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1:26

Episode 244. 244 is

1:29

the country code belonging to Angola, a country

1:31

located on the west coast of southern Africa. In 1944,

1:34

the infamous D-Day landings took place on June 6,

1:36

marking a major turning point in World War

1:38

II. And Pfizer, the maker of

1:40

Viagra, opened the first commercial plant for

1:43

large-scale production of penicillin in

1:45

Brooklyn, New York. True story, I started

1:48

a support group for men with erectile dysfunction. but

1:51

no one came.

1:53

Go, go, go! Welcome

2:03

to the 244th episode of The Prop

2:05

G-Pod. In today's episode, we speak with

2:08

Chris Miller, an associate professor of international

2:10

history at Tufts University and the author

2:12

of several books including Chip War, The Fight

2:14

for the World's Most Critical Technology. We discussed

2:16

with Chris exactly that, how

2:19

chips became the new oil, who the major players

2:21

are, and how these tiny materials created the

2:23

modern world. Chips, all of a sudden, they

2:26

are just We're not talking about Eric Estrada. My

2:28

God, was he dreamy in that uniform. Okay,

2:31

what's happening? More hoopla

2:33

around

2:33

Twitter. Legacy Blue

2:35

Check holders were supposed to lose their checks over the

2:37

weekend if they didn't sign up for the $8 a

2:39

month subscription service or $1,000 a month

2:41

for businesses. Yet as we

2:44

record this on Monday, April 3rd,

2:46

nothing appears to be different on the platform.

2:48

Why? Why? It made

2:50

no fucking sense. It's literally like how do we figure

2:53

out a way

2:54

to destroy the value of something so we we can charge

2:57

for it. The whole point of the blue check

2:59

was that you were who you said you were adding

3:01

value to the rest of the network. And

3:04

when anyone can buy your blue check, you've

3:06

totally undermined

3:07

or diminished the value making... This

3:11

makes no fucking sense. It's like charging admission

3:13

to a pool. And then once people are inside,

3:16

paving over the pool. It just...

3:18

I don't know what the right analogy is here,

3:20

but this business strategy itself undermines

3:23

or kills all the value that they're ultimately

3:25

trying to charge for. By the way,

3:27

I have no problem with subscription. I would like Twitter

3:29

to go subscription. If they would elevate

3:31

my content, if they would verify my identity

3:34

such that they could age-gate certain content,

3:37

such that they could provide the network with certainty

3:39

that I was in fact who I said I was, such

3:42

that I could have a means of

3:44

ensuring or reducing the amount of

3:46

vile comments or maybe just

3:48

shutting off, and you can do that right now, but I'd like

3:50

more people to adopt identification

3:52

verification, I would pay for

3:55

it. I think subscription is the way to go. I think that thing

3:57

that's kind of screwed the internet and to a certain

3:59

extent America.

4:00

is the ad supported ecosystem. Advertising

4:02

built the internet as a result, it turned into an attention

4:05

grabbing monster that will do anything to maintain

4:08

your attention. And we all figured out that that

4:10

goes to very dark places.

4:12

So what happens to a site where one of the real value propositions

4:15

is accurate news and then viewpoints

4:18

when you don't know which of the 44 blue

4:20

checked New York Times accounts

4:22

is providing with fact checked information.

4:25

So what else is going on at the shit show, better known

4:27

as Twitter, the Doja coin symbol replaced

4:30

the Twitter bird on the desktop version of the homepage.

4:33

And what do you know, the crypto token is up more than 20% during

4:36

the time of our recording.

4:38

We're kind of in uncharted territory here.

4:40

We have the president or former president that's been

4:42

indicated, and we have an individual

4:45

who spent $44 billion and

4:47

has decided, and you can spend $44 billion, this

4:50

is the ultimate sports team.

4:52

When I was on the board of the New York Times, every billionaire Democrat

4:55

in the United States called me and said,

4:57

I'd be interested in financing the New York Times, which is Latin

4:59

for they would wake up every morning, look in the mirror and say, hello,

5:01

publisher New York Times. Everybody wanted to own

5:04

it. That was a wealthy Democrat. Wealthy Republicans

5:06

like to buy football teams. This is the

5:08

most expensive football team purchase at 44

5:11

billion, but it's worse than that. Imagine you're

5:13

a 52 year old overweight guy with a hair transplant. That was uncalled

5:16

for. That was uncalled for. That was both looksist

5:18

and ageist. But anyways, I'm going with it. Imagine

5:21

that guy buys the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and

5:23

then decides he should be the quarterback. You

5:25

think it's any accident that he has now the largest

5:27

Twitter following surpassing Barack Obama,

5:30

that he's doing shit like putting Doja Coin on? I'd love

5:32

to know what his Doja Coin holdings are after putting

5:34

the symbol on the front page of

5:36

Twitter. This is where we are in

5:39

uncharted waters right now. We have an economy

5:41

and the biggest platforms in this economy

5:44

reward this type of behavior that just gets attention.

5:47

It's not about adding value, it's about getting famous.

