> Investors like him are the enemy on long term moonshot R&D
That's because he comes from a generation who has "the government and universities take care of R&D" as a mindset. A lot of the stuff we take for granted today - *nix, TCP, IP, the Internet itself, lasers, microwave, radar - came out of universities, government grants or the military.
The idea that the government is incapable of R&D is relatively new and originates in small-state / lean-state / starve-the-beast ideology.
And personally, I rather believe the wisdom of an old man who made a metric shitload of money by being a good honest citizen than others who got rich on advertising and stonk market shenanigans.
Imagine having to tell voters that the government is going to spend 11b (Waymo funding since 2020) on automating an entire profession away, good luck winning your next election. It is inherently infeasible to have popular support for the most revolutionary technologies that will cause societal upheaval. Voters have voted to preserve their lifestyles in amber over positive revolutionary change every time, see: public transit, building dense housing, corn subsidies, etc.
> Imagine having to tell voters that the government is going to spend 11b (Waymo funding since 2020) on automating an entire profession away, good luck winning your next election.
So what, NASA spent billions on the new space race, with everyone knowing the true aim was to kick Boeing's ass and Boeing being widely known as a pork distributor first and foremost and rocket/plane manufacturer second.
The job of politicians isn't to cater to the whims of reactionaries, the job of politicians is to do the right thing and sell it to the voter base.
That's because he comes from a generation who has "the government and universities take care of R&D" as a mindset. A lot of the stuff we take for granted today - *nix, TCP, IP, the Internet itself, lasers, microwave, radar - came out of universities, government grants or the military.
The idea that the government is incapable of R&D is relatively new and originates in small-state / lean-state / starve-the-beast ideology.
And personally, I rather believe the wisdom of an old man who made a metric shitload of money by being a good honest citizen than others who got rich on advertising and stonk market shenanigans.