US Intel

If I may add my view as a formerly high-achieving semiconductor worker that Intel would benefit greatly from having right now, a lot of us pivoted to software and machine learning to earn more money. My first 2 years as a software engineer earned me more RSUs than a decade in semiconductors. Semiconductors is not prestigious work in the U.S., despite the strategic importance. By contrast, it is highly respected and relatively well remunerated in the countries doing well in it.

From this lens, the silver lining of the software layoffs going on may be to stem the bleeding of semiconductor workers to the field. If Intel were really smart, they’d be hiring more right now the people they couldn’t get or retain 3-5 years ago

If Intel were well managed they would purge like 2/3rs of the managers and anyone in the bottom 50th percentile and then pay whatever it takes to get people skilled in their core industry back, training the remaining people as necessary to fill in gaps for the future.

They literally cannot have a culture that encourages the now-traditional job hopping that is so pervasive in American business culture. They can't afford it.

Also moved from the semiconductor industry to software, 30 years ago. Much more money.

We have developed an economy oriented around selling one another websites, and we are only belatedly noticing that none of our enemies seem to have followed.

Similar, My major in university was computer engineering (as opposed to pure CS or EE) because I wasn't sure if I wanted to go into a hardware or software profession. I ended up going with software since all the interesting opportunities were there, whereas most jobs in hardware seemed to be working for stodgy old companies barely making six figures if I was lucky.

It’s ridiculous. It’s so easy to find VC funding for software but heaven forbid you try and make agricultural innovations. Biotech is slightly better but still a struggle. Hardware only counts right now if it’s defense tech but even then people would rather have another SaaS.

Historically Intel has engaged in illegal wage suppression. Now we bail them out for their crimes.

This was a poor business decision for exactly the reasons you’re pointing out. The market is dictating their failure and we’re now undermining it.

Yeah seeing the innovations DJI is making in agriculture makes me wonder why VCs do not want to fund other startups like it. I know the margins are worse and it takes way more capital to fund hardware companies, but that has to be better than funding another chat-gpt wrapper. I guess that is why I am not a VC though lol.

They're just hard. What is the US robotics startup that you would use as an example of success? iRobot? It barely broke even.

Who gets to determine the bottom 50th percentile?

A16Z gets a lot of guff for their bad politics, but their "American dynamism" portfolio, if a little defense heavy, seems great

Let’s not forget here that Chinese companies operate some of—if not the—most popular social networks in the world. WeChat and TikTok/Douyin are enormous.

(Also, in neither country is the majority of its GDP comprised of websites.)

We have a massive and diversified economy - I suspect you are overgeneralizing from things adjacent to your niche in it.

How is boston dynamics doing? They do very cool stuff but it feels like they struggle commercializing their technology. I remember they were once bought by google I think? And then spat out...

Amen brother! And the work-life conditions are also much better in software. I remember in grad school an executive from a big semiconductor company (I think it was ON semi) was complaining to the EE department that most students are now pursuing EE as a CS degree and very few went into hardware so they claimed the talent pool was small.

How about paying more then?

Show me the incentive and I'll show you the outcome.

When I interviewed at intel the position they were offering was to be the "owner" of a tool and I'd be on call.... Yeah no thanks, I get a PhD just to be owned by some company?

South Korea got to it: https://www.hyundai.com/worldwide/en/brand-journal/mobility-...

What 'enemies'?

The infrastructure to rapidly iterate and manufacture just isn’t here anymore, so everything costs significantly more to the point where we’re noncompetitive. Even VCs with no experience see the top line numbers for hardware startups and nope out.

Contrast this with biotech venture capital which has been doing well for decades, often investing more capital in a year than software VCs. The difference is that all the research, clinical trial, and manufacturing expertise is already here and concentrated in a few localities like South San Francisco, San Diego, and Boston.

it doesn't really matter as long as you retain the top 10% who do 90% of the work.

only in software there's a clear, tried and tested multiple times path for 1000x ROI for an investor. thermodynamics themselves limit ROI for anything physical.

haven't been reading history much, have you?

same - left the industry after 2 years. Made more as a startup founder while working better hours.

It's not just the pay, a fab operates 24x7x365 and how management turns that into work practices and life for employees.

I once interviewed at a fab that offered 'better work life balance'...and what they meant was you weren't allowed to access any email or information off site so they couldn't bug you as much. In reality, it just meant you had to actually go in to the plant if anythign went wrong.

Geopolitical rivals then if you prefer that.

I'd say that VC funding may be an inappropriate tool for that. VCs want you to either grow fast, or fail fast. Not necessarily to bring profit fast, but to visibly capture the market (see Uber). Move fast, break things, rework things every week, trigger that wave of sign-ups.

Agriculture is much slower, every iteration may be is a year, or (in tropical climates) half a year. Microelectronics is comparably slow, and even more unforgiving about making mistakes. Building robots does not scale ls easily as producing chips, let alone software.

These areas need a different model of investment, with a longer horizon, slower growth, less influence of fads, better understanding of fundamentals. In some areas, DARPA provided such investment, with a good rate of success.

You forgot the most important thing about A16Z portfolios: they look great at the beginning of a bubble, and then... https://www.wsj.com/articles/andreessen-horowitz-went-all-in...

Yes but the Chinese state is much more willing to direct capital to where it thinks it should go. The argument w.r.t. geopolitics is usually that the US is late to doing this and now lacks production capacity which is useful for competing.

I think you glossed over the question

I think this is an "and," not a "but." Your statement and mine aren't in conflict.

Amen, software sucked all the talent out of the hardware room. When you write the pros and cons of software vs hardware, pretty much the only positive on the hardware side is a subjective "it's more fun".

Generally, the answer is management via performance reviews.

To fund a software start-up you need 5 people and 5 laptops to get to tens of millions of value.

To fund a similar sized hardware start-up you need a full lab andddd already the proposition is dead.

Honestly, I don’t think US wages make sense any longer. We have extraordinarily profitable semi companies that don’t pay more than a third of what non profitable startups are paying software engineers.

The issue seems to be one of negotiation power as the determinate of wages taken to an extreme - leading to companies taking a monopoly position, paying poorly, then falling to foreign competition due to lack of talent.

