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Tech Thread

Guys we have a thing in our pocket that allows us instant access to all the worlds knowledge and to communicate with anyone on the planet at any time. Look how much it's improved things!!!

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I think that's part of it but imo the larger part is that company's don't really invest profits into innovation anymore. S&P 500 companies have totalled about 2.8 Trillion dollars in stock buy backs from 2022-2024. That's 2.8 Trillion in profits removed from the companies and given to the ownership class, who buy more assets with that money. Worker productivity comes from actual investment in technology, training, process, etc.

A company like Intel is a spectacular example. Biggest CPU manufacturer in the world for a generation, should be a multi Trillion dollar company right now. Sat back on it's market dominance and did nothing with it but buy back stock. Cut R&D budgets, shredded it's organizational knowledge on how to build good product (don't know if you follow the tech industry at all, but their 13th & 14th gen processors are beyond a disaster and they've lost huge market share to AMD and others). But between 2014 and 2021 they did buyback 64 billion worth of stock.
 
I think that's part of it but imo the larger part is that company's don't really invest profits into innovation anymore. S&P 500 companies have totalled about 2.8 Trillion dollars in stock buy backs from 2022-2024. That's 2.8 Trillion in profits removed from the companies and given to the ownership class, who buy more assets with that money. Worker productivity comes from actual investment in technology, training, process, etc.

A company like Intel is a spectacular example. Biggest CPU manufacturer in the world for a generation, should be a multi Trillion dollar company right now. Sat back on it's market dominance and did nothing with it but buy back stock. Cut R&D budgets, shredded it's organizational knowledge on how to build good product (don't know if you follow the tech industry at all, but their 13th & 14th gen processors are beyond a disaster and they've lost huge market share to AMD and others). But between 2014 and 2021 they did buyback 64 billion worth of stock.
Definitely - there's lots in there beyond technologies failed promise.

In my engineering days used to watch the old timey engineers, head.down marking up blueprints, looking things up in dusty old books. Us "kids" would tip tap away on our computers, respond to all our emails and run simulations to help size our equipment feeling smug. But in aggregate when you add it all up I'd bet dollars to donuts that those dinosaurs were more productive than us...and made fewer errors to boot.
 
Definitely - there's lots in there beyond technologies failed promise.

In my engineering days used to watch the old timey engineers, head.down marking up blueprints, looking things up in dusty old books. Us "kids" would tip tap away on our computers, respond to all our emails and run simulations to help size our equipment feeling smug. But in aggregate when you add it all up I'd bet dollars to donuts that those dinosaurs were more productive than us...and made fewer errors to boot.

A lot of "productivity improvements" that companies focus on is how to design process in such a way that irreplaceable employees aren't actually irreplaceable. From a management standpoint, it makes more sense to do something 10% slower and worse, but replicable by anyone so that it takes 1 year to get someone up to speed on in house process rather that 5-10 years for actual subject mastery to develop by doing it the right way.
 
A lot of "productivity improvements" that companies focus on is how to design process in such a way that irreplaceable employees aren't actually irreplaceable. From a management standpoint, it makes more sense to do something 10% slower and worse, but replicable by anyone so that it takes 1 year to get someone up to speed on in house process rather that 5-10 years for actual subject mastery to develop by doing it the right way.
I get it....but I don't have to like it!
 
I think that's part of it but imo the larger part is that company's don't really invest profits into innovation anymore. S&P 500 companies have totalled about 2.8 Trillion dollars in stock buy backs from 2022-2024. That's 2.8 Trillion in profits removed from the companies and given to the ownership class, who buy more assets with that money. Worker productivity comes from actual investment in technology, training, process, etc.

A company like Intel is a spectacular example. Biggest CPU manufacturer in the world for a generation, should be a multi Trillion dollar company right now. Sat back on it's market dominance and did nothing with it but buy back stock. Cut R&D budgets, shredded it's organizational knowledge on how to build good product (don't know if you follow the tech industry at all, but their 13th & 14th gen processors are beyond a disaster and they've lost huge market share to AMD and others). But between 2014 and 2021 they did buyback 64 billion worth of stock.

That’s the thing with AI — love it or hate it — it is a big investment in innovation.
 
Yep. I think it's a philosophical misunderstanding of what is both useful technology, and useful innovation, but it's definitely a big investment in innovation. Big brain post capitalism thinking at work....what if we had the economy...but without workers and the wealthy class owned literally everything?

brb, innovating on French gravitationally assisted cutting technology.
 
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