It’s Harder & More Expensive to Start a Startup & Break Through

Category : Personal Thoughts
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Most people say entrepreneurship and startups are the best way for people to be useful in the age of AI and automation. If we have more entrepreneurs, they say, we can innovate our way out of our jobs crisis. Entrepreneurship is definitely the way forward for some people. But not most.

Conventional wisdom is that it’s never been easier, cheaper and faster to start a startup and break through. With advances in computing power, open source software, Amazon hosting, development frameworks and online communities, the thinking goes, it’s much cheaper, faster and easier to start a startup and break through.

I’m pretty convinced conventional wisdom is wrong. (more…)

The Developing World Will Offer Better Quality of Life than the US and Europe

Category : Personal Thoughts, Political Science & Economics
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The half life of a skill is 10 years and rapidly falling. AI is here. Government policies of low interest rates, threats of tariffs and burying our heads in the sand are incentivizing automation and job destruction as fast as possible. That’s the story in the developed world.

What about the developing world? In places like Latin America, most industries are unchanged. Amazon hasn’t disrupted most markets, and big, old, incumbents are still in control. Retailers see little need to compete. Banks have little online competition. Most large companies are way behind US companies in efficiency and implementation of AI/Automation technology. Business owners don’t feel threatened from competitors, so they see little need to innovate.

Many publicly traded companies’ inventory control system is still minimum wage workers taking notes on a clipboard and then calling in the numbers from the warehouse. Some companies are becoming more efficient because of the commodity bust of 2014-2016, but most are way behind. Things are changing in the developing world, but not nearly at the pace of the US. Because the pace of change is slower, it will be better to live in developing world than in the US or Europe for a higher percentage of the population. (more…)

Trump’s Trade Policies Will Accelerate Job Losses

Category : Political Science & Economics
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President Elect Trump ran on anti-tech platform designed to get US jobs back that have been sent overseas. Although our tax and trade policies have hurt developed country workers, especially in the US, the vast majority of job losses are because of technology, not outsourcing.

Trump’s talked about putting tarrifs and fining companies that outsource. He’s “succeeded” in getting a few companies to stay. But these companies are staying grudgingly, and demanding massive tax breaks to do so. Trump is using the power of the presidency to influence markets and potentially pick winners and losers. He’s sending the message that you have to play ball, or risk losing government contracts or being made uncompetitive.

Trump’s policies are going to make US companies think twice about outsourcing and moving factories. But they won’t go back to hiring US workers like they did in the 70s and 80s. An example in the West Virginia coal industry: (more…)

Artificial Intelligence Is Here

Category : Political Science & Economics
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AI is here and it’s being implemented faster than most people think. I’m not talking about human level AI, AGI, but super early stage AI that’s already helping make things more efficient. Although it’s early, AI implementation is moving faster and will affect new industries faster than most people suspect.

These AI improvements are made possible by companies like Facebook, Google and Microsoft opening sourcing their APIs in the past few months. Companies like Amazon and IBM will likely follow suit and launch AI APIs. It’s now possible for anyone who knows how to code to implement AI into their apps. This wasn’t possible 6 months ago. Now it is. And it’s open or cheap. (more…)