Billions for fast food delivery apps, not a dime for defense or sustainable agriculture.

So current management, who had proven incapable of running a business, will be trusted to ignore past political games and just retain talent? That's certainly a take

The countries producing semiconductors and manufacturing other goods are also producing SaaS services. It's not unique to the United States.

The number of countries producing leading edge semiconductors is actually small. The number of companies doing this work is very small, too. Although much of the economy needs chips to operate, those leading chips are concentrated in the production of a very small number of companies.

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. Way easier to iterate when you have access to a machine shop vs having to upload a CAD file and have a part shipped from another country.

> Billions for fast food delivery apps, not a dime for defense or sustainable agriculture

Defense venture capital funding is literally in the billions and has resilient even in a broader VC pullback: https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/news-insight...

Anduril?

The gap between hardware and software salaries has been strangely stubborn.

I started in hardware and pivoted to software for the same reason: It's easier to find higher paying jobs.

It's been strange to see the gap persist at companies that cling to salary data for compensation decisions. Incredible to see companies complain about not being able to find good hardware talent but then also refuse to pay hardware hires at the same level as software hires.

How about those folks actively engaging in behavior that damages the US?

Greed. You’re describing greed. The folks at the top of the pile in the US seemingly all have hoarding disorder. Very little of what they do appears rational… unless you concede their actions are meant to harm the general wellbeing of the US. population, while themselves being nicely insulated from all that.

It mirrors the 8-10x multiple that you can command in your valuation for ARR.

It's about risk / reward, and patient capital. Within 10 years I am probably going to sell my SaaS business a very rich man, and I am going to self-fund a new company in hardware and / or manufacturing. America has made so many talented people wealthy very quickly over the past 2 decades, and as the low-hanging software fruit is ever-harder to find, the skilled entrepreneurs will look for new things do to, and more of us will get into hardware.

It shouldn’t be that way though. Venture capital is only for SaaS? It should be for technology in general. But the IRR demands are too much so it concentrates to SaaS.

I see your point, but isn't it fair to say Intel is too big to fail?

Not in the "lots of people would lose jobs" or "ripple effects would cause economic disruption" but in the true national security sense. What allied semiconductor manufacturers have significant cutting edge fabs in Europe?

In that regard, US is obviously Europe's enemy, isn't it ? ;-) :-D

We need regulation around how VCs work. They are in a house flipping game and nothing more, slapping on a bad kitchen remodel and then handing the hot potato onto the next sucker.

"I saw the best minds of my generation writing spam filters" - Neal Stephenson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TE0n_5qPmRM

Yeah, it's almost as if prioritizing returns on investment over EVERYTHING!!! else has bad side-effects for the economy as a whole.

It's only be a short term thing, because fundamentally software is more profitable because it's much less costly to scale. And individual developers have more bargaining power, because they can own the "means of production", while the means of production for hardware is much more expensive.

Skild, Physical Intelligence

So many of the VC's doing the funding got rich of software and web stuff.

They don't know anything else.

you think on call doesn't exist in software? its a common squeeze and replace w h1b tool

There are extraordinarily highly paying semi firms in the US, but neither Intel nor AMD fit that mould unfortunately.

I’ve never understood why that’s the case; they are also high leverage jobs where a few can do extraordinary work and be rewarded thus. Look at Nvidia. Their employees are well compensated and they stay and the company does fantastically.

We have met they enemy and they are ours.

Too bad Hyundai is betting on hydrogen... Thats basically dead in the water.

IMO the company can fail. It’s the people, facilities and equipment that matter. Those can get picked up by a company or companies that know how to use them.

Secondarily, a TSMC fab on US soil seems like a better investment. In the catastrophic event that Taiwan were invaded — it’s still people, facilities and equipment that remain here.

There isn't even anyone here competing with eg JLCPCB just for PCBs let alone all the other prototyping stuff. It makes sense, somehow China is able to do it for less than the materials cost.

I think that's why most people just aren't that upset about tariffs. It would be nice to be able to participate in our own economy other than by grifting off real estate or software.

VC capital is like a detonator. It seeks explosives, and when it finds them, produces spectacular fireworks that illuminate the entire industry, or even the entire world. It also ends up with a lot of duds, but it's OK by them.

What VC capital is not interested in is regular fuel, which can burn steadily and expand gradually, without a shock wave. Such companies can be quite important. Say, GitHub was such a company for many years, before it took a large VC investment and got acquired MS. Investing in such companies requires much more diligence and foresight, maybe too much predictive power to work at mass scale.

VCs' math only works because a single 1000x hit easily pays for a hundred of duds. If ROI per hit is 2-3x, and research required is 10x more deep, the prospects likely start to seem too bleak for folks with billions seeking return.

> There are extraordinarily highly paying semi firms in the US, but neither Intel nor AMD fit that mould unfortunately.

Who pays more than Intel?

In this context, semiconductor jobs is referring to people actually involved with developing the fab - so Nvidia/Apple/AMD don't count.

> It’s the people, facilities and equipment that matter. Those can get picked up by a company or companies that know how to use them.

This trope keeps getting repeated on HN.

No, the point of the top level comment and article is that no US based company will replace Intel's fabs, nor will they form a "better" Intel. This stuff is intensely capital intensive, and nothing short of a government mandate will make any other company spend so much money on such a big risk.

Trust me - if they could have, they would have. Intel's fabs have pretty much been up for sale since Pat was ousted.

The only companies that know how to use the people and the equipment are not US based. TSMC already had an opportunity to buy much of Intel's fabs, and they concluded that shifting their process to match TSMCs would be cost prohibitive.

> it doesn't really matter as long as you retain the top 10% who do 90% of the work.

This isn't SW. Those ratios don't exist in the HW world.

(And to be frank, it's a myth in SW too).

Thermodynamics is also the limiter in AI these days.

Worked as a SW engineer for over a decade. Never did on-call.

Not all SW jobs are web related.

Exactly the same for me.

It's made me one of the only leaders in my Software Org that actually knows what happens below the level of the instruction set. I can talk about the power and heat implications of algorithmic decisions. But mostly nobody cares, theres always enough money to buy more servers.

