←back to thread

YC: Requests for Startups

(www.ycombinator.com)
514 points sarimkx | 3 comments | | HN request time: 0.001s | source
Show context
itsdavesanders ◴[] No.39372694[source]
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.
replies(5): >>39372742 #>>39372892 #>>39373134 #>>39373138 #>>39373175 #
prisenco ◴[] No.39372892[source]
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.

replies(2): >>39373177 #>>39374551 #
1. dukeyukey ◴[] No.39374551[source]
> 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!

replies(1): >>39374863 #
2. prisenco ◴[] No.39374863[source]
> 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.

replies(1): >>39378831 #
3. jaredmclaughlin ◴[] No.39378831[source]
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.