5:49

And one way to get famous is to pose for the algorithms

5:51

and the algorithms of controversy, anger, and

5:53

anxiety. And these guys

5:55

have that in spades. Okay, so speaking

5:57

of news involving Elon Musk, those key AA. the

6:00

thousand other tech leaders and researchers

6:02

are calling for a pause on the development

6:05

a powerful ai to or same it they pose

6:07

open

6:07

quote profound rest of society

6:09

and humanity oh my gosh

6:12

this is wild and let me be clear some

6:14

of the people who i

6:16

respect most in the world have signed

6:18

this letter and the general concern is

6:20

that this technology is getting out in front of

6:23

a so fast that we might get

6:25

into a situation where we can't control

6:27

it i don't understand this quite frankly

6:29

i am someone who believes we should

6:31

not pause it and i but i want to recognize

6:34

i am open to change

6:36

your i'm open to people smarter the me wang

6:38

and and saying no we should push pause but the question

6:40

isn't as to questions could it be bad

6:42

for the world yeah most technologies

6:45

offer externalities but is it is

6:47

the risk of the externalities here so

6:49

bad that we should press pause and also

6:51

i think the bigger question is how

6:53

do we press pause

6:55

when you have a nuclear arms treaty you can

6:57

verify you can do side inspections

6:59

you can register of someone is testing

7:02

a nuclear device yeah there's an earthquake

7:04

and you know okay they're violating the chimera you can have

7:06

inspectors funny international atomic

7:09

energy authority whatever it's called show up a make

7:11

sure that you not producing uranium and rich materials

7:13

in their factory that has a big sign that says baby

7:15

milk how

7:17

do you track how do you monitor

7:20

artificial intelligence and to be fair

7:22

there saying they want to stop the training on it my

7:25

view is that if we can figure out a way to

7:27

have a multilateral pause which i don't think we can

7:30

do we want to give the iranians the north koreans

7:32

the russians and the chinese

7:34

the opportunity to catch up to us so

7:37

my feeling as we have an arms race here

7:39

and just as einstein registered the be some

7:41

real downsides to society we're

7:44

splitting the atom the even more

7:46

frightening outcome of splitting the atom

7:48

is what habit of hill or figures out a way to split the

7:50

atom for so i

7:52

think there's some real analogies of the passer specifically

7:54

oppenheimer the manhattan project the my view

7:57

as and again i'm very open

7:59

to being

8:00

talked off this position is that

8:02

we want to establish regulatory bodies. We

8:04

want to get very thoughtful people together. We want to monitor

8:07

it. We want to put in place laws and regulations

8:09

and supervision such that

8:11

this thing doesn't get out of control. But

8:13

it also offers incredible upside

8:16

around preventive healthcare, around modeling proteins,

8:19

around treatment of what

8:21

had once been incurable diseases, treatments

8:23

of things like obesity, catching people's

8:25

diets, figuring out a way to extend

8:28

and disperse

8:29

preventive healthcare. I think there's a huge opportunity

8:32

around AI. And for the downside,

8:34

shouldn't we be able, shouldn't the artificial intelligence

8:37

or the large language models be able to figure out

8:39

defense mechanisms as fast as we can figure

8:41

out offensive

8:43

mechanisms? It's probably not

8:45

an apocalypse. I think the thing they're worried about

8:47

is things like malware or

8:49

phishing scams.

8:51

You know, you get a taste of where

8:53

this could go and how it could be very, very

8:55

ugly and damaging on an incremental level, or whether

8:57

it's coming up with malware that might affect, that

9:00

might affect the power generation systems at hospitals.

9:03

You know, the mind goes a lot of places, both

9:05

negative and positive, but until, until

9:08

we can have a multilateral pause,

9:10

I don't want to disarm unilaterally. I want

9:12

us to own this. I want us to become really good at it. Should

9:14

we be more careful with it than we were with social

9:17

media? Yes. thoughtful about

9:20

multilateral discussions around common

9:22

cross border protocols that ensure this thing

9:24

doesn't get out of hand? Absolutely. But

9:27

in the meantime, in the meantime, I do

9:29

not want to press a pause and let other bad

9:31

actors catch up to us. Let me know

9:33

what you think. I come at this from a position

9:35

of humility. I am not an expert on this. This

9:38

has a lot of nuance to it. And

9:40

I am willing

9:40

to evolve and change my position here. Okay,

9:43

what else is happening? The first quarter of 2023 has

9:46

officially wrapped and some highlights include the Nasdaq

9:49

had his best performance since Q2 of 2020 with a 17%

9:53

gain while champagne and cocaine for

9:56

the dog while the S&P 500 was only up 7.5%

10:00

7.5% isn't

10:02

bad considering its index's second consecutive

10:04

quarter of growth. What's crazy about the S&P

10:07

though is that Apple and Microsoft accounted for

10:09

about half of the indexes

10:11

gained during the month of March. Think about that. Half

10:13

the gain of the S&P to companies. The New York Times

10:15

reported that the market cap of Apple

10:17

and Microsoft combined would be the third largest

10:20

sector of the S&P behind tech and

10:22

healthcare and larger than the entire energy

10:24

sector. Anyways, the best performing

10:26

firm in the S&P 500, you

10:29

guessed it, Nvidia, which was up 90% for

10:32

the quarter. Bloomberg reported that this was Nvidia's

10:34

biggest quarterly gain since 2001. Meta

10:37

was also a clear winner in Q1

10:39

with a 76% jump. Who predicted

10:42

who had Meta is one of their three stock

10:44

picks for 2023. One guess, one

10:46

guess only. Bloomberg noted that this

10:49

was Meta's biggest quarter since 2013.

10:51

The bottom line, these things just got oversold. The narrative

10:54

was that the increase in interest rates took an especially

10:56

harsh toll on growth companies. Makes

10:59

sense. Greater interest rates means it costs more to finance your growth

11:01

and those future cash flows

11:03

are worthless when you reverse engineer them back. So

11:06

both the one-two punch of it's

11:08

more expensive to fund cash flows that are

11:10

going to be worthless.

11:11

The punching bag in the middle is the stock price,

11:14

but it probably got overdone. Also

11:16

to be fair, the technology sector has

11:19

become more agile. They said, I know, let's take

11:21

a hard look at our operation, our costs, specifically

11:23

employees, and let's start laying off

11:25

people and not to diminish the pain

11:28

this causes, but it's been the gift that keeps

11:30

on giving for shareholders every time they announce a

11:32

layoff, the stock's up five, seven, 9%,

11:34

and the reality is we have stuffed so

11:36

many calories down the esophagus of these companies

11:38

that there was fat everywhere. If you

11:40

have 40% margins, that means

11:41

you can either increase top line revenue by $2.50 or cut

11:44

costs by $1 and

11:46

you get the same net

11:47

outcome. And what has Tech decided

11:49

to do? they've decided to cut costs. You're

11:52

gonna see this across the entire growth

11:54

economy. It's just getting started. Well,

11:56

maybe that's not true, but probably an ending five or six

11:58

of a nine inning game, with the mark. market loves it, these

12:00

companies are coming back stronger. What was

12:02

another one of my predictions at the end of 2022 for 2023?