It seems really unlikely so many elements of American society decided to prioritize returns simultaneously… but more like those who didn’t… eventually couldn’t compete anymore and left the market.

Leaving behind only those completely focused on returns.

Sometimes, there's lasers.

Because there’s many ways to raise capital, but very few ways to get talent.

You’re arguing about logistics under the current economic rules while simultaneously defending a change of rules.

When you put that on the table, then there’s a lot more ways to overcome the obstacles of today that aren’t being discussed.

If a company’s management becomes a risk to national interests, then giving them more money with no added oversight is not really solving anything.

These ads ain't gonna show themselves.

Oh I agree that this may not be a solution.

Where I disagree is that if Intel fails, something better (US based) will replace them. It won't.

Exactly. If any, the US is one of those countries everybody else is afraid of. Americans may be proud of that, but that’s pure bullying.

Indeed. People have forgotten the word traitor.

Certainly they’re the enemy of this administration.

I'd reframe that slightly. There is a vast foundation of stable, optimized businesses that are in commoditized/low-growth ares. They function as the underpinnings of the American economy.

When turning the spotlight to capital that is seeking returns, it is true that these areas may be mediocre places to deploy fresh capital, but it doesn't mean that these players aren't competing, and they will probably be cranking out sheet metal and port cargo logistics optimization well after 90% of the AI startups fold.

The caveat is of course Private Equity, which is about 10 trillion in assets. They can derive high returns from these areas, but it requires leverage.

Why not just let it play out in their own arena? We already had the major unwind with the interest rate hikes. The tide went out and the players with their pants off were exposed for the most part.

That said, allowing VC into 401ks and such I would agree is an abominable idea, because this stuff isn't marked properly until it is in distress. Actually, that area could use better regulation. Volatility laundering is already a systemic risk. Many of these vehicles have creative ways to not mark to their market value, which makes pension fund managers and leered participants happy because it greatly improves the perceived risk metrics and performance, at the equal expense of cloaked fragility.

But perhaps just let them have a thunderdome, and if they want to breach the walls and enter areas like retirement funds where society agrees standard are higher, there is a strong set of filters/regulations that must be adhered to.

Same for me except I never started. Graduated EE and went straight into software. Not just higher pay, but also a hell of a lot more jobs available, especially to new grads.

So the greatest military force in the world now needs to fight the war on

...

adblockers?

If we're already into the realm of the US government taking huge equity stakes and forming state corporations, maybe they could help form a new JV after a theoretical Intel failure. That's no less major a step to take.

In the scenario where Intel fails (which would primarily be centered around defaulting on the 50 billion of debt that they built up and can barely service), the US gov could offer strong tax incentives to players who want to form up a new national fab company. Give it favored status essentially (again, if the US is already crossing fairly extreme lines of having US state owned corporations, this doesn't seem so extreme in comparison).

You already have Private Equity interests that are starting to consume Intel. Ex: some of the new fabs are funded by Brookstone, and they have sold off a portion of the profit from the venture, and then collateralized the transaction with the hard assets and put Private Equity at the top of the bankruptcy cap stack.

I think that if the US gave some incentives, the pieces would fall into place extremely quickly. PE would do the actual capital funding in a heartbeat if they had sweetheart tax incentives, and Japan/SK/TSMC would also get involved. Presumably - given the style of the current admin - the "deal" would be "you get favored status by taking part in this project. We will give strong tax benefits to also drive profit. If you turn it down, expect to see tariffs and calls go unanswered while your competition has a direct line."

Beyond Meat also hit 15 billion market cap at peak.

I think this is more of an Intel problem than a general semi industry problem. I work for Arm and I’m compensated better than when I worked at Microsoft (although it’s partly due to stock appreciation after the IPO). But I’ve also heard that Broadcom has top-teir RSU grants as well, and even AMD is more competitive than Intel.

Same boat. The pay was mediocre, the hours were bad and far too many, and the company used cyclical demand to keep us in perpetual fear of layoffs. Mandatory pager carry 24/7/365 unless I was on vacation out of town. Rotating weekend coverage. Rotating holiday coverage. First couple of years were 12 hour shifts on my feet, then I went to process integration and did endless meetings instead.

I loved, still love, the actual technology of semiconductor fabrication, but you’d have to pay me 8x what I was making for me to go back to the business of semiconductor fabrication.

In every workplace I've been, I end up thinking 50% of people here could be gone tomorrow and nothing would change.

But the real trick is filtering precisely the 50% you want.

VCs are happy to send a vast majority of their investments in search for billion-dollar company. There is no chance to get an agricultural startup to billion dollar valuation, agricultural innovations don't scale at a click of a button.

Yes, which is why people who use and advocate for "general purpose computing" will find themselves on terrorist watchlists.

And welcome to the "fun" world of Stack Ranking.

If they are "too big to fail" then they shouldn't exist because they are also a national security issue. Either let them fall apart and fund everyone but them, or split them apart into multiple companies with new leadership.

Presumably the same management that is proposed to be axed en masse with the 50% they are now tasked with selecting...

China taking Taiwan might finally force us to get our act together.

They should plan more long term. In an economic downturn like after 2000, all these nonsense valuations for vaporware are going to go to the center of the earth. And all signs point to another downturn for the next decade.

https://www.currentmarketvaluation.com/models/s&p500-mean-re...

I'm p convinced that this push for age verification using govt IDs & debit/cc tx is the death rattle of the rampant ad fraud that has sustained the tech bubble

They also have battery electric cars. The Hyundai Ioniq and Kia EV vehicles are quite popular.

  It was also the Korean automaker’s best July sales month since launching its first vehicle in 1986.

  The growth was mainly driven by electrified vehicles, including EVs and hybrids (HEVs).

https://electrek.co/2025/08/01/hyundai-ioniq-5-shatters-us-s...

I've read a lot of history, especially 1930s European history and see a ton of parallels to America in 2025.

Is that the particular one you're referring to?

Not necessarily the real limiter, right now, is finding a combination useful and profitable application. Simply charging money for generalized AI access is never going to be the ideal profit center.

