Steve was a real, well known, and well documented person with many surviving first-hand witnesses. In his biography, for example, it mentions him pressuring Clinton to tell the truth.
I think it's disingenuous to map one's insight into Steve to an insulting comic about a fictional character.
>All signs point to Trump and Jobs becoming thick-as-thieves. Sorry.
Yep, this. We're talking about a guy who basically abandoned his biological daughter, had his stuff manufactured by slave labor in factories with suicide nets to save costs and increase shareholder value, and GP imagines Steve Jobs as this leftist freedom fighter that would fight Trump instead of work together with him to increase profits even further. People's delul, historical revisionism of people who were just cutthroat unscrupulous businessmen at the end of the day, saddens me.
We can agree has was good at business, without trying to whitewash him as some humanitarian saint.
Don't worship people you never knew personally as some sort of heroes because you never know. For all we know he could have been a client on some else's island, like Steven Hawking.
There's always plenty of pushback everywhere, all the social media apps are full of critics and hate on anyone who does anything in the world mercilessly. I like coming here to see people admire other people who worked hard to create something that made society better, and not spend as much time criticizing every little wrong thing they did.
It's easy to be wrong about Jobs, because he was iconoclastic and idiosyncratic. And very very public.
And he did some personally, individually, shameful things. Especially in his 20s when he hadn't learned how to be an adult, much less a billionaire. And the latter protected him from needing to be the former for a while!
But if you believe for a second that Jobs would have tolerated Trump's wholesale ignorance and cruelty, you are making a huge mistake of understanding. That was never in Steve Jobs' personality -- in fact he was very outspoken about the excesses of power over people.
He was an anti-establishment Californian by birth, not a xenophobic RealAmerican™. These streams do not cross. If you do not understand the difference, you cannot possibly understand Steve Jobs.
This comment confuses me. You call Jobs idiosyncratic, but then try to backwards-justify his political stance with stereotypes about anti-establishment politics and Californian ideals. What makes you convinced that he'd resist neoreactionary politicking any better than Cook?
Jobs was fickle, I agree with you there. I just don't think that a fickle iconoclast would last more than two weeks fighting against Trump, especially if he was threatened with an FTC antitrust probe. The only difference with Cook is that he's not as coy, and recognized that there was no way for a monopoly like Apple to fight the fed and win. Trump can disembowel Apple's profit margins, and neither Cook nor Jobs nor Jesus of Nazarath could convince the shareholders that morality is worth more than $AAPL. 2016 Jobs would be retired by the board of directors before he even threatened to make a conscientious objection, reality distortion be damned.
I have no love for the sitting administration, but it is a fantasy to pretend that a FAANG business could resist federal coercion. Just because Apple enjoys a moral halo-effect does not mean they're better positioned than Microsoft or AWS to do the "right" thing. Apple's inability to prosecute NSO Group is a recurring example of how heavily the US can muzzle them.
The number of kids born in 2025 in Uzbekistan (population 38 million) is about the same as the number of kids born in 2025 in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia and Poland, *combined* (total population 131 million). The age of labour abundance IS OVER, we're witnessing its very last days in EE. Unemployment may remain due to terrible politics and economic mismanagement.
There's not going to be any point even having sweatshops or factories in this region soon. Why bother? If it's anything low or medium-skill and low or medium-capital intense, just open up shop in... Well, why not Uzbekistan? And if double-landlocked isn't your thing, there's dozens of other options.
>What I don't agree with, the underpayment of workers enabled by government "subsidies".
Wait a second, Isn't this just corporate welfare and goes against capitalism and supply/demand free market economics? Why should other people's taxes subsidize other people's businesses?
If your business is a net negative to the economy due to it only being able to survive on subsidies, then it has no right to exist.
We're not talking about subsidizing national security industries like semiconductor manufacturing, aerospace, renewables, pharma, we're talking about subsidizing someone's cafe/fast food business so they as a business owner can pocket the profits while paying their staff below market and having the taxpayer pick up the tab for the difference.