12:05

That

12:06

Amazon, Meta, Alphabet

12:10

would all see their revenue increases

12:12

level off. They would all abate. But

12:16

despite a revenue slowdown or a revenue growth

12:18

slowdown, they would have their most profitable

12:20

quarters in history towards the back

12:22

half of this year. Why? They're bringing their cost

12:24

base down.

12:28

Other quarterly highlights or lowlights, the

12:30

KBW bank index, which accounts for the top

12:33

24 banks in the US, was down nearly 18%. Look

12:36

for that to come back. I think that's been overdone.

12:39

Different talk show. Bitcoin jumped more

12:41

than 70% with major gains coming on the heels of the

12:43

collapse of SBB. The price rose 40%

12:45

in the two weeks following the banking crisis. I

12:48

think this is bad. I think there are too many people that have invested

12:50

interest in the decline of the US banking system

12:53

and are agents of chaos and constantly catastrophizing.

12:56

They're kind of the ultimate short sellers,

12:57

but they're basically going short the United

13:00

States. Bitcoin was up 72% in Q1.

13:02

Oh

13:04

my gosh, the banking index was

13:06

the biggest loser down 18%, wheat was off 13%, Brent crude was

13:09

down 7%. Probably

13:11

means inflation should start to come down. We

13:14

were in a deflationary part

13:16

of the cycle, I believe, and that is deflationary

13:18

in the sense that I believe that inflation is gonna continue

13:21

to come down. The other big news, Virgin Orbit

13:24

halted operations after failing to receive funding

13:26

and cut 85% of its staff.

13:28

The Financial Times reported that Virgin Orbit was burning

13:30

through 50 million a quarter. Bottom

13:33

line, bottom line, space is not

13:35

impressed with brand. And I realize I'm

13:37

patting myself a lot on the back. I'm getting blisters

13:40

on my back. I'm patting myself so hard. Let's

13:42

give me a medal. Anyways, I

13:44

was the original hater of the space industry.

13:46

I think it makes no fucking sense. With the exception

13:48

of one company, SpaceX, space hauling does

13:50

make sense. There's a lot of people wanna put

13:52

satellites into the air SpaceX is doing

13:54

it better than anyone. Everything else, Virgin Galactic,

13:57

Virgin This shit makes no

13:58

sense, but wait Scott wasn't virtually

14:00

orbital putting satellites into space. Yes, they were,

14:02

but they were under-capitalized. Also, of

14:04

all the billions of planets, there's only

14:06

one that appears to have brought together all the factors

14:09

such that it could support life. And

14:11

the moment you get just a millimeter

14:12

away on a cosmic level

14:14

from that wonderful thing called Earth, shit

14:17

gets real, as in, materials

14:19

start to break down, much less people being able

14:21

to survive. Do you know how hard it is to keep astronauts

14:24

alive in space? Really hard. That's why so many

14:26

of them die. 11 of the 550 people have

14:29

gone into space have not returned.

14:31

And to think that anyone gives a shit, specifically

14:33

when I say anyone space gives a shit about

14:35

brand or an incredibly

14:37

charismatic founder, guess what? Guess

14:40

what? It doesn't. This company was under-capitalized.

14:43

And who's next? Virgin Galactic, which

14:45

makes absolutely no sense.

14:47

When Bob is immolated

14:48

on the launch pad, that industry

14:51

goes to zero, but it's not even going to get that far. This

14:53

thing makes no sense. This company

14:55

is under capitalized. I've never seen

14:57

a company more demand constrained and supply constrained.

14:59

What does that mean? Companies are one

15:01

or the other. Okay, right now I

15:04

could sell a lot of nuclear power plants. There are

15:06

buyers for them, but they are supply constrained. They

15:08

are difficult to manufacture. They

15:10

take decades sometimes. A

15:12

chip plant costs $20 billion

15:14

to produce. Most businesses are demand

15:16

constrained. I could produce a lot

15:19

of messenger bags. I could produce a lot of of Nikes,

15:22

but

15:22

you got to find people to buy them.

15:23

Virgin Galactic is both supply constrained,

15:26

putting people into space is really hard. Their

15:29

supply of seats on

15:31

a suborbital, semi-orbital,

15:33

whatever you want to call it, transport is

15:36

very hard, supply constrained. It's

15:38

also demand constrained. There just aren't that many people who

15:40

want to spend $400,000 to go for a 20-minute joyride near space and

15:46

get their astronaut wings. That market

15:48

is pretty limited. This is a company. I've never

15:50

seen a company more supply and demand

15:52

constrained. Virgin Orbital is

15:54

going to zero. Virgin Galactic is

15:56

next.

15:59

We'll

15:59

be right back for conversation with Chris Miller.

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ProfG.

18:26

Welcome back. Here's our conversation with

18:28

Chris Miller, the author of Chip War,

18:30

the fight for the world's most critical technology.

18:34

Chris, where does this podcast find you? I

18:36

am right outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Good

18:38

stuff. So you wrote this book,

18:41

Chip War, the fight for the world's most critical technology.

18:44

And you said in the book that we don't

18:46

think about the chips and yet they created

18:48

the modern world. So let's start there.

18:51

How did chips create the modern world?

18:53

Well,

18:53

chips provide all of the

18:55

computing power that we rely on

18:58

in our smartphones and our PCs

19:00

and data centers. And if you think of the modern

19:03

economy today or the way we live our lives, we can't

19:05

function without chips. They're in all the

19:07

devices that we rely on, but

19:10

they're very deep inside. So we never

19:12

actually see them and hardly ever think about

19:14

them.

19:15

So I've read a bunch of places that

19:17

if you want to understand geopolitics

19:19

and power over the last hundred years, you just need to

19:22

track the flows of energy.

19:23

And now it seems like the likely replacement

19:26

for oil is chips. If chips

19:28

in fact become the new oil, well first I have

19:30

to agree with that, and two, if that's in fact true,

19:33

who leaks power and

19:35

influence and who accretes it?

19:37

Well,

19:37

I think that analogy is largely

19:40

correct. Chips are as important

19:42

today as oil was in the 20th century.