People in this thread act like VC is the only way to raise capital. Ever heard of getting a business loan? Even a lot of companies in the Valley could probably get one more easily than they might think, if they're profitable. You don't have to give up equity either.

Let's flip it. Direct reports get to vote on whether they would be better off without their manager.

>Simply charging money for generalized AI access is never going to be the ideal profit center.

Exactly. Margins are dropping rapidly: https://ethanding.substack.com/p/openai-burns-the-boats

I don't see any reason in principle why a $1B+ exit wouldn't be possible.

This YCW18 ag company was acquired less than 3 years in by John Deere for $250M: https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/05/john-deere-buys-autonomous...

>Americans may be proud of that, but that’s pure bullying.

It's slightly weird to me how foreigners seem to look on the Trump era as personifying the US to a greater degree than e.g. the Biden or Obama eras. Trump is not especially popular right now: https://www.economist.com/interactive/trump-approval-tracker

Worth distinguishing between actively engaging in harmful behavior, and "failing to help". The Europeans have taken the US for granted for so long that when the US is only Ukraine's #1 donor country in absolute terms by far, their main response is to complain that even more help should be offered, and pretend the US is somehow hurting them.

https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s...

Keep in mind that Ukraine is literally on the opposite side of the world from us. What's Brazil doing for Ukraine? What's Australia doing?

As an American, I consistently argue that the US should not ally with Europe here on HN. But even I don't argue in favor of actively working to harm Europe. I just think we should cut Europe loose, because nothing we do for Europe will ever be enough, and Europe is a wealthy region that's plenty capable of providing for itself.

And before you say anything about tariffs (which are paid by US companies btw), read this article: https://archive.is/MxUAa See also https://archive.is/WQQ45

Fully agree.

I feel like anything relevantly practical is denied investment.

But when it comes to anything flashy and hip, a train of dump trucks filled with cash couldn’t deliver money as quick as the VC dollars that flow into to startups with no business model and no hope of being profitable…

Yeah, I get that startups should invest profits and not actually make profits for a while… But when they’re on their 4th round of funding with thousands of employees… shouldn’t they at least try to be a bit more financially responsible?

That's the thing with knowing thing other people don't; they might not be able to appreciate it.

Yeah, but how does one get a business loan, with real stuff at stake, when VCs are burning money like there’s no tomorrow?

I especially dislike the way VC funded startups use VC dollars to effectively be a “loss leaders” for years to choke out the rest of the market.

Who wants to risk their own capital or privately pooled funds against THAT?

>how does one get a business loan, with real stuff at stake

Show them your finances and collateral to demonstrate that you'll be able to pay off the loan.

>I especially dislike the way VC funded startups use VC dollars to effectively be a “loss leaders” for years to choke out the rest of the market.

It's a fair point, but it's a point which does not apply to the industries we are discussing, which do not receive VC investment.

I actually really like your point about Masayoshi Son-style investments which are just an attempt to entrench a monopoly. I'm no socialist, but if socialists called for identifying and taxing such investments, I wouldn't object. The trick is to distinguish between the WeWorks of the world, and the Boom Supersonic type companies which genuinely need gobs of capital for breakthrough innovation.

What's the point of democracy if people are absolved by simply claiming "not my president". Trump isn't a surprise elected first time.

>What's the point of democracy if people are absolved by simply claiming "not my president".

I don't believe collective punishment or collective guilt was ever the point of democracy, sorry.

What's the point of moral reasoning, if people can blame others for events they didn't cause, simply by saying the word "democracy"?

Letting them have their own thunderdome is regulation. It means they don't get to pee in our pool. I am all for a freemarket, but it needs to be kept in a cage match.

And for some reason Europe is always excused from that standard, despite Orban, Fico, Meloni, Wilders, Nawrocki, Erdogan, etc etc.

We're meant to believe that the 49%-to-48% election of Trump is some deep window into the eternal American psyche, but Orban's fifteen-year drive into corrupt, racist autocracy, endorsed by the voters at every turn, is just some sort of very temporary oopsie that says nothing at all about Europe.

When Meloni uses her pulpit as a popular Italian prime minister to attack gay families, you don't see anyone claiming this reflects the bullying nature of the Italian people, but that's par for the course for coverage of Americans and Trump. Swathes of Poland declaring themselves "gay free zones" is an aberration from European values, whereas anything that happens in deepest Alabama is the truest reflection of the American spirit.

It's mere hypocrisy.

Don't forget France.

The far-right party is most popular by far: https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/france/

The majority of second-round polling has the far right winning the next presidency in France, potentially even by a landslide: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2027_F...

For that reason, it's rather ironic to me when I see Europeans rally around Macron. France is poised to rug-pull Europe. Sorry guys.

BTW, guess which party is most popular in the UK? It's not particularly close: https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/united-kingdom/

At least AfD is merely a very close #2 in Germany: https://www.politico.eu/europe-poll-of-polls/germany/

Europe is sleepwalking.

You're completely ignoring the vast amounts thrown into a marketing funnel in an attempt to acquire customers for their usually meh products.

And engineering teams usually scale up with revenue as well.

I feel like your numbers are the myth that gets told not what actually often happens

Hyundai is a massive conglomerate doing a ton of different things. Having a side bet on hydrogen isn't bad, especially considering it's potential potential in applications such as aviation.

I am yet to see a round of "cut the bottom 10%" that didn't end up also cutting a bunch of top 5% staff.

> It's slightly weird to me how foreigners seem to look on the Trump era as personifying the US to a greater degree than e.g. the Biden or Obama eras.

That's easy to explain. Trump is so much out there in being aggressively obnoxious, criminal, racist and senile. His platform was a list of nonsense combined blatant diminishing of rights and social progress. The fact that a majority of voting Americans chose him is irredeemable.

Biden, Bush, Obama were normal candidates with pros and cons, where depending on your views, you could pick one or the other, and you could understand others who voted otherwise.

Trump? I cannot understand anyone who voted for him. They were either extremely narrowly self-centred and thought they could make a buck at everyone else's expense, extremely misinformed and/or dumb, or just hate specific groups of people they know will get hurt. There's nothing redeemable in any of those. He and his voters are the personification of the "fuck you, I've got mine mindset".

