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Andy Grove Has A Few Thousand Words About American Jobs
Date Posted: July 13, 2010 12:00 AM
The idea that what happens to factory jobs doesn’t matter as long as “knowledge work” stays in the U.S. doesn’t matter doesn’t fly in Grove’s book. By no longer making television sets, for instance, Grove says we broke the chain of experience that is important to technological evolution.
But wouldn’t bringing manufacturing jobs back to the U.S. boost the price of PCs, smart phones, and so many other products that America’s consumers enjoy? Even Grove admits this might be naïve given the financial pressures venture capitalists and technology executives are under from directors and shareholders.
Are we going to keep buying stuff we invented from offshore manufacturers and face the prospect of giving up our competitive edge in technology in the process? Probably, but we do so at our own risk, Grove suggests.
And what about protecting our so highly vaunted innovation? Apple has sued its rival smart-phone maker and giant Taiwan-based HTC for allegedly infringing on 20 of Apple’s patents related to the iPhone’s user interface. HTC CEO Peter Chou’s response to the suit: “It’s part of business.”
Do American consumers, the beneficiaries of the best technology money can buy, ever think about these issues—including those who haven’t been able to find a job in more than a year? Not likely, even though twice in the past few weeks I mentioned to someone with a Droid Incredible smart phone (produced by HTC) that the new Droid X (produced by Motorola) will soon be available. Their first question was, “HTC or Motorola?”
What’s increasingly disturbing to many Americans (including, no doubt, Grove) is that the Asian companies barely compete with the U.S. anymore. They’re competing with each other for the biggest market share and the best engineers to build the strongest economies in the region, largely through the growth and strength of their manufacturing. To do that, they must rely heavily on American technology.
Grove Intel jobs manufacturing