19:45

But what's interesting is that their production is even

19:48

more concentrated than oil. So we think of

19:50

Saudi Arabia as a big producer of oil,

19:52

but it produces 10 or 15% of the world's

19:55

petroleum, Whereas semiconductors are

19:58

even more concentrated. of today. Taiwan

20:00

produces 90% of the most advanced

20:03

processor chips, the types of chips that are in phones,

20:05

PCs, data centers. And

20:07

there's just one company that has that extraordinary

20:10

market share. So there's actually more concentration,

20:13

therefore more influence that accrues to the producers

20:16

of the most advanced chips.

20:18

So 90% in Taiwan,

20:20

I didn't realize it was that concentrated.

20:22

For the most advanced processors, that's

20:25

right. So it's hard to buy a smartphone

20:27

without a chip from Taiwan inside, for

20:29

example.

20:30

I mean, just hearing that, so I mean, we go to geopolitical

20:33

concern and that is if 90% of the world's oil

20:35

output came from one region and it butted up

20:37

against an increasingly powerful and hostile

20:40

actor, doesn't that likely

20:43

increase the likelihood of an invasion of

20:45

Taiwan because it's worth the risk to get that 90%?

20:48

Well, the challenge is that you can't just take

20:50

it over very easily. The chip making facilities

20:53

are full of the most precise machinery

20:55

humans have ever invented, all sorts of explosive

20:57

chemicals and more important

21:00

than the machines or the minds of the engineers

21:02

that actually operate them. So it's not

21:04

something you could simply invade and take

21:06

over.

21:07

So you're not just capturing an oil field?

21:09

That's right. It's a lot more complex than that. And the

21:12

chips are made in Taiwan, but they're made

21:14

using machines and chemicals and

21:16

software that's sourced from the US

21:19

and Europe and Japan as well.

21:21

And so you really need to control the entire supply

21:24

chain in in order to get access to the chips you want.

21:26

And the problem China faces today is that

21:28

all of the key nodes in the

21:31

production of chips from the design to

21:33

the manufacturing to the chemicals, they're

21:35

largely produced in rivals of China,

21:38

in Taiwan, in the US,

21:39

in Japan. Do you think it

21:41

was a good idea? My understanding as a Biden administration has taken

21:43

pretty aggressive moves to inhibit

21:46

the flow of some of the key components from making

21:48

these advanced chips into China. Do

21:51

you think that's a good idea or are we kind of

21:53

backing them into a corner?

21:55

Well, I think there's a risk that we're

21:57

backing them the corner, but the alternative doesn't

21:59

look very good.

22:00

attractive either. Before

22:02

last year, last October when they put these

22:04

controls in place, China

22:06

could access the most advanced chips, the type

22:08

of chips used to train AI systems and data

22:10

centers with relative ease. In theory,

22:13

it was illegal to transfer these chips

22:15

to military users in China, but in practice,

22:18

it was impossible to police how they were

22:20

used once they entered China. And so the Biden administration

22:23

judged that it was better off to take the risk

22:25

that China would retaliate in order to

22:27

cut them off from accessing these chips

22:29

without which it's practically impossible to

22:32

train large numbers of AI systems efficiently.

22:35

How did Taiwan get to

22:37

this level of concentration? Was it a big

22:39

national investment? Is it their education

22:42

system? Is it just a brilliant

22:44

move by them to double down on this one industry?

22:46

How did we get to a point where they're controlling 90% of

22:49

like the sweet like crude, if you will, the

22:52

best oil, so to speak.

22:54

What's

22:55

partly due to the Taiwanese

22:57

government, they invested very heavily

23:00

in semiconductors over the past several

23:02

decades, and they actually put up a lot of the capital

23:05

behind the firm TSMC, the

23:07

Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company that

23:09

produces these ultra advanced

23:12

ships. But it's also due to the fact that this

23:14

company, when it was founded, had a really unique

23:16

business model. Before this

23:18

company was founded, almost all chips were

23:21

designed and manufactured in-house

23:23

by the same company. But TSMC doesn't

23:25

design any chips, it only manufactures them.

23:27

And so it's been able to attract lots

23:30

of customers, scale to

23:32

a really unforeseeable degree

23:35

and in that process of scaling, create

23:37

efficiencies and also learn

23:40

to hone its manufacturing processes

23:42

over the larger number of chips it produces. So

23:44

the business model was really unique when it was

23:46

founded and it's proven a competitive

23:48

advantage.

23:50

So one of the things I keep hearing about

23:53

in terms of

23:54

the Ukrainians' surprising

23:56

and inspiring ability to repel

23:58

this much larger invading force

24:01

is that they just have a greater mastery of technology.

24:03

Is this the war that's sort

24:05

of where chips take over?

24:07

You

24:07

know, I think there's some truth to that. Certainly

24:10

the Ukrainians have been much more agile

24:13

in their ability to take technology and deploy

24:15

it in new ways where the Russians have been very

24:18

slow to adapt. But

24:20

I think what's striking is that the Ukrainians are

24:22

doing so often using

24:25

off-the-shelf technology. So if you look at the drones

24:27

that they're deploying, for example, they're not ultra advanced

24:29

drones, they're simple drones that they're

24:31

able to use in large numbers because

24:33

they're simple and low cost. And so

24:36

in some ways it's a high tech conflict, but in other ways

24:38

it's a conflict using accessible

24:40

consumer technologies that are being deployed in

24:42

new ways.

24:44

But to your point, it's about the humans, right?

24:46

I had

24:49

invested in several companies that had large

24:51

programming

24:52

centers in Ukraine.

24:55

And I imagine, I heard this one story,

24:57

so I'm an investor in a company, and they had

25:00

a small group of about 13 programmers

25:02

over there.

25:03

And Ukraine has a lot of tech talent. And

25:06

then on the Monday after the invasion, 11 of

25:09

the 13 were gone because they joined

25:11

the Ukrainian army.

25:13

And I imagine, okay, you have all these,

25:15

this strong tech hub, the strong

25:18

technologically sophisticated, adept,

25:22

agile workforce flow

25:24

into the armed forces. It

25:27

strikes me that

25:28

this might be the swing skill,

25:31

if you will, in the war.

