[delayed]

And are those tomatoes picked by hand or by machine ?

(Again apropos of nothing I am assuming the rise of “on the vine tomatoes” in packets is presumably because cutting four off the branch is quicker and easier than twisting four or five.

And even possibly there is a robot doing it. Would be interested to know

It's about finding the right supply chain.

5 years ago I was trying to get a custom aluminium enclosure for some circuit boards manufactured. We found potential suppliers in Taiwan, but they basically would have needed an expert onsite to be able to set up all the jigs. They also could have supported us through rapid scaling by switching to moulded raw stock which then was post machined, and would bring down unit prices a lot.

However, one guy knew a local SoCal machine shop that supplied parts to the auto modding scene and had a bunch of 5-axis milling machines. For 200 units they would beat Taiwan on every metric: cost, time, effort on our side, flexibility for changes.

We're engineers. From this lens, the difference between us and cavemen are the tools we have. We should lean into this.

So, you agree with the article ? If we onshore a critical mass of manufacturing, then the supply chain springs up like an eco-system, and the critical mass needed to do that is lower the better quality better engineered the machinery is

So industrial policy should be focused on high end engineering quality, more than bringing jobs back

(Might be spotting a political problem there but in general I think I agree)

I think you pretty much get exactly what you incentivize (and not necessarily what you claim to want to incentivize).

How many of the most talented people will jump straight in to manufacturing because of policy/macro incentives and shifts in economic policy? You’re making a career, economic/technological, financial, and a personal identity/cultural decision (both who you will be surrounded with and associated with regardless of whether you adhere to the assumptions about it)!

People are much more likely to try something if they see peers and role models doing it. Even better if it’s something fun and exciting that they want to be a part of. Look at how pre GFC finance and then/now tech were seen culturally. Maybe hateable and arguably mostly boring people doing boring work, but also real subcultures that media made understandable even to those well outside of it.

I think to convince someone to run a factory instead of trying to become MTS @ lab, they should at least know 1. it’s not such a binary “make it or break it” bet with bad odds that failure means doing some boring, poorly paid job (the upside is incredibly high, downside also good) 2. it’s interesting and challenging and enjoyable at times 3. it’s important and meaningful at a societal or personal level (even if only money=influence, but better if you see it as a reward for doing something genuinely valuable). This is the pitch that worked for anthropic/google/silicon valley and finance/medicine and what manufacturing is competing against.

Why should someone with other options want to run a factory?

There is a corollary to this. When talent is blocked from immigrating, they start innovating at home.

I'm seeing this in India. Some really smart students are doing some fascinating startups at home because emigrating to the west has become really hard.

Still a very small effect, but one that gives me a lot of hope and cause for excitement.

Isn’t that better globally? I had always assumed the purpose of student Visas wasn’t to import talent but to export ideology, culture, and values. “We think we’re great. Come learn what makes us great and take it back to your country to make it great.” Somewhere that idea got lost along the way in place of a path to immigration.