> but Orban's fifteen-year drive into corrupt, racist autocracy, endorsed by the voters at every turn, is just some sort of very temporary oopsie that says nothing at all about Europe

Yes, Orban says nothing about Europe. It says plenty about Hungary though. Europe not being a country, and the EU being very heavily decentralised, that makes sense.

Because, despite all the belated narratives from a lot of people perusing this very website, Venture Capitalism is not a driver of innovation. It's an efficiency filter to supercharge capitalism and speed up the concentration of wealth into the pockets of the VCs themselves. Software is nimble, has less overhead, can be optimized for profit faster, can be recombined, pivoted, repurposed way faster. Ergo, the market economics of VC are terrible at naturally selecting for innovation with a societal benefit, because that’s absolutely not in their firmware.

They may be the most popular but more importantly how profitable are they

AI is two things.

- The chatbot people have a personal attachment to

- The processing tool.

In the second, you only care about the result. Something like Claude Code can call any other provider if that's cheaper and visa-verse. Once I have the result, my dependency / lock-in is no more than a brand of toilet paper. The providers will have to do the 'capitalism thing' and compete.

It's almost like WeWork's, valuated at IT levels by being in the style, only for investors to eventually figure out the marginal production costs are not reducible to near 0, and you can't just bully out competition / network-effect to get a monopoly.

And this applies to any company that wraps and re-sells AI.

Something the tech-VC world is so unfamiliar with, it's scrambling to present the truth of what is 'econ-101' for the rest of the world.

I share your pessimism.

Le Pen's far-right National Rally (RN) has had ties with the Kremlin for a long time. That alone should have discredited this party a long time ago, but no, it is ranking as high as ever, even after russia's overt invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

Mélenchon's far-left "France Insoumise" party ranks very high too, and is similarly pro-russian, anti-EU, anti-NATO.

In the town where I live, more than half the votes have gone to the RN these past elections. I often feel like a Cassandra.

You say you cannot understand anyone who voted for Trump. Can you understand anyone who plans to vote for RN, the most popular political party in France by far, lead by a woman who said she shares Putin's global vision?

Do I get to blame you if RN wins the presidency? Same country, after all.

As a former EE, it's not just pay.

The cog-in-a-machine corporate culture is not fun. Tech culture is much healthier.

There's no upside to big electronics companies here.

>Orban says nothing about Europe.

Hungary is literally in Europe. If Orban says nothing about Europe, then nothing can ever say anything about Europe.

Your country is choosing to stay in a union with Orban's. If EU membership is meaningless, as you imply, it should be easy for your country to quit in order to make a point about Hungary.

Don't worry, you'll have the pleasure of being blamed for the votes of your neighbors before much longer ;-)

Okay, "logistics optimization"???

In the US there have been a few, i.e., apparently less than 20, universities with an applied math program up to date in and teaching optimization.

Sooooo, anyone at all seriously interested, long, for decades, would, could, should visit some of those math programs, meet some of the profs, get recommendations for their former students, call them, chat, and offer a job better than their current lawn mowing, fast food restaurant kitchen cleaning, or car washing. Instead of just the US, might also consider Waterloo in Canada. Actually the Chair of my Ph.D. orals committee specialized in optimization in logistics. After sending 1000+ beautifully written resume copies and hearing back nothing, can begin to conclude that optimization is not a hot field and for highly dedicated optimizers who want to sleep on a cot in a single room, forgo bathing, most days eat bread, other days peanut butter, have no children, wife, or family contact, don't own a car, and must get any needed medical care from some of the last resort special clinics. Ah, real optimization!

Early on, with a good technical background, I guessed that, of course, the key to success in technology was some good technology but soon discovered that VCs just want to make money, a lot of money, quickly, and otherwise will hear from the investors in their fund.

Just heard of Palmer Luckey. Hmm! Money? No big staff, not much equipment, essentially just one person?? $1B+, quickly? Example: Taylor Swift. Did she ever hear of Linux???

Probably because the US let software be a breeding ground for monopolies. People invest there because they understand that's the best sector to, if the company works out, get unreasonable returns. As an example, the current AI valuations make no sense if the industry doesn't solidify around one or two companies.

If you have money, the returns you'll get elsewhere are much less attractive, and can only be justified if they're very safe investments.

What Trump is and his values aren't particularly different from the usual right-wing populism elsewhere, hell for most of the "global south" people like him or the norm if not the majority of voters.

It limits token generation, but not token utility.

What country are you thinking when you say that? It doesn't sound like the US. Through the zero-interest rate era they've been absurdly tolerant of companies offering no- to little- returns on investment. They've basically been operating investor-led charities.

It is still unsettling seeing Uber turning a profit, but even with that they're not turning a net profit over the lifetime of the company yet and won't be for a few years. Hopefully no-one pops up to compete with them now the sector has profits in it.

Not only leverage, but also destabilizing those optimized businesses to harvest the capital assets from their balance sheets to pay for the leverage, while destroying the underlying business.

PE is arguably much worse than VC. VC's business model is well understood and by taking VC funding, you are committing to their expected returns.

PE is, usually, unsolicited and is designed to exploit what appears to be a "lazy" balance sheet, but which is actually a stable business producing output and providing a reasonable ROI.

PE has very few redeeming features.

> Hungary is literally in Europe. If Orban says nothing about Europe, then nothing can ever say anything about Europe.

so are the Vatican and Andorra and Belarus, so all of Europe is theocratic and/or a kleptocracy?

> Your country is choosing to stay in a union with Orban's

Because the benefits far outweigh the association with that pigshit, who will also die some day. Also, the EU can and does exert influence over countries, so some of Orban's excesses can be curbed.

I've seen US startup people deal with manufacturing. There is a class gap that leaves no real space for skilled blue-collar work to exist and also be business critical, and fully integrated into the team. That is how a three-week turnaround for a milled prototype part ends up being tolerated.

What's Australia doing?

Around $1.5B (AUD) so far, Bushmasters, 50 M1A1s, M113s, training, etc.