25:34

Back to your notion around the reason that Taiwan

25:37

makes these chips is not only they have the factories, but they have the

25:39

human capital. Is this, again,

25:41

a war won by

25:43

technical domain expertise?

25:45

I

25:46

think you could make that argument. I

25:48

think if you compare it to the Russian army where the

25:51

bulk of the soldiers now have been conscripted

25:54

in via force mobilization, It's just

25:56

a totally different army that Ukraine's

25:58

fighting with with lots of people. who voluntarily

26:00

signed up, people who are much

26:03

more enthusiastic about being there and as a result

26:05

are willing to take the initiative to a much greater

26:07

degree. That I think is the key difference.

26:09

It's the ability of low

26:12

and mid-level soldiers and officers

26:14

in the Ukrainian military to innovate, to

26:16

try new things and to see what works.

26:19

And you see almost none of that on the Russian side.

26:22

Speaking of wars or conflicts, you wrote regarding

26:24

the Persian Gulf War that it was a pivotal

26:27

moment for the role of microchips in warfare.

26:30

anymore? Well,

26:31

the Gulf War in 1991

26:33

was the first war we saw in a

26:35

really large-scale way, the use of

26:37

chips to guide munitions to hit a target with

26:39

precision. Before that point, bombing

26:42

from the air or long-range rockets was

26:45

an exercise in massive

26:47

quantity because you had no idea what was going to hit its target.

26:49

And since the Gulf War, we've become used to

26:52

the fact that bombs can hit their targets,

26:54

in most cases, pretty accurately using,

26:56

at first laser guidance, now

26:58

GPS guidance. And so the entire

27:00

character of war has changed because you no longer

27:02

need 1000 bombs to hit a single target, you can

27:05

often do it with just one. And that's

27:07

possible because of semiconductors

27:09

because of computing power both in the

27:11

weapons themselves, but also distributed

27:14

across a battlefield, the satellites

27:16

gathering signals intelligence, for

27:18

example, the data centers processing what that

27:20

means, the communications sending that

27:22

to an individual weapon system, there's

27:25

semiconductors in almost every defense system

27:28

today, sensing, communicating, and computing

27:30

in a way that was impossible just a couple decades

27:32

ago.

27:33

So talk to us, break down, give

27:35

the kind of the cliff notes on the CHIPS

27:38

Act and what you think is

27:40

what you like or don't like about the legislation.

27:43

Because

27:45

of the concentration in where CHIPS

27:47

are manufactured, the U.S. decided

27:49

via an an act of Congress to try

27:52

to bolster manufacturing in the US.

27:54

And the key recognition was

27:57

that chip making in the US is more expensive,

27:59

more expensive. because of tax policy, because of labor

28:01

costs, because of environmental regulations.

28:04

So the goal has been to equalize

28:06

the cost gap between producing in Asia

28:08

and producing in the US and therefore trying to

28:10

attract more investment in the US.

28:13

And I think it's an admirable goal, given

28:16

the just extraordinary risks that

28:18

we face, given the concentration of chip

28:20

making in the Taiwan Straits if China

28:22

were to attack or try to blockade the

28:25

island. But it's going to be hard to pull

28:27

off in a major way, because the

28:30

enormous capacity that's been built up in East

28:33

Asia is going to be hard to move,

28:35

hard to change. And so we're already seeing some

28:37

increases in investment in chip making in the US,

28:40

but the reality is that it's gonna be a slow

28:42

process, even though I think the CHIPS Act is

28:44

working. It's working on the margin

28:47

because the chip industry

28:49

will take a decade to begin

28:51

to see real shifts in. And I'll just give you one example

28:54

as to why that's true. The CHIPS Act spends $39

28:56

billion for incentives

28:58

for chip making. And that sounds like a lot of money, but a

29:00

single new chip making facility

29:03

costs $20 billion.

29:05

And what is so hard about producing

29:08

chips? Is it the intellectual

29:10

property, the number of PhDs you need,

29:13

the quality control of these factories?

29:16

What drive,

29:18

where does that 20 billion go?

29:21

So most of the 20 billion for

29:23

a new chip making facility goes to buying the

29:25

tools that are capable manufacturing chip.

29:27

So if you go to the Apple Store, buy a new iPhone,

29:30

the primary chip on the iPhone will have 15

29:32

billion tiny transistors

29:35

carved into it, each one of which is smaller than

29:37

the size of a virus. And so managing

29:40

the manufacturing of these by the billions for

29:42

each and every iPhone with close to perfect

29:44

accuracy, it's the hardest manufacturing

29:47

humans have ever done. And there's

29:49

just a couple of companies in California,

29:51

in the Netherlands, in Japan that can produce

29:54

the tools capable of

29:56

manufacturing transistors at this

29:59

scale. And the machines involved

30:01

themselves cost often $100 million a piece.

30:04

The most expensive of the tools

30:06

that make chips cost $150 million,

30:09

has hundreds of thousands of components,

30:11

including the flattest mirrors ever invented,

30:14

an explosion happening inside

30:16

of it constantly at 40 times hotter

30:18

than the surface of the sun. I mean, this is really

30:20

wild engineering in terms of what

30:23

it takes to put these machines together. And that's why

30:25

it's brutally expensive.

30:28

So when I got out of business school,

30:31

one of the premier jobs you could get was

30:33

at this amazing firm that was building the future

30:35

that was the brain inside everything and I was

30:37

Intel, right? Did

30:39

Intel just kind of miss

30:41

the boat here? Why is why is

30:43

Intel not shared

30:46

in this exciting if I look at Intel's

30:49

five year stock performance, it's

30:51

almost been cut in half. And

30:53

it feels as if they should be ground zero for this

30:56

kind of innovation. They're in what

30:58

most people think is the most innovative geography in the world.

31:00

They have the capital, they have the brand.

31:02

What happened? For

31:05

a long time, Intel was too successful

31:07

for its own good.

