Thoughts during an eventful week

It’s been an eventful week.   There was some stuff in Washington, DC, that will need more reflection.   Ohio State won a football game.   We adopted another rescue dog, Milo, getting our pack back up to 4. So some high points against a background of low-grade concerns.

Tariffs and Labor

I have not read all the executive orders, but there are a few topics I am paying attention to..  The tariffs haven’t dropped yet tho they are threatened.  Adam Tooze lays out the implications of tariffs in three simple charts:

• Tariffs will be costly to US consumers.
• Lower-income households will be hurt more than higher-income households.
• And if Trump uses the proceeds to fund more tax cuts, the combined impact will be even more unequal.

Now, combine these tariff effects with the labor market shock caused by immigration policies. This will drive wages up in various industries, including construction, service, and agriculture. Some of that will be good for individuals, but it will surely drive up prices. It certainly does not seem there is a policy plan to drive down consumer prices.

DOGE

The DOGE executive order dropped.  It is pretty short, with these elements:

• A DOGE office, which is just the renaming of the US Digital Service.
• Each agency then needs to create a DOGE team. It doesn't seem likely that establishing multiple new departments on top of existing organizations will create efficiency.
• An effort to modernize Federal software and tech.   While well-intentioned, this might end up being a massive expenditure. The existing US Digital Service was supposed to do this already.
• And nothing about this order affects or impairs existing laws or appropriations.

You can't ask an organization to achieve a goal if you push responsibility for the goal off to some wart on the side of the organization. That just lets everyone off the hook – "Efficiency is the job of those guys over there." If it is an important goal, it needs to be the responsibility of every single leader and manager. 

So I remain deeply skeptical about DOGE. If DOGE has any impact, it will be due to the energy and charisma of the two DOGE leaders — Elon and Vivek. Oops, I mean the one DOGE leader, Elon, who is just full of great charisma. And who might also be busy with the number-one US carmaker, the number-one US space launch company, one of the top social networks, and a burgeoning AI company.

Beyond Relevancy

I’ve been thinking a lot about the tech products I use daily and the companies that provide them. Some products I use daily and am glad exist, but I don’t have much passion for them – my Kindle is handy, but nothing has really changed about it in years, and I have no emotional attachment to it. I use my TV screens daily, and I would be hard-pressed even to identify who makes them. Samsung? LG? Sony? I have no idea.

Conversely, I use my iPhone and Macbook daily, and I would be sad to give them up.  I’ve spent a lot of time on Android devices and on Windows PCs over the years, and I certainly could make the switch, and I am sure I would adapt, but I would be sad.  I am a pretty strong advocate for the Apple ecosystem — it works very, very well for me, and I think most people would be happy with Macbooks and iPhones.

Every tech company fights for relevancy — they all want to be top of mind with users or developers.  And why Satya has done such a great job turning the Microsoft ship — Satya has focused on relevance.  Passion is a step beyond relevance — are developers and users passionate about your products, do they advocate for your company?  Very few companies get to this level, but a few have achieved it.

There are many people who love Apple products — iPhones, iPads, macs, AirPods, and watches.  These fans follow every Apple release, buy anything Apple ships, and loudly applaud and defend them in social media.  There are websites dedicated to rumors about upcoming Apple products. 

Microsoft has historically built great enthusiasm around Windows — the Windows 95 launch was an event. Microsoft’s gaming franchises have huge devotees. There is a community that deeply loves Excel, which is just amazing. Excel is a killer product. I don't know that Microsoft's developer tools are loved, but VS Code and Github are very well-liked.

Nvidia may be building passion.  Gamers love Nvidia products; AI developers are flocking to Nividia products, and Jensen is held in as high a regard as anyone in the industry.

On the other hand, nobody loves Google search anymore.  Some people are enthusiastic Android fans and enthusiastic Pixel fans.   Nobody loves Meta’s core products anymore.  Does anyone love Amazon products?   We all use them but I don’t see much passion anywhere.   The shopping experience is not great; AWS is effective but not loved; the various hardware devices are just adequate.  Interestingly, for each of these companies, the biggest part of their business model is monetizing our traffic and attention — this may be in fundamental conflict with building a franchise that users and developers love.

I am biased in my personal stock holdings to those companies that have developed passion around their products — AAPL, MSFT, NVDA.  

Short AI notes

This is a nice paper outlining how we poor humans can compete with AI — move up the stack and be more human and creative.   It is really the only path.

AI-assisted education may be a tremendously good thing across the board — and what a great force multiplier for all of humanity.

I have had a love for materials science for decades — and it is exciting to see AI tools pushing materials science ahead.   Our entire computing infrastructure is built on novel and clever arrangements of sand; the value that can be created through novel and clever arrangements of atoms is immeasurable.

And A Passing

Jules Feiffer passed away.  To this day, pictures from The Phantom Tollbooth sit in my head.  It was maybe the book that really caused my lifelong reading habit to explode.  A classic.