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This guy is not smart. The tech industry is only expanding. Not only in terms of total revenues, but also total employment. In fact its one of the few sector

This guy is not smart. The tech industry is only expanding. Not only in terms of total revenues, but also total employment. In fact its one of the few sectors where employment is increasing. This guy is not educated in what he is talking about. His narrative about American manufacturing is wrong too. American manufacturing has only increased almost every decade since WWII. There has not been a decrease. What HAS decreased is employment in manufacturing. But that decrease has happened because of automation. Is that a bad thing? You know, we used to be 70% employed in agriculture, but then we figured out how to use machines to reduce the people required by an order of magnitude. That's how we had enough people available to become a manufacturing power. Now we are a service/tech power because people are slowly not needed in robot factories. Employment isn't the goal of an economy. Production is. We can give people a basic income if necessary, if robots are doing everything. But we shouldn't artificially boost employment where it isn't needed. This guy is supposed to be a tech author and he's talking like a Luddite. In the end I think this guy is just warm in his pants because he doesn't like so many foreign looking people in the industry he covers. Well, its too bad. The cat is out of the bag. Everyone knows how to program and make tech now. You either bring them here, or they'll go work for tech conglomerates in China, India, and Europe. All the colored faces in Google and Facebook aren't there because they are accepting less money than American graduates--they are getting paid a lot more than most graduates would get in their random IT jobs around the country. We are hiring the best of the best for our tech sector. That's good for America, and keeps America ahead of the competition.