31:08

It produced most of the chips that went in PCs

31:11

from the invention of the PC all the way up to the present

31:14

for a long time at a dominant market share in

31:16

data centers too. And so

31:18

for much of the past decade, the firm rested

31:21

on its laurels, took advantage of the extraordinary

31:23

profitability of its two existing business

31:25

lines and failed to invest effectively

31:28

in anything new. And so it famously

31:30

missed the smartphone wave. Steve Jobs

31:32

actually went to Intel before the first

31:35

Apple was produced and asked if they wanted to produce chips

31:37

for the first iPhones. And

31:39

Intel said, no, it sounded like a low volume

31:42

product with low margins. And that was, of

31:44

course, a horrible error in hindsight.

31:46

And then Intel was also slow to pick up

31:48

on the shifts towards artificial

31:51

intelligence in data centers and slow to

31:53

roll out chips that are necessary for running AI workloads.

31:56

And so it's fallen behind in a number of key

31:59

areas. Now over the past two

32:01

years, it's got a new CEO who's been trying

32:03

to turn things around, catch up.

32:07

Where do you think when you look at specific

32:09

companies or specific regions,

32:12

geographies, sectors, industries,

32:15

who do you think the winners and losers are based

32:17

on how you see the sector shaping up?

32:20

Well,

32:20

one of the key

32:22

changes underway right now is that selling

32:24

chips to data centers is getting more and

32:27

more important. And there's just a couple of firms

32:29

that play a critical role in supplying

32:31

chips to data centers. And so if you look at the

32:33

data centers that are training large

32:36

AI systems, they're critically reliant

32:38

on chips from just one company, NVIDIA, which

32:41

is a US firm that designs chips, manufactures

32:43

all their chips actually with TSMC in Taiwan.

32:46

And it's really hard to have AI

32:48

systems that aren't trained on their chips.

32:51

And so when you think of of the AI

32:53

revolution that's underway right now. We

32:55

see the impact via chat GPT, but

32:57

underneath all of the training is our

33:00

chips produced by just a couple of companies.

33:03

Yeah, so it feels like Nvidia sort of

33:05

basically took, it's like what Lady Gaga

33:07

did to Madonna and Nvidia did to Intel. What

33:12

if, and I'm gonna go back to China, apologize for hopping

33:14

around, but would it be worth it

33:16

for China just to

33:18

invade Taiwan, even if TSMC went out

33:20

of business or

33:23

they couldn't recreate it, but just to stop the flow

33:25

of these advanced chips to the Western

33:27

world.

33:29

Well, the problem that China faces is that

33:31

they're more dependent on Taiwan than anyone else.

33:34

China spends as much money each

33:36

year importing chips as it spends importing

33:38

oil. And most of those ships are

33:40

imported from Taiwan. I just want to

33:42

pause there. That's an amazing stat. China

33:45

spends as much importing chips as importing

33:47

oil.

33:48

That's right. And it has for most of

33:50

the last decade. It really is the new oil. I mean, it

33:52

is. That's amazing. And

33:55

so they're equally chip dependent is energy

33:57

independent. What is their domestic supply of chips?

34:00

Is it anything? They've got a pretty

34:02

big domestic industry for very low end

34:05

ships. But when it comes to anything remotely

34:07

close to the cutting edge, they're dependent on

34:10

importing from Taiwan, from Korea,

34:12

from Japan, from the United States.

34:16

We'll be right back.

34:20

Over the past several weeks, today Explained

34:23

has been going downtown. Downtown

34:25

Seattle. Drug

34:26

activity like when spring and

34:28

summer, you know, when they hang out all night,

34:31

it's worse. Downtown Chicago.

34:33

Not just happens anywhere, anytime of day. Morning,

34:35

night, like it's just way worse. Philadelphia.

34:38

A lot more violence,

34:41

more homeless people. And New York City.

34:43

I

34:43

see a lot of people just going and grabbing

34:46

people's bags, hitting them. It's

34:48

like they don't care. One through line in all

34:50

these cities? Crime. The number

34:53

one barrier that we heard from people was

34:55

that fear of crime was what was preventing

34:57

them from going downtown, particularly

35:00

within the Central Business District itself and

35:02

on their commutes there.

35:03

Americans are scared of their

35:05

downtowns. But should they be? We're

35:08

going to find out in our City Limits series

35:11

on Today Explained.

35:18

From New York Magazine and the Box

35:20

Media Podcast Network, this is the Joe

35:23

Rogan Experience with a thousand percent

35:25

more experience. Or

35:28

is it the Don Lemon Show with a hundred percent

35:30

more understanding of women in their prime?

35:34

Just kidding, this is on with Kara Swisher

35:36

and I'm Kara Swisher. Every Monday and

35:38

Thursday I take on big names in tech media

35:40

and politics to understand what makes

35:42

them tick and to hold their feet to

35:45

the fire a bit. with Kara

35:47

Swisher, listen wherever you get your

35:49

podcasts.

35:56

I want to switch gears because when I was reading your bio,

35:59

you're... You're

36:00

an expert on chips, but you're also an expert on

36:02

Russia, or at least modern Russia. You've

36:04

written two books about it, Putinomics, Power

36:06

and Money, and Resurgent Russia, The

36:09

Struggle to Save the Soviet Union, Mikhail

36:11

Gorbachev, and The Collapse of the USSR. I

36:14

would love to just get the cliff notes or

36:16

broad brush what you think

36:19

the situation is in Russia. If

36:21

you're forced to try and speculate around,

36:24

given obviously there's a lot going

36:26

on with Russia right now. What

36:29

do you think Russia looks like in three or five years?

36:31

How do you think, what

36:33

is your prediction around Putin and Russia

36:35

and its role in the world over the next few years?

36:39

Well,

36:39

Putin is only 71 years old.

36:41

So I think the base case is that

36:43

he's still in power in three years' time

36:45

or in five years' time. He doesn't

36:48

have anywhere to retire to. He can't

36:50

do that safely. He's in good

36:52

health by all accounts, doesn't

36:54

smoke, barely drinks. And a

36:56

typical Russian who makes it to the age of 65 is

36:59

likely to make it into their 80s, judging

37:01

by the life expectancy tables. So he's

37:05

not likely to die over the next three

37:07

to five years, though it's possible. And it's

37:09

hard to remove him, not impossible. There's a long

37:11

history of palace coups in Russia,

37:14

but it's difficult to see who could

37:16

drive him out over the next

37:18

couple of years. And so I think we have to operate

37:21

under the assumption that he's still around for

37:23

the foreseeable future.

