Remember when professionals were predicting our workweek would be 15 hours and labor wages would grow as the production became more efficient?
It always sounds like another NAFTA sales pitch; Fed uses tax-money to help all those corporations that leaves your hometown to build in some country where they work 12-15 hours a day for $3.10 per hour, and somehow, we all will be rolling-in-money, .. somehow ...
How true this is. "Just because you can automate something doesn’t mean you should." In SW dev many assume everything must be fully automated, leading to single button devops being the gold standard. I've found that humans are underrated as well. MD's, product managers and lead developers should talk and review what is being built regularly. Seems obvious, right?
Completely agree. The best systems still rely on human judgment. Regular conversations between product, dev, and design often catch what automation misses.
It may seem obvious, but it is amazing how often that simple habit gets lost.
Thank you so much Jayantraj! So glad you enjoyed the piece. The only limitation is my school doesn't have the PhD degree. But more than happy to unpack other ideas and concept through writing and discussion. Thanks again.
Howard, great article. I worked in automotive for 18 years and knew many of the good and bad automations firsthand, the struggles of the Detroit Big 3 in implementing the lean manufacturing system.
I like to hear your comment about the autonomous driving technologies that the society has collectively been spending so much money to solve. In my mind, if you want to improve efficiency and reduce accidents in the highly populated regions, you do high speed rail (HSR) systems like China or some large cities in Asia and Europe. For the less dense areas, you leave them to human drivers. Why are we spending so much time, money, and human capital to solve problems this way? Other examples include many of the proposed solutions using AI, crypto/blockchain, renewables/batteries, etc. All these things may have their valid use cases, but the tendency for Silicon Valley is to push them to the extreme for everything as the panacea. Remember back in 2021 the most frequent expression on Twitter is "Crypto will solve that" no matter what that is?
Thank you so much, Wayne! Coming from you with real first-hand experience means a lot to me. For autonomous driving, I fully agree it has to be about technology and market fit. My sense is that it would not make much sense to build something close to AGI just to handle both dense and sparse areas, so you are absolutely right on that.
Lately, I have also been thinking a lot about crypto. One wild card I am still researching is stablecoins, especially given the recent regulatory shifts. The promise, of course, is a fraction of the cost for cross-border transfers. The open question for me is whether the underlying technology can truly scale and whether transaction reliability can ever rival Visa or Mastercard’s networks in the long run.
So funny! I have also been researching stablecoins and cross-boarder money transfer. I think you might want to look into how a UK company (www.wise.com) solved this problem if you are not already familiar with it. The founding story of WISE is very fascinating and you can Google it with an AI Overview! (Disclaimer: I own WISE stocks). As for stablecoins, I think it has the potential, but you still need the on-ramp and off-ramp, since people mostly spend fiat money, not stablecoins. These extra conversions will cost money even if stablecoin infrastructure in the middle can be free. As of today, WISE's take rate is only 0.6% for retail customers and they stated that they would like to make it free eventually. Whether stablecoins can outperform that has yet to be seen.
Remember when professionals were predicting our workweek would be 15 hours and labor wages would grow as the production became more efficient?
It always sounds like another NAFTA sales pitch; Fed uses tax-money to help all those corporations that leaves your hometown to build in some country where they work 12-15 hours a day for $3.10 per hour, and somehow, we all will be rolling-in-money, .. somehow ...
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"Multiverse Journal - Index Number 2223:, 14th July 2025, State's Organized Planned Disempowerment of the American Citizen" https://stevenwork.substack.com/p/multiverse-journal-index-number-2223
How true this is. "Just because you can automate something doesn’t mean you should." In SW dev many assume everything must be fully automated, leading to single button devops being the gold standard. I've found that humans are underrated as well. MD's, product managers and lead developers should talk and review what is being built regularly. Seems obvious, right?
Completely agree. The best systems still rely on human judgment. Regular conversations between product, dev, and design often catch what automation misses.
It may seem obvious, but it is amazing how often that simple habit gets lost.
Howard, great insights. One thing most powerful is to not ignore is the value of being human. You dig your own grave if you devalue a human.
So true! We all need to take that to heart.
Enlightening and very well put. Loved it. Can I do a PhD with you?
Thank you so much Jayantraj! So glad you enjoyed the piece. The only limitation is my school doesn't have the PhD degree. But more than happy to unpack other ideas and concept through writing and discussion. Thanks again.
Is email the best way to reach you? Thank you.
Sure thing! When you hit reply on the newsletter, the response go directly to my personal inbox and I read them. Thank you again!
Howard, great article. I worked in automotive for 18 years and knew many of the good and bad automations firsthand, the struggles of the Detroit Big 3 in implementing the lean manufacturing system.
I like to hear your comment about the autonomous driving technologies that the society has collectively been spending so much money to solve. In my mind, if you want to improve efficiency and reduce accidents in the highly populated regions, you do high speed rail (HSR) systems like China or some large cities in Asia and Europe. For the less dense areas, you leave them to human drivers. Why are we spending so much time, money, and human capital to solve problems this way? Other examples include many of the proposed solutions using AI, crypto/blockchain, renewables/batteries, etc. All these things may have their valid use cases, but the tendency for Silicon Valley is to push them to the extreme for everything as the panacea. Remember back in 2021 the most frequent expression on Twitter is "Crypto will solve that" no matter what that is?
Thank you so much, Wayne! Coming from you with real first-hand experience means a lot to me. For autonomous driving, I fully agree it has to be about technology and market fit. My sense is that it would not make much sense to build something close to AGI just to handle both dense and sparse areas, so you are absolutely right on that.
Lately, I have also been thinking a lot about crypto. One wild card I am still researching is stablecoins, especially given the recent regulatory shifts. The promise, of course, is a fraction of the cost for cross-border transfers. The open question for me is whether the underlying technology can truly scale and whether transaction reliability can ever rival Visa or Mastercard’s networks in the long run.
So funny! I have also been researching stablecoins and cross-boarder money transfer. I think you might want to look into how a UK company (www.wise.com) solved this problem if you are not already familiar with it. The founding story of WISE is very fascinating and you can Google it with an AI Overview! (Disclaimer: I own WISE stocks). As for stablecoins, I think it has the potential, but you still need the on-ramp and off-ramp, since people mostly spend fiat money, not stablecoins. These extra conversions will cost money even if stablecoin infrastructure in the middle can be free. As of today, WISE's take rate is only 0.6% for retail customers and they stated that they would like to make it free eventually. Whether stablecoins can outperform that has yet to be seen.
As for Visa and Mastercard, I actually had an X post a week ago, which is not very flattery to Visa (Disclaimer: I also own V stocks). https://x.com/DragonFieldInvt/status/1958531607880466873
What a great research resources! Thank you Wayne! I will deeply investigate the evolution of WISE. Thanks a lot!
Howard - this is such a great article. The parallels are so accurate and the conclusion is right on the money!
Thank you Simon! Very happy the post has been useful and it sparks additional thinking.
Love the six imperatives of meaningful automation
Thank you Chiara! I am glad the piece has been helpful.