adventured 11y ago
He's not off by a subtle amount either. Per the Fed, total US manufacturing output has gone from $1.5 trillion in 1975, to about $3.5 trillion today (in adjusted dollars). It's up somewhere between 50% and 70% since 1992, depending on how you calculate it. The US is the #2 manufacturer globally, China finally overtook the US just a couple of years ago. Output per manufacturing worker has gone from $80k in 1980, to nearly $250,000 today. http://i.imgur.com/lA9USwE.jpg http://i.imgur.com/lA9USwE.jpg
- s73v3r 11y ago
  Is the output per worker metric adjusted for inflation? And does it take into account that there are fewer manufacturing jobs today than there were then?
ralgoran 11y ago
I agree with what you're saying but just a note on style -- You may want to consider substituting the word 'colored' for a more modern (and maybe more politically correct) word like 'diverse'
- chetanahuja 11y ago
  I think @TheMagicHorsey's sentence in question is actually talking about the multiple colors of people's faces, I don't find it offensive in that sense. Though you have a point that the word's history has unpleasant connotations. I might have paused and looked hard for perhaps a different word to convey the same meaning.... say, "multihued" or "heterogenous" or something.
  - ralgoran 11y ago
    That's how I interpreted it too. I was not offended but thought he may want to reconsider his wording in the future because the connotation. I guess the downvote was because my pendantic and unsubstantial comment was of low signal:noise ratio for the HN discussion
  - mreiland 11y ago
    the context made it obvious that he wasn't speaking about blacks, especially in light of the responder stating he meant "diverse", which he did. There was nothing wrong with the wording.
cinquemb 11y ago
>Employment isn't the goal of an economy. Production is. We can give people a basic income if necessary, if robots are doing everything. But we shouldn't artificially boost employment where it isn't needed. How would you say that fits with the whole fake jobs in europe?[0] Would you classify it as artificially boosted employment (or at least the allocation of resources for tasks where the production value is arguably zero for any individual beyond the person doing the task, than say, allocating resources for construction of CSP plants to bring down costs of electricity for everyone in the medium-long term)? If so, it seems some nation states might differ in what they think the goal of the economy is for. [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/business/international/in-europe-fake-jobs-can-have-real-benefits.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/business/international/in-...
supercanuck 11y ago
Everytime, I read hacker news comments, I feel like the folks in Silicon Valley are dense to the fact that there is an entirely different IT Industry out there providing services to Fortune 500's that are not Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and other technology companies. etc. Cringley is talking about the technology companies who provide technology services to the other companies, not customer facing companies. >All the colored faces in Google and Facebook aren't there because they are accepting less money than American graduates No they are definitely not, but they ARE at Verizon, Disney and ExxonMobil.
- mc32 11y ago
  They are also at the companies founded by local arms of foreign companies. I've observed Chinese companies paying Chinese speaking workers and Indian founded companies paying Indian nationals less than they paid Americans (of varying ethnicities). On my limited observation, this practice is not uncommon. And, as we know, small and medium sized biz employ more people than do large firms. This wage variance is little mentioned but quite prevalent. Same as the hole in the wall taco joint run by foreign nationals, they tend to exploit their own the most taking advantage of national affinity or whatever.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
  - supercanuck 11y ago
    He does make a distinction, but this is a case of people hearing what they want to hear. He says HP and IBM half a dozen times, and uses the Airline industry as an analogy, so then why would the reader draw the conclusion that he means Google and Facebook? Does that comparison even make sense? I doubt Googlers refer themselves as "IT Professionals." I'd even go so far as to think they may consider the title a bit insulting and at the very least wince a bit, at being referred to as such.
- TheMagicHorsey 11y ago
  I've never heard a good argument for why we should allow cheap foreign t-shirts into the country but not cheap foreign workers. Is it even a good idea to allow in cheap lumber, oil, rubber, tea ... if we can't allow in cheap labor? What arguments apply to the former, but not to the latter? In terms of inputs to generate national wealth, there is not much technical distinction between cheap raw materials and cheap labor--although possibly there is an effect on human beings. Cato Institute's studies would suggest that immigration--especially H1B immigration has not had an appreciable effect on American wages. But lets say that Cato is wrong .... even so ... the problem that must be solved is making sure that the gains from cheap inputs for growth are spread across everyone, and not concentrated only amongst a few. We should discuss things basic income. Not cutting off cheap inputs. Making more for less is not inherently bad. Ultimately tariffs and labor controls are all along a sliding scale towards closed borders. The ones that make the most noise are insulated the most from external competition. But the insulation is not good for the rest of consumers in America ... only for the noise makers. And even for them, I don't think its good ... as auto unions in Detroit will tell you ... eventually reality catches up no matter how much Washington does to insulate you from the world. I don't think a country is better off with closed borders. Various countries have tried that in history (Tokugawa Japan, China before the Opium wars, etc.) I think if everyone is trading and competing, and you isolate yourself behind tall walls, the world leaves you behind. On a small scale that happened to our auto industry. Too much insulation from hot competition is bad in the long run. You might wake up from your Rip Van Winkle nap and find that decades later your technology and society are woefully outdated.
pdkl95 11y ago
> Employment isn't the goal of an economy. Production is. That is more or less a tautology; it's also not a particularly useful observation - the economy only of metrics by which to judge a society. Pretending that only the economy (via wages, stock prices, GDP, or other measurements) is one of the more damaging things to happen to the world over the last ~50 year or so. Which bring me to my main point - did you even read the article? This article wasn't about employment, nor was it about some sort of neo-ludditie anti-technology crusade. It also wasn't claiming anything about the current size of the tech industry. This article was about the popular fallacy - propaganda, really - that the only thing that should matter to a business is "maximizing shareholder value". This has never been any sort of legal requirement, and - as described in the article - since the 70s. Regardless of what anybody's wishful thinking about what the effects of focusing on "maximizing shareholder value ought to be, the de facto results are to allow owners and high-level management to basically steal the wages of most of their workers. It's nothing more than a cheap excuse to justify greed. As the article shows with examples like the old airline industry, extravagant waste can lead to lead very rapid changes when a new competitor notices what's going on and decides to exploit the money being left on the table by the traditional industry by being more efficient (what the tech industry likes to call "disruption"). You may notice that this about a management problem, and is not specific to the software, electronics, manufacturing, IT, or any other industry. The main prediction made in the article is all about how basing your business on such an obvious fallacy is bad business. The airlines were a good example, and like the old airlines, the big IBM-type businesses had better start paying attention to things like customer service (stop treating disrespecting customers) and making high-quality products people actually want to pay for. Failure to do so will simply leave a vacuum where a competor (asia?) will race them to the bottom. The bottom doesn't have much profit in it, when modern technology keeps reducing costs to almost nothing. Now, you do bring up a useful point: there wil always be IT work. Not that this does not necessarily extend to any other kinds of tech work (i.e. software). This is because IT is a trade, and will will always need it for the same reason we will always need plubers. While an interesting topic, the article was about the likely fall of the big industry player.
tim333 11y ago
>This guy is not smart. On the other hand Warren Buffett who has a reputation as one of the smartest guys in business is buying more IBM stock than any other stock at the moment, over $13bn worth, his largest ever position by purchase cost. I'd put my money on it doing OK rather than dying just based on the above. I'm not sure Cringely's assertions such as: >IBM and HP (my go-to examples lately) are failing to recognize that a big part of their business has become a commodity. >IBM ignores 99 percent of its workforce >Do you think IBM respects its customers? They don’t. edit: There's an interview here with the IBM CEO which contradicts most of Cringely's points https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9brTt_eLPo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9brTt_eLPo etc are actually based on evidence rather than him just assuming that.
s73v3r 11y ago
"Employment isn't the goal of an economy." I would highly disagree with this. And the later assertion that we could use basic income, especially given the political climate in the US.

