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Hggh's avatar

The stagnation of OECD average wages is I think part political, part economic. Having large parts of the world join in with capitalism (China/ India/ Indonesia) created far more competition for tradable goods, and lead to the greatest uplift out of poverty we have ever seen. But for OECD workers - the infamous "China Price" or offshoring roles to India put a cap on wage growth.

Also, I do believe that the end of the cold war and "the other" being external meant that internal solidarity was weakened/ no longer as important. So gains now go largely to the winners/ very much above average (10x engineers. 1000x engineers, LeBron James etc) with fewer/ reduced mechanisms to redistribute (unions power, taxation) It was the post WW2 generation that was the outlier in the West, and we are now reverting back to the mean (of high inequality within countries, as much or more so than as between countries)

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Hggh's avatar

This is the Solow paradox from a generation ago - "you can see the computer revolution everywhere except in the productivity statistics"

Part is that statistics have a hard time putting a value on choice. How much extra value does having many varieties of snack flavours have? Or a choice of streaming almost any show you want to see? Or of not needing to read a map on your lap? What we measure is the dollar value of the subscription service, or the sales of snacks.

US health care is famously a mess.

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Trevor Soh's avatar

Insightful article! I'm definitely looking forward that that kind of an AI enabled future. I wrestled way too much with endless menus looking for things in Google Admin, uncustomizable platforms, and website scripting. I can't wait for a natural, intuitive way to build and refine digital systems - and see where that future takes us.

But I'm shocked that life expectancy in the US is declining.

Just wondering, because much of the modern world adopted the carb-heavy food pyramid teachings too, and our increasing reliance on heavily processed foods - and we've seen a significant rise in obesity in Australia. So technically we we should be seeing the same trend in other countries too.

Is that because of the US health system perhaps placing more priority on private healthcare for working individuals and less emphasis on a public health system we see in the UK, Northern Europe and Australia - could that be a contributor the sharper decline?

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Khalid Elshowaya's avatar

What are the essential shifts that need to happen in the mindset of software developers and corporate leaders to move from creating software that facilitates business operations to software that fundamentally enhances and defines business strategy and execution? This in itself seems more like a larger structural and mindset shift that needs to happen, but once the culture is set like concrete it may be painful to even get people to recognize this.

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Ted Mabrey's avatar

If you believe this is true, it's just a matter of time before the market realizes it and exploits the advantage. I hope it happens quickly not slowly but the sclerotic mindsets are hard to overcome and are set like concrete as you mention. There are also strong forces in the software industrial complex constantly reinforcing that concrete. Without facts on the ground forcing people to reckon with a new reality it's an argument not a revolution. But the facts are developing quickly.

As one example, convincing GM of this is a fool's errand. But, the technology advantage allows for the creation of Tesla and FSD as a platform to either render GM irrelevant or force them to eventually license the technology. The best leaders/most ambitious developers will realize this very quickly and drag the rest of the world along. Anduril is doing this in defense and just won contracts to build an AI fighter jet. We are trying to enable both new companies to achieve this quickly and old companies to transform. BP cut cost of production by 60%, Airbus increased production speed by 33% (and look at Boeing..), Ringier has scaled gross margin form 71% to 83% since they started with Palantir. At some point this becomes the standard and you have to get your head out of the sand or perish.

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Khalid Elshowaya's avatar

It seems like this is the best time in the world to build! Thank you Ted for publish this. Time to build!

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