Or is this just a cloaked form of UBI to prevent mass unemployment?
are we? are we not also talking about enabling restaurants to exist in order to make our city livable?
i also don't see the issue with housing support. in vienna more than half of the population lives in subsidized housing. the current rate is that 2/3rds of any new built housing is subsidized.
and it apparently works out. instead of paying higher wages so that no one needs subsidies, everyone pays higher taxes to fund the subsidies. it's redistribution of income. yes, i guess you could consider it a cloaked form of UBI. i believe the key feature is that this model makes the whole economy around housing and income less volatile.
>are we not also talking about enabling restaurants to exist in order to make our city livable?
No! Why are privately owned restaurants part of a city's "livability", as if going out to eat food made by an underpaid slave wage class of migrant workers, is somehow a god given entitlement for the western person, and not something beholden to the same supply and demand market rules of any other business? Why should restaurants get special treatment so that their owners can buy another Porsche while they exploit cheap desperate foreign labor and the taxpayer subsidies? What about plumbers, hairdressers, landscapers, web-dev shops, yoga, why aren't those businesses part of a city's livability and entitled to subsidies?
And if you expect restaurants to be a public service for sake of livability, then they should also be state run and not for the profit of the restaurant owners.
> in vienna more than half of the population lives in subsidized housing.
What about the other half who pays for those getting the subsidies but don't get to live in subsidized housing? What's their opinion? I doubt they're happy they're paying market rate rent to a private landlord just so their neighbors can pay much less subsidized rent and beat them at wealth building.
It's always nice and easy when you're the one getting subsidies to justify how amazing subsidies are. I've never met a person complaining about receiving too many subsidies or asking themselves where the money from the subsidizes is coming from and if that's fair to others.
>it's redistribution of income.
Who would agree to this if they'd get to vote on it. I mean to have their income redistributed to others, not to have others income redistributed to them.
Forced income redistribution like in the case of Austria since you brought it up, just creates a vacuum where the most talented most hardworking people leave for greener pastures abroad to escape it, and you're left with a stagnant economy of average or below average people who don't see any point in hard work and will prefer to optimize for a life on getting the subsidies rather than funding them, so the government ends up with a bigger and bigger debt hole funding all this in exchange for votes.
See the Austrian guy who developed Openclaw then left because of the way Austria treats small business success and entrepreneurship.
Central planned income redistribution always leads to failure in the long run. This only worked in the post-WW2 Europe when there were a lot more people paying into the system than receiving, but not in today's world and economy.
Why are privately owned restaurants part of a city's "livability", as if going out to eat food made by an underpaid slave wage class of migrant workers, is somehow a god given entitlement for the western person
that's the point, it's not an entitlement, it's paid for by taxes. and it is what makes a city attractive. same goes for shopping streets (as opposed to shopping malls) etc.
they make the city desireable and livable. which in turn attracts business, which brings in tax money.
you have never been to vienna, i guess. it's the most livable city in the world it frequently comes out at the top of the most desirable city for expats.
support for entrepreneurship is indeed a problem, not just in austria, in all of europe, but those are two different issues. there is no reason why it could not be improved while continuing to subsidize housing. on the contrary. subsidized housing means that as an entrepreneur i don't have to pay premium salaries in order to hire people like eg. in san francisco.
steinberger got hired by OpenAI three months after he revealed his project. to argue he left because because of how austria treats entrepreneurs makes no sense. did he say that that is the reason? i'd like to know if that's really true.
Central planned income redistribution always leads to failure in the long run
vienna's housing policy is successful for a century now. and i expect it will continue to be successful.
>that's the point, it's not an entitlement, it's paid for by taxes.
You're whitewashing subsidies. And you refused to answer my question, why should restaurant owners have their businesses subsidized by taxpayer so they can get away with more profits? Why not other businesses too?
>they make the city desireable and livable. which in turn attracts business, which brings in tax money.
Which businesses move to a city because of restaurants and the "vibe"? Why does Amsterdam or Berlin have way more tech, startups and business than vienna if the city is more desirable?
Maybe businesses investments and restaurants are a completely different things.
>vienna's housing policy is successful for a century now. and i expect it will continue to be successful.
Only for those who benefit from it. But what about the rest on the rest?
