YC: Requests for Startups

I find it strange that they would write "The hollowing out of US manufacturing has led to social and political division and left us in a precarious place geopolitically." And then suggest the answer to that is robotics and ML, which does nothing but exacerbate the social and political divisions - unless government and enterprise make the hard choices to provide a real safety net. And then, if we do that, it doesn't matter if the US is excelling in manufacturing as a source of revenue or not - providing revenue to fund these programs is coming in from somewhere, the source is far less important.

Well, the point isn't to stop the social and political division. The point is stop the geopolitical precariousness.

> My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it, and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that.

There are two factors to consider though.

On the one hand, you're correct that it does nothing for the American worker to bring manufacturing back if it means huge buildings with skeleton crews and machines that effectively run themselves. I don't particularly have a solution for this. Americans have gotten used to the price of goods being artificially low because of inexpensive labor in impoverished countries. Unless we want to take a manufacturing approach akin to Germany or the Nordic countries, focusing on high quality precision built or luxury items, we simply can't produce goods at commodity prices while both paying people enough to live well on and producing the kind of profit that is required by investors. So that's where YC sees machines as solving that conflict, at no benefit to working people.

That said, there is the advantage that we have seen how fragile the global JIT supply chain is to disruptions. Either political, environmental or just plain Acts of God like COVID. Having goods produced much closer to where they're consumed is something I think every country needs to invest in. Especially for goods that aren't just nice-to-haves but necessary for basic functioning of society. Things like construction and repair materials, medicines, medical devices, etc. I support building up a greater local resilience over global dependence, especially what with climate change on the horizon.

I wish we could do this in a way that meant good blue collar jobs with strong benefits and union wages. But you can't ever expect a investors YC to take that path.

I would suggest that our geopolitical precariousness comes from our social divisions. I doubt Russia, China, or anyone else will ever be able to invade.

But if the losers of globalism keep getting purposefully shortchanged I can more easily foresee them deciding to change the system by force.

I don't think that's a terribly likely outcome, but much more likely than Red Dawn.

Our social divisions means they don't have to invade in order to unseat the U.S. as a global superpower.

Manufacturing today (even overseas) is very different than what it was in the great off-shoring. The status quo has changed & won't be coming back -- automation is now the norm. But still, the multiplier effect for manufacturing is massive: For every $1 of economic output, it generates somewhere between $2-$3 of GDP -- and that is heavily centered in the community housing the factory. It's much better for a distributed society than many other sectors that tend to exfiltrate GDP.

I'm going to guess that whatever is able to heal social and political (ie economic) divide won't come from capital lol—maybe the next depression might put the work in.

> And then suggest the answer to that is robotics and ML, which does nothing but exacerbate the social and political divisions

Maybe it does those things. But clearly it doesnt do “nothing but” those things. It brings manufacturing back which is the entire point. I really think you’re ignoring the whole point to go off on a highly partisan political tangent.

> On the one hand, you're correct that it does nothing for the American worker to bring manufacturing back if it means huge buildings with skeleton crews and machines that effectively run themselves.

This seems analogous to the transition from bespoke manufacturing of goods to mass production.

I think what we need is leadership that can get people excited, in good faith, about a future where small groups of people can produce goods for orders of magnitude less capital, effort, etc. with robotics, ML, and other tech.

Today a popular dystopian narrative of tech is that it’s being deployed by the elite to enrich themselves and build moats around their fiefdoms. Feudalism doesn’t get pluralities excited. How can that mainstream narrative be changed in a manner that makes people clearly understand how they can be a beneficiary instead of an exploit?

>It brings manufacturing back

It is completely unsurprising to me that those making this nonsense claim never accept the burden of proof. If they did, it would only further reveal that they are pushing total bullshit.

> Feudalism doesn’t get pluralities excited, so how does that mainstream narrative change in a manner that feels like everybody is part of the journey instead of an exploit?

The problem is not the need for a narrative change. The need is actual change.

I don’t understand what you are trying to say but “bringing manufacturing back” is the starting premise. He already begets bringing it back.

Its not that automation necessarily brings back manufacturing, its that if it does its not only going to increase social and political division.

> It brings manufacturing back which is the entire point.

If the point is to bring back manufacturing salaries in the quantity and amount previously available, it's not the entire point.

Is the narrative incorrect though? I feel like the underlying situation is described pretty well by that narrative in most cases. Inequality has increased pretty massively since tech has taken over the economy

Maybe take a crack at it, what is incorrect with the "feudalism" narrative? what is the better way of framing it that you're implying exists?