37:25

This is just an area, I look at the war and I

37:27

think this is going so poorly. And

37:29

now a lot of the most powerful and wealthiest

37:32

people in Russia can't park their yachts

37:34

in St. Bart's or wherever.

37:36

I

37:36

mean, is this, is the West,

37:39

is Western media have a bias where

37:41

they think things are worse over there for Putin and for

37:43

Russia than they actually are? Have these

37:45

economic sanctions begun to take a toll

37:47

on ordinary life? If all these

37:49

boxes with young men in them

37:51

being shipped back to Mother Russia, is that

37:54

beginning to take an emotional toll. Like what

37:56

is the state of play in

37:58

Russia right now? as it relates to their

38:00

view of this war and how it's going.

38:03

Well, the key to answering that question is

38:06

to differentiate who matters and who doesn't in Russian

38:08

politics. You know, the oligarchs, they're

38:10

fun to write about in newspapers because they've got

38:12

big yachts and lots of girlfriends, but in reality,

38:15

they don't play a big role in politics. They've been very

38:18

aggressively pushed out of politics by Putin,

38:20

and now if you're an oligarch, you've

38:22

learned over time that if you have political views

38:24

and you say them out loud, you can end up in jail or

38:27

you could fall out the window. And so it's very

38:29

dangerous to do so. So they're

38:32

interesting figures, but they're not political actors

38:34

in a major way. And similarly, the Russian

38:36

populace doesn't have very

38:38

many mechanisms to express its

38:40

views. And so if you're a typical Russian, protesting

38:43

is highly dangerous. It's not likely

38:45

to work anyway. And so most people have

38:48

more or less withdrawn from politics, accepted

38:50

that they can't change the situation, and

38:53

are just going to cope with whatever comes.

38:55

And so as a result, there's just a small number

38:57

people in the political elite that have a real

39:00

vote or a voice in the process.

39:03

And right now, they've all concluded that their best

39:05

strategy for survival is to persist

39:08

with the war, keep their

39:11

heads down and see what comes

39:13

next. And I think that's been their strategy

39:15

since the war started. And it's been a successful

39:18

survival strategy for all of the

39:20

Russian elite. Hasn't been good for the country, but it's been effective

39:23

for them.

39:25

distract me that in the last couple

39:27

weeks, as America worries about transgender swimmers

39:29

or their daughter marrying a Republican, that

39:32

the thing we should be worried about was that

39:34

meeting between she and Putin. Is

39:36

there an access alliance forming?

39:39

There's certainly a much closer partnership than

39:42

anyone could have imagined ten years ago. The

39:45

fact that Putin and

39:47

she have met each other as much as they've met any

39:49

other world leader, not just since the war started,

39:51

but over the past decade, is really

39:54

important. They've described each

39:56

other as their best friends. They

39:59

celebrated... birthdays together in recent

40:02

years. But I think since the war,

40:04

the relationship has shifted somewhat because

40:06

Putin has no choice but to be friends with Xi. He's

40:09

got no other friends. He's more reliant

40:11

than ever on China, whereas China's

40:14

in a good bargaining position. It

40:16

knows that Russia's reliant. It's able to

40:19

get cut price access to

40:21

all of Russia's raw materials. And so

40:24

for China, this isn't a bad position to be in

40:26

because Russia has very

40:28

little room to bargain. When

40:30

you talk about chips and you talk about oil and

40:32

the kind of US-Sino relations,

40:35

this really is probably the most important relationship,

40:37

geopolitical relationship in the world. And

40:41

people including Fareed Zakaria and some

40:43

others will say that we have become

40:45

so used to being

40:47

the kind of unilateral

40:49

superpower that there's

40:51

some veracity to the notion that we've been too aggressive

40:54

and that we have encouraged

40:56

a lot of nations to try

40:59

and find an alternative default currency,

41:01

try and produce their own chips, that

41:04

the rise of a hostile China, that

41:08

we bear some blame for that. What are your thoughts?

41:11

You know, I think we certainly bear some

41:13

blame, but I guess if you look at the

41:16

key turning points, I think most of

41:18

the blame falls on the Chinese side.

41:20

If you ask, why is

41:22

it that China annex the South China Sea? Or why

41:25

is it that China regularly starts fights with India

41:28

over their disputed border in the Himalayas? Or

41:31

why is it that Xi has horrible

41:33

relations with all of his neighbors

41:36

except for Russia? It's not just the

41:38

US that's in a position of having

41:41

its worst relations with China in several decades. It's also

41:43

Korea and Japan and India

41:46

and Australia. And so

41:48

if you look at China's foreign relations,

41:50

we're actually not unique in having a pretty bad

41:52

relationship. China is actually unique

41:54

in having awful relations with almost all of

41:56

its key trading partners. And I think that speaks

41:58

to the fact that actually a lot of. the key policy

42:01

decisions that have led us to where we are, we're taking

42:03

in Beijing rather than in Washington.

42:06

And so from Russia to chips, what's next?

42:09

Well, I'm still spending

42:11

a lot of time looking at the impact

42:14

of the chip war. I think that the

42:16

question that people haven't really gotten their heads

42:18

around yet is how this is going to restructure

42:20

the entire electronics industry. Right

42:23

now, take Apple, they produce almost all their

42:25

phones, PCs, tablets in

42:28

China. is going to

42:30

change, I think, pretty dramatically over

42:32

the coming years and decades as every

42:35

assembler of smartphones, of PCs,

42:38

of servers is looking to shift

42:40

where they assemble their goods. And a lot of

42:42

the globalization that we take for

42:44

granted is actually electronic supply chains

42:46

that crisscross the Asia Pacific region. And that

42:48

is beginning to be decoupled

42:51

with really dramatic impacts for the world economy.

42:54

Let's talk about consumer tech. Amazon,

42:56

Apple, Facebook, Google, and anyone else that

42:59

you want to talk about, who's best positioned or

43:01

worst positioned given the changing dynamic

43:04

of the chip world?