Very similar to how religion and their associated belief systems are used to control others. I suppose one could consider capitalism a form of religion and "sacred values" that faces an almost autoimmune response when the belief system is challenged, as it also challenges the human's identity (in some cases).
Precisely. There are even strong arguments to support this take; they speak about a "free market" that simply never existed, an "invisible hand" that supposedly beneficial, the ridiculous belief that competition always improves outcomes, the equation of price with value, the (HN favourite) that profit proves virtue / merit, consumer choice = freedom, and so, so many other unfounded or partially true beliefs.
>But the industry and the jobs have shrunken a lot
And those people left jobless still have the right to vote. So you'll have to bribe them with welfare or invest in their upskilling, otherwise they'll turn to crime to survive and vote the most extremist parties to power that will undo all your environmentalism.
It also leaves you economically and militarily vulnerable to the countries you outsourced all your manufacturing too, as you can't fight back an invading army of mass produced consumer drones with just your remaining HR and software departments.
>I'd pick the clean air and water, and have people poisoned far away that I don't know and can ignore.
Until they mass migrate as refugees out of their polluted hlleholes you helped create, and move into your clean country straining your resources, making it your problem once again. Or, they tool up and economically or militarily crush you, turning your country into one of their colonies.
You(the West in thsi case) reap what you sow. There's no free lunch where you can have your cake and eat it too. In a highly globalized, highly mobile world, things tend to come back at you pretty quickly and the only ones safe from this are the ones who profited the most form this, the billionaires with private islands and doomsday bunkers.
Just to clarify: When it comes to myself, my post has been a provocative hypothetical scenario in which I would need to make that choice.
In the real world, decided to move to a part of the planet where this question doesn't even come up, due to society having different priorities and a different base definition of "quality of life".
>The EU and the US have an issue with CCP-subsidised tech giants
Except EU and US tech giants also get massive government subsidies making such accusations hypocritical. Silicon Valley has its roots in cold war defense funding.
What the US and EU don't like it that China has beaten them at their own game using their own rules, so now they need to move the goalposts on why we shouldn't buy Chinese RAM and protect western DRAM monopolies making amazing margins.
> The EU has a great opportunity to enter the market:
You can't just get into RAM manufacturing overnight whenever you feel like it, like you're building washing machines. You need a lot more than just ASML machines, you need the supply chain, the IP, the experienced professionals with know-how, the education system, the energy, the right regulations, etc.
The EU exited the RAM manufacturing business a long time ago when RAM prices sunk, see Qimonda, meaning it would be a long, expensive uphill battle to get back in, and currently EU has no major semiconductor manufacturing ambitions, or ambitions in commodity hardware manufacturing of any kind, so that's not gonna happen.
Of course, RAM is no longer a commodity right now, but nobody can guarantee it won't be again when the AI bubble burst and RAM prices crash, so spinning up the know-how, manufacturing facilities and supply chains from the ground up just for RAM is insanely expensive and risky and might leave you holding the bag.
> it's a high-tech manufacturing job, not something that requires lots of cheap labor.
Except semiconductor manufacturing DOES require cheap labor relative to the high degrees of skills and specialization needed at that cutting edge. Unlike in Taiwan, skilled STEM grads in the EU (and even more in the US) who invest that time and effort in education and specialization, will go to better paying careers with better WLB like software or pharma, than in hardware and semi manufacturing that pays peanuts by comparison and works you to death in deadlines.
Also, profitable semi manufacturing requires cheap energy and lax environmental regulations, which EU lacks. So even more compounding reasons why you won't see too many new semi fabs opening here.
I hope we (Europe) can try some things even when they are not guaranteed to succeed and generate huge profits. Otherwise we are toast, though it might take some time to realise it.
The concept of trying not-guaranteed things should not be so alien here on news.ycombinator.com I would think.
>I hope we (Europe) can try some things even when they are not guaranteed to succeed and generate huge profits.
If EU hopes were cookies, I would have died of obesity 100 times over. EU is bad at learning from its own mistakes and being proactive on rapid changes on the world stage, that's why it's share of global GDP has dropped by half in 20 years. EU is always reactive and then only when it's far too late and its actions are always limp-dicked("we are monitoring the situation"). See the rise of US tech, Russia's 2014 invasion of Ukraine, rise of Chinese EVs, etc
>Otherwise we are toast, though it might take some time to realise it.