We didn't sign the Budapest Memorandum, neither are we part of NATO, but we do our part, as we did in Afghanistan, Iraq (after the lies about WMD), in the Red Sea and other international events.

Oh and on the articles you quoted, some of the biggest fines were from the UK, which is not part of the EU.

As for tariffs, the US upended 80 years of work on international trade, with Trump applying tariffs without any underlying criteria except his complete misunderstanding of the difference between a trade deficit and bad trade.

The US has maintained its currency's dominance for all of the post WW2 era, which has allowed you to borrow and spend in a currency that everyone else has to support to be able to buy things like oil.

As an American, you should realize that in the last 6 months, the US has decided to abdicate its leadership, and as oil becomes less important to world trade, the USD will start to lose its dominance over trade, which means that your debts will have to be paid back in other currencies while the tariffs do nothing but damage the US consumers and economy in general.

Very dumb on your part.

>so are the Vatican and Andorra and Belarus, so all of Europe is theocratic and/or a kleptocracy?

All of the places we're discussing are part of Europe, so insofar as any place can be said to "say something about" Europe, each says something about it.

>Because the benefits far outweigh the association with that pigshit, who will also die some day. Also, the EU can and does exert influence over countries, so some of Orban's excesses can be curbed.

One could make similar arguments for staying in the US. Trump is 79; Orban is 62.

>Around $1.5B (AUD) so far, Bushmasters, 50 M1A1s, M113s, training, etc.

As a fraction of GDP, Australia is an order of magnitude below the US. See map at the top here: https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s...

We literally gave almost 10x as much as you on a per-GDP basis, yet we're still the bad guy. This is why I'm an isolationist.

Did you know that "Kevin", a common name in the US, is one of Europe's favorite insults?

>We didn't sign the Budapest Memorandum

The Budapest Memorandum is frequently misrepresented online. There's no promise to defend Ukraine in the text. Read it here: https://treaties.un.org/doc/Publication/UNTS/Volume%203007/P...

All the US promised in the Memorandum was to seek UN Security Council assistance if Ukraine was victimized. We went far beyond that.

Think about it: why would Ukraine be so desperate for NATO membership, if the "defense promise" in the Memorandum was already broken? Because there was no meaningful defense promise in the Memorandum! That is simply a malicious lie about the US that's very widespread online. Again, this is why I'm an isolationist. I give up. Our "allies" will hate us no matter what we do. I've figured it out. I want to be Switzerland. We'll worry about our continent, and you worry about yours.

>extremely narrowly self-centred

It's normal for countries to prioritize their own self-interest. The unusual thing is the degree to which the US attempted to take responsibility for world affairs for as long as it did, to the point where other countries took the US for granted. Now other countries interpret America's failure to take responsibility for their problems as aggression. See here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45035076

...and to quote a classic, "your margin is my opportunity".

Their sentiment and their phrasing ("it's almost as if... ") is a Reddit-level meme I see all the time on that site that's then blindly upvoted, so I don't think they're thinking of any country besides the US in particular when they say that.

It is easy to be in opposition and complain about everything. The contrarian parties tend to get very popular in the years between election cycles as the governing party can't deliver on everything and has to compromise.

Because you do know that Labour in the UK won a landslide victory a year ago and the last date for holding a new general election is in 2029.

The Scandinavian experience is that these parties crash as soon as they get to real power and have to compromise. Suddenly they had to be responsible.

If we do see these Trumpian parties win the majority in these elections in more rather than one-offs then we have a problem. But you're just fearmongering because you can't accept how completely wacko Trump is and need to blame it on "everyone does it!!!".

I love "US so big arguments", no one else cares!!

And then looking at per capita the US sits at number 16.

PE played a part in manufacturing leaving the US. Often the buyouts were of sick companies, and it was just the optimum way to monetize their death. But without PE not all of them wouldnhave eventually died, and it would have given policy makers more time to react to what was happening.

Wouldn't being aggressive about antitrust chill auch investments in the first place? Uber wouldn't have been so eager to overcome lyft if it knew that it would mean getting broken up or fined into unprofitability.

Nobody will give you a regular business loan if you need the cash to R&D your (especially non-software) product in the first place. Even more so without personal liability or in the amounts to compete for engineers in VC-funded companies.

>I love "US so big arguments", no one else cares!!

The US is being targeted specifically because we've given so much. No one is bothering Japan, or Argentina, or Saudi Arabia. It's because the US has been generous (in absolute terms) that we get so much flak.

Imagine if we sent thoughts and prayers the way Kazakhstan does. That way we would get less hate. When's the last time you heard Kazakhstan criticized for lack of Ukraine support?

>And then looking at per capita the US sits at number 16.

I don't think that is accurate: https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1hd7aud/military_ai...

As I said... nothing we do for Europe will ever be enough. Better to cut them loose.

> Can you understand anyone who plans to vote for RN, the most popular political party in France by far, lead by a woman who said she shares Putin's global vision?

"by far" only if you get stuck on political party; considering there has been a united left coalition for multiple years and rounds of elections, that seems purposefully omissive. United left and RN are pretty close, polls and election results wise, with the centre-right and traditional right trailing closely behind. Neither of them have anything resembling a majority though, as is reflected in the current parliament, where each block has a bit less than 30% each.

And yes, I can understand them. RN's program contains points which cater to large amounts of French people, especially in rural disadvantaged areas. They're unrealistic or just fluff, mind you, but still sound good. RN is led by moderately charismatic people who have a good media presence - the party's head is Bardella, a young guy with a TikTok following who talks a decent talk. He's a nepo baby (son in law of Marine Le Pen), and mostly a grifter, but he can link a couple of phrases together and sound semi-convincing. Also, while Le Pen is a convicted criminal, it's "just" for stealing government and EU money, which a lot of people don't actually mind, and Bardella isn't.

Comparing to a delusional and senile old man who is literally convicted of rape, and there is plenty of credible evidence, out in the open, is also a pedophile. With a shit program with little concrete other than fucking up groups of people. After seeing his "work" his first term.

Yeah, I can understand, and probably have a discussion with an RN voter. (Those of the "black/brown people bad" variety mostly vote even further to the right, like Zemmour, those are the people I don't understand and wouldn't be able to talk with). A Trump voter? Something is seriously wrong with you to either like that, or pick your potential personal benefit over everything else.