43:06

Well, I think if you had to pick out someone who was worst positioned,

43:08

it would certainly be Apple. There's

43:10

no company that's more exposed

43:13

to intensifying U.S.-China

43:15

tensions. Apple both has

43:17

China as its second largest market, has

43:20

almost all of its assembly in

43:22

China, and all of Apple's critical

43:24

chips are made in Taiwan. So every

43:26

level Apple is exposed to increasing

43:29

tensions between the US and China.

43:32

And finally, when I think about the ultimate front

43:34

end for all this incredibly sophisticated

43:37

computing power, it's AI. The

43:39

thing that people are most excited about is AI.

43:41

What's your view on AI's impact on the economy

43:44

and the larger society?

43:48

It's interesting going back to the early days

43:50

of the modern computing industry in the

43:52

40s, and

43:54

looking at the predictions that were made

43:56

that and Gordon Moore who just passed

43:59

away. predicted in 1965

44:03

that in the coming decades we would

44:05

have personal computers and

44:07

portable communications devices. And he

44:09

was absolutely right, but it took decades

44:12

to play out. So when I look at

44:15

how to think about the trajectory of AI,

44:17

I think some of the more optimistic projections

44:19

are likely to come true, but even

44:22

revolutionary technologies take years

44:24

or even decades to actually proliferate

44:27

across the economy and across our

44:29

lives. And so I think we shouldn't expect transformative

44:32

changes next year or the year after,

44:34

even if it's really impact that will be measured over a long

44:37

time horizon.

44:38

Chris Miller is an associate professor of international

44:40

history at the Fletcher School of Law and

44:42

Diplomacy at Tufts University and

44:45

Jean Kirkpatrick, visiting fellow at

44:47

the American Enterprise Institute. He's

44:49

also the author of four books, including

44:51

his latest, Chip War, the

44:53

fight for the world's most critical technology.

44:56

He joins us from just outside of

44:58

Boston. Chris, we appreciate your time. Thanks

45:00

for having me.

45:05

["The

45:11

Algebra of Happiness"] Algebra

45:14

of happiness, just book it. So three

45:17

years ago, it feels like two years ago, but it was

45:19

probably three years ago, my

45:22

oldest son, Alec, who is now 15,

45:26

I'm not exaggerating was this

45:28

beautiful little innocent

45:30

boy who used to, he

45:33

just couldn't get enough of me. I mean, just couldn't get enough

45:35

of me

45:36

and he would let me tickle him. And

45:40

I mean, just a boy, literally just a

45:42

boy, just this adorable boy. The

45:44

last three years, and it may even be

45:46

the two years, have

45:49

flown by for me, starting

45:52

a business, moving to London. It's

45:55

just, it's been a blank, but in that blank,

45:59

this little This little boy, this

46:01

little beautiful boy is now six feet tall

46:03

and

46:04

every response is monosyllabic.

46:06

How was school today? Fine.

46:08

What do you want to do today? Don't know. And

46:11

he's turning into a lovely young man, but

46:13

it's just a different person. That

46:15

kid is gone. And

46:17

I have a lot of regrets. Do I have a lot of regrets?

46:20

Some regrets about fathering, but something I did right

46:23

was whenever there was an opportunity to

46:25

go somewhere with my kids, an opportunity to take a vacation.

46:28

And I realized this is a point of privilege, but a lot of it

46:30

is

46:31

your decision. A lot of it is in your control.

46:34

When I was younger and

46:35

when they were really little, I

46:38

always kind of found reasons to not do

46:40

stuff with them or not go on

46:42

vacations, because I just wanted to put

46:44

it off or think it through or make sure, do

46:46

we really want to go

46:49

to life size monopoly? Do we really like, give

46:51

me a day to decide or a little while, let's bring

46:53

it up. Let's talk about it next week, whether we want to go

46:55

to

46:56

visit their grandparents this

46:58

weekend for lunch? Or do we want

47:01

to make the effort to go to Universal

47:03

Studios? Because I'm a fundamentally lazy

47:05

person

47:06

and don't like to commit to God forbid doing something

47:08

I don't enjoy.

47:09

And what I recognize as I get older is that

47:12

these kids are ripping by. You do

47:14

not get these years back. And so what I have done,

47:16

what I have done six months

47:18

ago, let's go to Japan. I've

47:20

never been to Japan.

47:22

Okay, let's go, let's book

47:24

it. We wanna go to

47:26

ABBA, the 3D, there's

47:29

some

47:30

ABBA thing here in London.

47:32

Okay, let's book it. Just

47:35

book it. And I realize that some people don't

47:37

have that economic flexibility,

47:39

but it doesn't have to

47:40

involve money, right? I'm thinking about

47:42

joining a soccer league. Do you wanna be an assistant coach?

47:45

Yes.

47:46

You gotta be promiscuous. Be promiscuous

47:48

with your heart and your time when it comes to your kid.

47:51

Cause you'll wake up, I'm telling you, just wake

47:53

up

47:54

and he's six feet tall.

47:56

And quite frankly, he's just not that into you.

47:58

He loves you.

48:00

And it's good that he's just not that into you because he's into

48:02

his own thing as he should be.

48:04

But I'm telling you while you're in that magic

48:06

zone, and I think babies

48:08

are awful, quite frankly, I think kind of three

48:11

is okay, passable, four starts to get

48:13

fun,

48:14

four to 14 are the magic year. So

48:16

during that decade, my brothers, any

48:18

opportunity, it might not seem like fun,

48:21

it may be expensive, it may be tough on you

48:24

professionally or from a lifestyle standpoint,

48:26

but trust me on this, just book

48:28

it.

48:30

This episode was produced by Caroline Shagren,

48:33

Jennifer Sanchez is our associate producer,

48:35

and Drew Burrows is our technical director.

48:37

If you like what you heard, please follow,

48:40

download, and subscribe. Thank you for listening

48:42

to the Prof G Pod from the Vox Media Podcast Network.

48:45

We will catch you on Saturday for No Mercy

48:47

No Malice, as read by George Hahn, on

48:49

Monday with our weekly market show.