Former Intel CEO Andy Grove Wants Struggling Industries To Stop Slacking 235
lousyd writes "Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel and current instructor at Stanford Business School, has a message for industry. He believes that health care and energy, especially, could learn a lesson from computing's innovative and relatively government-free history. He asks students to imagine if mainframe vendors had asked government to prop them up in the same way that General Motors recently was. On the issue of computer patents, he insists that firms must use their patents or lose them: 'You can't just sit on your a** and give everyone the finger.'"
Re:So, what's the answer supposed to be? (Score:1, Informative)
Read the article, (Score:0, Informative)
Re:No thanks (Score:5, Informative)
Re:No thanks (Score:4, Informative)
>>>Government-free energy implies more coal power plants.
Vice-versa government-run "cash for clunkers" means perfectly good cars were taken off the road, squashed, and thrown into landfills. The government didn't even bother to strip the parts and sell them (recycling), but instead declared that to be illegal. Had a private megacorp done that they'd be pilloried but when government does it, it's labeled a success.
Next up - "cash for breakers" where people are encouraged to break their windows and buy all new ones.
Re:So, what's the answer supposed to be? (Score:4, Informative)
- railroads were funded *privately* not publicly. And now that rail has been taken-over by government, it's constantly on the verge of bankruptcy. Ditto the government-run post office.
No, the first transcontinental railroads were heavily government funded.
- The New Deal was a major fuckup that extended the recession from 1929 to 1950.
In some people's opinion, but it is likely that without action it would have been a lot worse.
- WW2 was a horror not a success.
The war itself was, but America profited massively from it, in economic and technological terms.
- Social Security has been a joke, because if you live long enough to get it, the "interest rate" earned on your original deposit is only 1%...
I didn't mention Social Security, but the point of it is not to provide a return on investment, but to provide security to society. Which it does, with varying effectiveness.
Re:apples to oranges comparison (Score:3, Informative)
>>>People die because they can not get access to or afford health care, no so with Intel products.
In the United States there are only 8 million U.S. citizens that are not covered by either a private or government program. That's less than 3% of all Americans. PLEASE please stop exaggerating the problem just to push-forward your agenda. There is no reason to punish the other 97% with a government monopoly takeover.
Instead all you need to do is extend the existing programs (like medicare) to those 3% of uncovered persons. A simple fix.
Re:So, what's the answer supposed to be? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:So, what's the answer supposed to be? (Score:3, Informative)
And now that rail has been taken-over by government, it's constantly on the verge of bankruptcy. Ditto the government-run post office.
The USPS have been posting significant profits for years now. [usps.com]
Re:use em or lose'm for patents doesn't fix much (Score:3, Informative)
Interesting view on Grove's statement, I assume you are basing that on the belief that all the patent trolling and threats are something new? Actually Grove's statement is fresh and enlightening as patent trolling and threats have been around for almost as long as the USPTO. Look up some history on the sewing machine patent wars [volokh.com] of the 1850's or the aircraft patent wars [wikipedia.org] in the early 1900's.
I can't say I know Grove's political opinions and beliefs but you seem to be reading your own bias into his statements. Grove does not say government often makes things stagnate and hold steady, in fact he is stating that certain industries are already stagnated and holding steady and the government intervention is simply maintaining the status quo.
Actually from the 1950's to the 1980's the only affordable data speeds for a home connection were in the 110bps to 300bps range. This was not due to the lack of technology development by a government mandated monopoly, in fact quite the opposite. The government mandated monopoly created a massive telecom infrastructure and AT&T was continually working on the technology to interconnect that system efficiently and effectively. The T-Carrier [wikipedia.org] was designed and implemented in the late 1950's and early 1960's and provided 1.5Mbps. ISDN became available in many areas in the mid to late 1980's and provided two 64Kbps lines that could be bonded into one 128Kbps line. I still have an old 3-Com ISDN modem sitting in a box in the basement. :)
So from the 1950's to the 1980's there were bit rates available well above the 100 to 300 bps you noted. This may not have been apparent to home computer users connecting with POTS modems at the time because these services were not marketed to and the equipment likely was not affordable for a home user.
I disagree. The decision made way for long distance pricing wars, but had no effect on data rates. The explosion in data rates came with the rise of the internet and was made possible by the companies developing modems they sold to house holds and the racks at the ISPs. The telecoms had nothing to do with this other than providing the analog POTS connection between the two. Now the bandwidth explosion after 56k was addressed by the telecoms as the POTS had reached its limit and it was up to the telecoms to provide better infrastructure.
But there is an interesting point from your statement, "eliminated that monopoly", that more than government controls affects the development of technology and better pricing and services for end users.
Two cases in point, the patent wars between sewing machine companies and aircraft manufacturers I noted earlier ended and industries prospered once the patents were pooled to eliminate the monopolies. In the case of the sewing machine patents the industry players created the pool, in the case of the aircraft industry the government had to step in and create the pool.
Now I'm not saying the government should start jumping into the markets and controlling everything, to the contrary, they should stay out and only get involved when it is necessary for the benefit of the p
Re:So, what's the answer supposed to be? (Score:4, Informative)
I've always found that (true) story hilarious.
Re:So, what's the answer supposed to be? (Score:3, Informative)
That isn't true at all.
The U.S. government spent $10 million purchasing land from Mexico, the Gadsden Purchase, for the express reason of helping Southern Pacific complete the southerly-route transcontinental railroad. It also received land grants.
The northerly-route transcontinental railroad, Northern Pacific, also received quite a lot of land grants [wikimedia.org].
In total, the U.S. government subsidized the construction of railroads [wikipedia.org] in the 2nd half of the 19th century by giving them title to one-tenth of the territory of the United States.
Re:So, what's the answer supposed to be? (Score:3, Informative)
False. ONE transcontinental railroad (the first) was supported with free land from the Congress. The funding was entirely private,
How is providing free land not funding? Do you think land is worthless or something? You're also incorrect, funding was also provided via government bonds. And it wasn't only one railroad that was given free land and money.
You need to get your facts straight, son.
A private savings account would provide greater security, simply because you know that if you die before 70, it will be passed-onto your children, rather than disappear.
So, what if you don't have the money to put into a private savings account?
And why are you trying to derail the conversation into one about Social Security, which I never mentioned?
Almost-everything the government touches is a fail
That's clearly nonsense. You don't seem to care for objectivity at all, you've clearly made up your mind that government is bad, and facts don't matter.
The majority of businesses fail over time, and there have been some spectacular failures. So, by your method of ignoring anything good and only seeing the bad, I guess it's equally valid to say that everything that private enterprise does is "a fail."
By the way, "fail" is not a noun.
Re:So, what's the answer supposed to be? (Score:3, Informative)
>>>I can tell you've never been on welfare or food stamps
I'm on welfare right now, you insensitive clod! (Look at that: I made my point AND used a meme at the same time. Woo-hoo!) So yes I know what it's like. Comfortable. As it should be because that's what safety nets are for - to catch citizens if they fall off the highwire of life and need assistance to survive.
Getting back to my main point:
The SS program is redundant and not necessary. Plus it's been used/abused by the government to fund other projects as if it was just an ordinary tax meant to be spent. SS == Epic fail. Obama and Clinton and others say that the healthcare industry is broken, but NOTHING is as broken as the Social Security program and needs to be fixed NOW. Evolve the SSI into a needs-based system (i.e. for those who run out of money), or else it will collapse faster than Madoff's ponzi scheme collapsed