry got hit pretty hard by the Japanese during the 80s, but was it already far ahead the US for electronics during the same era?

DrillShopper 1y ago
Very much so. They invested in their electronics manufacturing (both public and private investment) and went from the laughing stock of quality to the premium quality choice. This country could have done that, but even in the 1980s, we were on the path to no longer building things here.
- ferguess_k 1y ago
  Thanks. I wonder how the US can bring the culture back. Or at least part of it.
  - threeseed 1y ago
    Do the complete opposite of what Trump is doing. More immigration. More free trade. More education. Push US higher up the stack so that's its building on top of Chinese parts rather than trying to replicate them.
  - bag_boy 1y ago
    Artificially prop up the salaries, fed and state investment in training, free training…basically incentives from government entities with deep pockets. It will happen soon. If you work with state innovation departments in small states, you can see them souring on SAAS. It’s going to swing to manufacturing.
cowfarts 1y ago
[dead]
SirFatty 1y ago
People are interchanging manufacturing and quality. There was a huge quality issue in the US.
nickff 1y ago
The US auto industry got hurt because the 'big three' operated like an oligopoly, with the United Auto Workers (UAW) acting as the coordinating organization (and reaping most of the 'monopoly rents'). The Japanese were able to disrupt the oligopoly because they weren't beholden to the UAW; many studies were done, and some found that the American companies' costs were simply higher than the Japanese's (due to both direct labor costs, and other costs related to their CBA), so the Japanese could either make cheaper cars, or higher quality cars for the same price as the big three.
- hollerith 1y ago
  CBA == collective bargaining agreement
Maxamillion96 1y ago
>“We don’t have a manufacturing culture,” Mr. Gassée said of the nation’s high-technology heartland, “meaning the substrate, the schooling, the apprentices, the subcontractors.” Silicon Valley still doesnt have any of those.
- ferguess_k 1y ago
  I guess SV is simply to expensive to have those.

jdabney 1y ago

The article doesn't go into why building the Macintosh or the NeXT machines in the USA failed. I can see the problems of bringing manufacturing back to the USA but why did it fail in the first place?

jmclnx 1y ago
When I started programming in the early 80s, it was on an in-house manufacturing system, so I got to know many of the managers and line workers. * Many mid-level managers were heavy drug users, doing cocaine. * High level managers had no clue their direct reports were addicts * I would say about 25 to 40% of the line workers were very drunk after lunch. * Numbers at Month/Quarter end was everything, not quality. That means as Fiscal End approached and numbers were bad, some managers would "cheat". * This cheating would alienate our customers. By the end of the 80s, the company was in bad shape, going chapter 11 in the early 90s. That was my experience in a rather large company. And from talking with friends at other manufacturing companies, things were pretty much the same there too. Now here is hardly no manufacturing taking place in my area. I cannot speak to how things are in sat China, but I kind of doubt it is even close to what I describe above.
- asdsadasdasd123 1y ago
  this lines up with my experience in America where you can go so far if you just show up sober and put in 8 hours. ive never seen a more socially mobile country
jchw 1y ago
The way I read it, the article identifies two problems: the first being the lack of a strong manufacturing culture, and I think that was an issue that the U.S. had been developing by the 80s for sure. The other problem is simply that neither the Macintosh nor the NeXT machines really had the volume needed to make it make sense. Who knows; had they managed higher volumes, maybe the landscape of manufacturing would look different today... Maybe not. I mean, look. I think we all get it, to some degree. Everything from the land to the labor to the materials is pricier in the U.S., for reasons. It will also continue to get pricier in China. We also know that people don't want to do menial factory work for minimum wage, and that automation isn't quite solving that problem as quickly as everyone hoped. So even if we wanted to bootstrap everything in the U.S., from raw materials to advanced electronics, it's all going to cost more and we're not going to have the labor necessary to do it at the scales needed. I think we should absolutely work on this problem, but it's a tough one, and it seems like it only gets harder over time.

ksec 1y ago

It wasn't a mess so to speak. It was simply not competitive, price, policy or any other resources. But it is great at least some MSM are finally brining some history lessons back. Steve really wanted the whole NeXT or even Mac to be Fully Manufactured in the US and Full Automated as in Dark Factory. He was again way ahead of his time. Manufacturing requires Supply Chain expertise. And they are company's closely guarded secret they dont let outsider knows. Unless the US hire a few true professional as advisors they are not going to get anywhere or get anything done.

recursivedoubts 1y ago

Cool. Could it be not a mess? Or do you just mean that labor needs to be paid starvation wages to make the current financial model of Silicon Valley work?

kuharich 1y ago

Past comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18690906 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18690906

HeavyStorm 1y ago

Why is it flagged?

jayd16 1y ago

For whatever reason I'm reminded of the Nexus Q as well. Google's ill fated media streamer that touted US manufacturing. Pretty funny to look back at the overzealous marketing fluff that was abandoned some few months later. https://www.cnn.com/2012/06/28/tech/mobile/google-nexus-q-usa/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2012/06/28/tech/mobile/google-nexus-q-us...