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)
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?
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.