We already are toast for the long run, we just ignore it via printing more money and going into more debt, while kicking the can down the road for future generations to deal with the fallout. EU's biggest economies are working around the clock on how to fund the ever growing pension and welfare deficits, how to beat Russia, and how to stop people from voting right wing, not on how to claw back and on-shore cutting edge semiconductor manufacturing.
>The concept of trying not-guaranteed things should not be so alien here on news.ycombinator.com I would think.
Yeah but someone still needs to pay for that and take a risk. And EU investors don't like risking billions of their money to try out new things that are in competition with Asia on manufacturing because we cannot compete there. Labor costs too high, regulations too high, energy costs too high, environmentalism too high, we miss critical know-how. That's why nobody is investing in EU fabs and instead in other things that guarantee higher returns like services, pharma and weapons.
I think we mostly agree. Just "no RAM factories because we have more competitive advantage elswhere" is different than "no RAM factories because they are not guaranteed a profit". Are pharma and weapons really guaranteed? Less risk because we are better positioned is something else, and actually makes sense.
>I think we mostly agree. Just "no RAM factories because we have more competitive advantage elswhere" is different than "no RAM factories because they are not guaranteed a profit".
But then people shouldn't moan that the EU is absent from the RAM manufacturing industry or pretend like it's something easy they could do on a whim if the EU suddenly wanted to.
>Are pharma and weapons really guaranteed?
There will always be sick people and people killing each other.
>Modern RAM is made in fabs, which are ridiculously expensive to manufacture. Modern EUV lithography machines cost around 500M each. They're manufactured by hand. Only one company in the world knows how to manufacture them right now.
You're wrong here. You don't need the most cutting edge ASML EUV machines to make RAM. Most RAM fabs still use standard DUV.
> You're wrong here. You don't need the most cutting edge ASML EUV machines to make RAM. Most RAM fabs still use standard DUV.
Ah. Please check that. Which types of DRAM can be made in a DUV fab? Obviously the older ones, but are those obsolete for new computers. This really matters.
CXMT’s entire portfolio is made without EUV, and CXMT claims to have acceptable yield and performance comparable to other producers.
Keep in mind that the high bandwidths of modern RAM modules aren’t really a property of the RAM cells so much as a property of the read and write circuitry and the DDR or HBM transceivers, and those are a large part of the IP but a small part of the die. There is no such thing as “double data rate” or “high bandwidth” DRAM cells. Even DRAM cells from the 1990s could be read in microseconds. Reading and streaming your fancy AI model weights is an embarrassingly parallel problem and even 1 TB/sec does not even come close to stressing the ability of the raw cells to be read. This in contrast to, say, modern tensor processors where the actual ALUs set a hard cap on throughput and everyone works hard to come closer to the cap.
Take a look at what makes a modern computer with good RAM performance work: it’s the interconnect between the RAM and processor.
From Micron, everything up to their 1-beta node is DUV. Their 1-gamma node they debuted last year is the only EUV node they have. If you bought a Micron-based DDR5 RAM stick a year ago it would have been DUV and you could get those up to DDR5-8000. 1-gamma increases that to DDR5-9200, so if you can live with ~15% less performance DUV is good enough.
100 million DUV machine is not your limiting factor when a whole fab costs 2-3 billion and requires specialized knowhow that few people in the world have in order to get good yields and be profitable. Otherwise everyone would be making chips if all you needed was to go out and buy a 100 million DUV machine then hit the "print" button to churn out chips like it's a Bambu 3d printer.
>I suspect if they were, we'd see a lot of cheap RAM hit the market.
Nobody spends 2-3 billion to open new fab just to make commodity low margin chips. New fabs are almost always built for the cutting edge, then once they pay off their investment costs, they slowly transition into making low margin chips as they age out of the cutting edge, but nobody builds fabs for legacy nodes that have a lot of competition and low profitability, except maybe if national security(the taxpayer) would subsidize those losses somehow.
>but I suspect I'm still right about the economics.
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