adventured 11y ago

He's not off by a subtle amount either. Per the Fed, total US manufacturing output has gone from $1.5 trillion in 1975, to about $3.5 trillion today (in adjusted dollars). It's up somewhere between 50% and 70% since 1992, depending on how you calculate it. The US is the #2 manufacturer globally, China finally overtook the US just a couple of years ago. Output per manufacturing worker has gone from $80k in 1980, to nearly $250,000 today. http://i.imgur.com/lA9USwE.jpg http://i.imgur.com/lA9USwE.jpg

s73v3r 11y ago
Is the output per worker metric adjusted for inflation? And does it take into account that there are fewer manufacturing jobs today than there were then?

ralgoran 11y ago

I agree with what you're saying but just a note on style -- You may want to consider substituting the word 'colored' for a more modern (and maybe more politically correct) word like 'diverse'

chetanahuja 11y ago
I think @TheMagicHorsey's sentence in question is actually talking about the multiple colors of people's faces, I don't find it offensive in that sense. Though you have a point that the word's history has unpleasant connotations. I might have paused and looked hard for perhaps a different word to convey the same meaning.... say, "multihued" or "heterogenous" or something.
- ralgoran 11y ago
  That's how I interpreted it too. I was not offended but thought he may want to reconsider his wording in the future because the connotation. I guess the downvote was because my pendantic and unsubstantial comment was of low signal:noise ratio for the HN discussion
- mreiland 11y ago
  the context made it obvious that he wasn't speaking about blacks, especially in light of the responder stating he meant "diverse", which he did. There was nothing wrong with the wording.

cinquemb 11y ago

>Employment isn't the goal of an economy. Production is. We can give people a basic income if necessary, if robots are doing everything. But we shouldn't artificially boost employment where it isn't needed. How would you say that fits with the whole fake jobs in europe?[0] Would you classify it as artificially boosted employment (or at least the allocation of resources for tasks where the production value is arguably zero for any individual beyond the person doing the task, than say, allocating resources for construction of CSP plants to bring down costs of electricity for everyone in the medium-long term)? If so, it seems some nation states might differ in what they think the goal of the economy is for. [0] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/business/international/in-europe-fake-jobs-can-have-real-benefits.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/31/business/international/in-...

supercanuck 11y ago

Everytime, I read hacker news comments, I feel like the folks in Silicon Valley are dense to the fact that there is an entirely different IT Industry out there providing services to Fortune 500's that are not Google, Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon and other technology companies. etc. Cringley is talking about the technology companies who provide technology services to the other companies, not customer facing companies. >All the colored faces in Google and Facebook aren't there because they are accepting less money than American graduates No they are definitely not, but they ARE at Verizon, Disney and ExxonMobil.

