America dominates the global tech economy because freedom.
The freedom to think what you want, and be who you want, is now the key to economic growth.
This is a point that’s widely ignored by American elites today. Americans love to talk about what’s wrong and have overestimated our global adversaries since 1776.
It’s most obvious now in our economic competition with China.
China is a great manufacturing power. But it continues to trail in software and science. It deliberately put down its Cloud Emperors for threatening the state. It can’t deliver the latest semiconductor technology.
Software is the product of hands and minds. You can’t automate its production, the way you can a car. You can improve productivity with better tools. But organizing a team requires that coaches listen as well as speak. Man management, they call it.
The best scientists, coders, and writers are all motivated by something inside. We’re not doing it for the money, we’re not doing it for an ideology. We each have our own reasons. In my case, it’s a desire I’ve had all my life to be heard, to be seen, to be part of the conversation. If you want to get the most out of us, you must respect that. China’s government doesn’t respect that.
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