>The contrarian parties tend to get very popular in the years between election cycles as the governing party can't deliver on everything and has to compromise.

So what happened in Hungary, or Italy, or other examples mentioned by troad?

Are you aware that RN, at this very moment, has by far the most seats of any party in the French parliament? Those far-right sentiments didn't magically disappear on election day.

>The Scandinavian experience is that these parties crash as soon as they get to real power and have to compromise. Suddenly they had to be responsible.

>If we do see these Trumpian parties win the majority in these elections in more rather than one-offs then we have a problem.

The "majority" comparison is meaningless in this context because the US only has support for two parties. (Imagine Germany had a contest between AfD and Die Linke only. That's akin to the situation in the US right now.) "Governing coalitions" aren't really formed here, so the notion of "they get to real power and have to compromise" doesn't exist in the same way.

So: Even assuming we grant your argument, Trump's power in the US has more to do with quirks of our political system than something fundamental about American culture.

>you can't accept how completely wacko Trump is

I never said he wasn't completely wacko. I simply said he doesn't personify the US any more than Biden does.

You do know that the per capita number is from your own link? Japan sits at number 19 per capita.

Was the US doing about as much as Japan the argument you wanted to make?

https://www.ifw-kiel.de/topics/war-against-ukraine/ukraine-s...

Or are just here to be a contrarian?

Maybe the US have an incentive in seeing the American built world order continue?

But hey, turn inward and let China and India win.

But don’t get mad when tariff situation with Europe etc. Is equalized over time and the American big tech is targeted to lessen the dependency.

> It's normal for countries to prioritize their own self-interest

I'm not talking about countries, I'm talking about Trump voters. An "America first" approach is totally fine, nobody outside of the US cares about.

An "America first" approach by a convicted criminal that is obviously senile, that results in arbitrary tariffs, threats of invasion of various allies, and a million other absurd consequences, is a problem for everyone. It's a problem for US partners, allies, and also the US for it's short and medium term future. Nobody will trust the US as a future trade and military partner.

In any case, as I said, I'm talking about Trump voters. The "extremely narrowly self-centred" ones are of the Andreessen types, the ones who think they can make a little bit more money if Trump is in power, even if objectively he's a terrible candidate on literally every level (criminal, rapist, pedophile, senile, can't string more than half a sentence, mocks disabled people, lies, doesn't comprehend realtively basic things, promises to deport millions of people while that being physically impossible, makes up stuff on the fly, wants to curb rights for women, LGBTQ folks, etc)

>You do know that the per capita number is from your own link? Japan sits at number 19 per capita.

ctrl-f "per capita", nothing comes up.

I do notice that Japan is #19 in terms of % of GDP however...

I actually think your confusion here explains a lot. You don't know the difference between "per capita" and "GDP". That shows you don't speak English well. That's probably why you don't know much about the US.

The fundamental issue is that you think you know a lot, but you actually know little. You're mostly just reading what is written about the US in your native language. Probably there is lots of misinformation.

>Was the US doing about as much as Japan the argument you wanted to make?

Why is the US being harassed and not Japan?

>Or are just here to be a contrarian?

The absurdity of Europeans who complain endlessly about the US, while we've historically pursued a relatively generous foreign policy towards you, gets under my skin.

>Maybe the US have an incentive in seeing the American built world order continue?

I've very consistently stated in this thread, and on Hacker News more generally, that the US should abandon the so-called "American-built world order". It causes us no end of grief, as you are illustrating at this very moment with your comments.

>But hey, turn inward and let China and India win.

The US economy was doing amazing back when we were more isolationist. Switzerland does amazing despite rejecting memberships in multinational organizations like the EU and NATO. India is very explicit in its policy of "multi-alignment", i.e. avoiding big firm coalitions like EU/NATO.

You Europeans are so invested in the idea that America needs to protect Europe for America to succeed. As far as I can tell, this idea is total nonsense. Barely a shred of evidence is offered in favor of it.

China and India aren't exactly looking to form alternatives to NATO either. Why would a big country agree to defend a small country? It doesn't usually make sense from a national interest perspective.

>But don’t get mad when tariff situation with Europe etc. Is equalized over time and the American big tech is targeted to lessen the dependency.

You guys have been raiding big tech bank accounts for years now. You shouldn't be surprised by US retaliation. What goes around comes around. We can tell you're not actually our friends.

>it's "just" for stealing government and EU money, which a lot of people don't actually mind

I think your double standard is pretty clear at this point. I won't be offering further replies to you in this subthread after this one.

>Comparing to a delusional and senile old man who is literally convicted of rape, and there is plenty of credible evidence, out in the open, is also a pedophile. With a shit program with little concrete other than fucking up groups of people. After seeing his "work" his first term.

IMO, the fundamental reason people in the US vote for Trump is because they don't trust the establishment/media. So yeah, if you uncritically believe everything that's reported about Trump in left-leaning ("mainstream") US media, of course you won't understand why people vote for him.

I'm no Trump voter, but I think conservatives have good reasons to distrust the establishment/media: https://slatestarcodex.com/2017/05/01/neutral-vs-conservativ...

That's another approach. However, I think it's worth distinguishing if a company acquires market dominance because of merit, vs because it got a big infusion of cash.

I somewhat dislike antitrust because it requires judgement calls on the part of regulators. I prefer simple, elegant rules. Just like in software development. Law should ideally be elegant, just like code.

Oh my god. This is so funny. You truly have to stoop down to insults because you are so fragile? Who hurt you?

Sorry, the massive difference of "per capita" and "% of GDP". Which would be aligned assuming equal GDP.

Given GDP differences between the donor countries the differences aren't meaningful. But sorry, I should have specified as "% of GDP" where the US is a joke comparatively.

What is even more funny is that I have lived a year in the US, I have traveled all over the US. I have college credits in American history. You know the tiny High School course "AP US History"? Have you heard of it?

Which is also why I was not surprised when Trump won in 2016. I had seen the culture. I had seen the close mindedness.

> The US economy was doing amazing back when we were more isolationist.