"Actual change" implies that all tech is complicit in feudalism, which isn't categorically true. That doesn't matter though because enough tech companies have engaged in activities that lead to the narratives we regularly see today.

Yes, there is "actual change" that's needed by a lot of actors in tech, but that alone won't be enough. Ideally we see both "actual change" and "narrative change" happen in tandem that get people excited about the future.

I think this is an interesting take and something I've been relatively close to personally. I have a family member who owns one of those 100k Brother CNC machines, a robotic arm and some vice clamps and is starting a small manufacturing business with it out of his garage. While this isn't something that an average American can do, it can allow distribution of manufacturing to places that don't need a 500 acre lot, and with more small time manufacturing operations popping up competing with each other, can bring down the price of creating purely made-in-America products.

It's both correct and incorrect at the same time and both "sides" are "right".

Let's look at "Inequality has increased pretty massively". One anecdote paints a picture of billionaires getting richer and wages of the working class stagnating. Another narrative paints the opposite picture that tech has brought billions of people out of extreme poverty over the past few decades. Both are true and can be supported by data.

I haven't quite put it into words yet, but I think the key to a narrative that gets people excited about the future is one that makes it very concrete how people will benefit.

I do regularly see gaps that I find unsatisfying, which I think is a better place for me to start so I'll take a crack at that:x

Often I see tech people saying things like, "in the future we'll be doing amazing things that we can't even imagine yet". This scares the hell out of people who don't understand tech. We need more people to understand tech, but I'm not sure how. Education seems like a logical place to start, which gets into very complicated socioeconomic factors.

Another thing I've seen lately is e/acc disparaging opponents as "deccels". Regardless of that being true or not, it's not going to get people excited about the future and instead builds up a group of antagonists. That said, I'm not sure if e/acc is trying to be a diplomatic or political movement, but I think improving the messaging here would be helpful.

I think about this a lot and hope to one day put into words a more satisfying answer to this problem.

Mass manufacturing is cheap because of economiea of scale, that means large volumes. The best a small shop can achieve, and that can be highly profitable if done right, is small batches, prototyping or serving as a sub-contractor for the big ones.

None of which actually drives final product prices dibe, and is already done extensively.

> it does nothing for the American worker to bring manufacturing back if it means huge buildings with skeleton crews and machines that effectively run themselves

I don't think that right. It still means goods are being produced in America, which means:

1. Greater security of production against geopolitical threats, and

2. More goods being produced overall, meaning cheaper goods.

Even without significant employment, those are good things!

> Greater security of production against geopolitical threats

I address this in the second paragraph.

> More goods being produced overall, meaning cheaper goods.

I'm not convinced cheaper, more abundant goods are the top problem to solve right now. Especially as wants get cheaper, needs are getting much more expensive. And low and stagnant wages at the bottom means survival becomes increasingly difficult, despite cheaper candy and toys.

I see what you mean, I will say that in people's lived day to day experience and happiness relative wealth matters a lot. I'm not sure it's fair to say both are "right" in the sense of you're just talking about different groups of people.

If people are more wealthy on some kind of absolute scale but they can no longer have the financial security to compete and secure a mate they're probably not going to be happy about it regardless of what underlying material net increases have been.

For example, I think if you're a white man in US (probably true for other groups just don't want to speak on things I don't have much experience with) and you aren't into education or computers you're _correct_ to be anti-tech. All it will mean is continuing degradation in your quality of life and feelings of self worth

This is actually going to go the other way. Too many people did this. The median job shop size in the US is 9 people. The capital equipment is very inefficiently utilized and the industry is generally technologically behind. It will soon consolidate around the firms that can apply technology effectively.

This is only true with the current level of technology adoption. The economic lot size will trend towards a single unit as technology adoption improves.

These things don't live in a vacuum. Those big skeleton crew shops open the door to innovation at higher levels of abstraction in the supply chain.

Namely, it requires more of a model basis - materials and tolerances in the 3D model. That enables better design automation and things like defined mechanical interfaces in a machine readable format. Think DARPA FANG/AVM. It also includes a mathematically sound definition or approximation of GD&T.

End result is fewer firms, fewer employees, more productivity and lower lot sizes. That means more efficiency and adaptability with higher wages and more intense training.

It also means that designing, making and selling things becomes less capital intensive. In theory every mechanically inclined person can be creating solutions. Hardware gets a little closer to looking like software because open source can be a real thing. Etc.

There is no technology that makes lot size one economically viable so. TPs has it as a goal, but hardly ever achieves that.

And even then, we talk about the lot size of one production order. Economies of scale apply to the overall output of a plant, not individual production orders...