mc32 11y ago
They are also at the companies founded by local arms of foreign companies. I've observed Chinese companies paying Chinese speaking workers and Indian founded companies paying Indian nationals less than they paid Americans (of varying ethnicities). On my limited observation, this practice is not uncommon. And, as we know, small and medium sized biz employ more people than do large firms. This wage variance is little mentioned but quite prevalent. Same as the hole in the wall taco joint run by foreign nationals, they tend to exploit their own the most taking advantage of national affinity or whatever.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
- supercanuck 11y ago
  He does make a distinction, but this is a case of people hearing what they want to hear. He says HP and IBM half a dozen times, and uses the Airline industry as an analogy, so then why would the reader draw the conclusion that he means Google and Facebook? Does that comparison even make sense? I doubt Googlers refer themselves as "IT Professionals." I'd even go so far as to think they may consider the title a bit insulting and at the very least wince a bit, at being referred to as such.
TheMagicHorsey 11y ago
I've never heard a good argument for why we should allow cheap foreign t-shirts into the country but not cheap foreign workers. Is it even a good idea to allow in cheap lumber, oil, rubber, tea ... if we can't allow in cheap labor? What arguments apply to the former, but not to the latter? In terms of inputs to generate national wealth, there is not much technical distinction between cheap raw materials and cheap labor--although possibly there is an effect on human beings. Cato Institute's studies would suggest that immigration--especially H1B immigration has not had an appreciable effect on American wages. But lets say that Cato is wrong .... even so ... the problem that must be solved is making sure that the gains from cheap inputs for growth are spread across everyone, and not concentrated only amongst a few. We should discuss things basic income. Not cutting off cheap inputs. Making more for less is not inherently bad. Ultimately tariffs and labor controls are all along a sliding scale towards closed borders. The ones that make the most noise are insulated the most from external competition. But the insulation is not good for the rest of consumers in America ... only for the noise makers. And even for them, I don't think its good ... as auto unions in Detroit will tell you ... eventually reality catches up no matter how much Washington does to insulate you from the world. I don't think a country is better off with closed borders. Various countries have tried that in history (Tokugawa Japan, China before the Opium wars, etc.) I think if everyone is trading and competing, and you isolate yourself behind tall walls, the world leaves you behind. On a small scale that happened to our auto industry. Too much insulation from hot competition is bad in the long run. You might wake up from your Rip Van Winkle nap and find that decades later your technology and society are woefully outdated.

pdkl95 11y ago

> Employment isn't the goal of an economy. Production is. That is more or less a tautology; it's also not a particularly useful observation - the economy only of metrics by which to judge a society. Pretending that only the economy (via wages, stock prices, GDP, or other measurements) is one of the more damaging things to happen to the world over the last ~50 year or so. Which bring me to my main point - did you even read the article? This article wasn't about employment, nor was it about some sort of neo-ludditie anti-technology crusade. It also wasn't claiming anything about the current size of the tech industry. This article was about the popular fallacy - propaganda, really - that the only thing that should matter to a business is "maximizing shareholder value". This has never been any sort of legal requirement, and - as described in the article - since the 70s. Regardless of what anybody's wishful thinking about what the effects of focusing on "maximizing shareholder value ought to be, the de facto results are to allow owners and high-level management to basically steal the wages of most of their workers. It's nothing more than a cheap excuse to justify greed. As the article shows with examples like the old airline industry, extravagant waste can lead to lead very rapid changes when a new competitor notices what's going on and decides to exploit the money being left on the table by the traditional industry by being more efficient (what the tech industry likes to call "disruption"). You may notice that this about a management problem, and is not specific to the software, electronics, manufacturing, IT, or any other industry. The main prediction made in the article is all about how basing your business on such an obvious fallacy is bad business. The airlines were a good example, and like the old airlines, the big IBM-type businesses had better start paying attention to things like customer service (stop treating disrespecting customers) and making high-quality products people actually want to pay for. Failure to do so will simply leave a vacuum where a competor (asia?) will race them to the bottom. The bottom doesn't have much profit in it, when modern technology keeps reducing costs to almost nothing. Now, you do bring up a useful point: there wil always be IT work. Not that this does not necessarily extend to any other kinds of tech work (i.e. software). This is because IT is a trade, and will will always need it for the same reason we will always need plubers. While an interesting topic, the article was about the likely fall of the big industry player.

tim333 11y ago

>This guy is not smart. On the other hand Warren Buffett who has a reputation as one of the smartest guys in business is buying more IBM stock than any other stock at the moment, over $13bn worth, his largest ever position by purchase cost. I'd put my money on it doing OK rather than dying just based on the above. I'm not sure Cringely's assertions such as: >IBM and HP (my go-to examples lately) are failing to recognize that a big part of their business has become a commodity. >IBM ignores 99 percent of its workforce >Do you think IBM respects its customers? They don’t. edit: There's an interview here with the IBM CEO which contradicts most of Cringely's points https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9brTt_eLPo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9brTt_eLPo etc are actually based on evidence rather than him just assuming that.

s73v3r 11y ago

"Employment isn't the goal of an economy." I would highly disagree with this. And the later assertion that we could use basic income, especially given the political climate in the US.