You mean the roaring 20s right before the great depression? Because that is the last time the US was isolationist.

Seems like you are dreaming about something you don't have the slightest clue about.

Your response is very typical for the absolute craziness that has infected the US psyche. Donald Trump is not a one off, he is what Americans want.

> Are you aware that RN, at this very moment, has by far the most seats of any party in the French parliament? Those far-right sentiments didn't magically disappear on election day.

And the Social Democrats has been the largest party in Sweden since the early 1900s. Given that the left, with all parties combined, haven't held a majority since 2006 while managing to rule with a minority government from 2014 to 2022.

You make a lot of noise for understanding quite little.

Yes. The US has a broken political system, and you the American people haven't done jack shit to fix it.

> So: Even assuming we grant your argument, Trump's power in the US has more to do with quirks of our political system than something fundamental about American culture.

Trumps power in the US is entirely because he is what the American psyche wants or tolerates.

You keep attempting to dodge the outcome and blame it on everyone else. But you need to own it.

Trump is personifying America, which is quite evident given how he has won twice. The American people wants him.

>Oh my god. This is so funny. You truly have to stoop down to insults because you are so fragile? Who hurt you?

You were the one who started with dickish behavior. Don't dish it out if you can't take it.

>Given GDP differences between the donor countries the differences aren't meaningful. But sorry, I should have specified as "% of GDP" where the US is a joke comparatively.

Actually it does make a difference here. See the link I provided: https://old.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1hd7aud/military_ai... Considering per capita, 8 months ago the US was more generous than almost all of Europe. Per capita is arguably the correct metric, since part of why US GDP is greater is because Americans work longer hours and take less vacation.

In any case, even if we consider the metric less favorable to the US (% of GDP), the US gives more as a fraction of GDP than almost every country outside Europe. If the US is a joke, than Spain, Ireland, France, and Italy are even funnier. We're very generous in every sense considering this isn't our war.

But since you call US aid a joke, I hope you won't miss it when it's gone. And I appreciate you confirming the points I've made, with your remark: Helping Ukraine gets us nothing but grief.

>You mean the roaring 20s right before the great depression? Because that is the last time the US was isolationist.

"Frustrated by French meddling in U.S. politics, Washington warned the nation to avoid permanent alliances with foreign nations and to rely instead on temporary alliances for emergencies... Washington’s remarks have served as an inspiration for American isolationism, and his advice against joining a permanent alliance was heeded for more than a century and a half."

https://history.state.gov/milestones/1784-1800/washington-fa...

The US economy mostly did great during that century and a half. Furthermore, the Great Depression was not simply caused by "isolationism". This is more intellectual sloppiness on your part.

I advocate a Swiss approach to foreign policy. That doesn't mean disengaging from other nations. It means not promising to help them with their problems.

Your continent, your problem. This is the approach that most of the world adopts towards Ukraine. The US was foolish to get involved. And we've been punished severely for it, by people like you. No more.

I don't consider synthetic nutrition agriculture; what I'm talking about is regenerative farming practices or high tech alternatives to pesticides i.e. Carbon Robotics.

Fair enough, I suppose I was being hyperbolic, but nevertheless...

It would be interesting to see the graph before 2019. For a decade, all of the investment money, talent following behind it, piled into Uber, etc.

> has resilient even in a broader VC pullback

Yes, people are starting to catch on now. Even so, investment is at best a leading indicator. In terms of existing on-the-ground domestic infrastructure, we're sorely lagging in real-world capabilities, but the better part of the last fifteen years was spent creating a vast Grubhub-type delivery infrastructure across the US while the amount of resources dedicated to peer or near-peer conflict logistics and long term agricultural production were relatively ignored.

DeSantis says a lot about Florida, less so the USA. Pritzker says a lot about Illinois, less so the USA. Abbott says a lot about Texas, less so the USA. Newsom says a lot about California, less so the USA.

Understand why your argument is a very poor one? If not, I have 46 more of these examples.

It's pretty wild that you think AP US History - an introductory course aimed at school-aged children - gives you some great insight into "the US psyche". An insight you gleamed as... what, a high school exchange student?

> think your double standard is pretty clear at this point

What double standard?? I'm merely pointing out that people distrustful of the government/EU are fine with Le Pen stealing from them. It's not an opinion I share, but I can understand it. I can't understand those people being fine with Putin bankrolling Le Pen though.

And still a million times better than Trump who not only stole from a cancer charity, but whose corruption is directly in the open and undeniable.

> IMO, the fundamental reason people in the US vote for Trump is because they don't trust the establishment/media

Regardless of that, they can see and hear with their own eyes and ears that he cannot string two coherent sentences together, and is obscenely disturbing as a human being.

They're very much yin and yang. PE's operating model is to take businesses that are operating inefficiently, squeeze all the inefficiencies out, sell off assets that would be more productive under other management, and basically strip the company bare. If it kills the company, that creates fertile ground for new startups funded by VC.

Think of PE as the decomposers of capitalism, and VC as its seeds. Most people don't like to think of it that way because they don't like to be reminded that death is a part of life. But if you view capitalism as a living ecosystem and your role within capitalism as someone to accelerate growth and then accelerate death so that new growth can take its place, it all makes sense. And you can probably profit pretty handsomely from it, because most people don't view capitalism like that and instead seek stability in the dying parts.

That sounds like you expect a competitive, free market for things as complex as the world's cutting edge CPU or nuclear weapons or fighter jet technology. I think when it gets as specialized and capital intensive as those things, a true free market is less likely to exist.

It’s just natural that nobody wanted to pay for outdated machines and tooling in developed countries.

Labor costs, permits, fees, etc., means that buying used just doesn’t make sense unless it’s almost free.

Whereas developing countries were willing to pay a lot more, sometimes as much as 50 cents on the dollar compared to brand new equipment and they would send a team to rip it out too.

I’ve heard that applied to almost everything too heavy to move by forklift during the 80s, 90s, and 2000s.

Addition: Omitted the reports that Swift is worth $1B from her singing.

Surely this company was 80%+ software.

i've never been on call for web

Doesn’t Broadcom work their people like dogs though?