I totally disagree! I think innovation and ideas only seem unimportant because for most of our lives they were established and became background noise. Everybody knew what a Republican and Democrat believed. They formed party identities because of those beliefs. So 90 percent of everything that happened in politics was because of what the parties believed and their ideas, and nobody didn't notice because they took it for granted.
And now we don't know anymore so 90 percent of poltics has broken down and is up for grabs, which is why everything is a mess. And why nobody playing by the old rules understands what's wrong.
I think that's trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
I worked in both politics and tech. And a lot of what tech calls innovation is merely creating a portal to rent out existing assets. Thus for a decade innovation was, "Uber but for..."
With politics we know what needs to be done, we fight over it, it's the same year over year. We need policy ingenuity, and maybe innovation is a proper term for it, but I think it's trying to fit Silicon Valley ideology where it doesn't belong.
We don't need creative destruction in politics. Politics is to provide stability so the market can be innovative.
You should read my book on political realignments. Politics does change. Just in abrupt bursts. It stays the same for decades and decades until the ideologies get outdated, there's a crisis, and the entire thing falls apart and gets rebooted. Like what's happening now. And the solution is building new ideologies from scratch appropriate for the moment.
Very good points. Tonight's debate is now over, and Kamala Harris did well enough to probably win the presidency. That's just silly. She demonstrated no ability to lead the country. She never has. She doesn't have that ability.
I know -- I've watched her career here in Silicon Valley since she launched it 30 years ago by getting appointed to two state commissions as a 29-year-old by the 60-year-old sugar daddy and Democratic machine politician Willie Brown.
But I disagree with you on one big thing. Your categories of salesmen, operators, and innovators make sense. But I think for the president -- the chief executive -- we need what you call an operator and what I can an executive. We need a person who knows how to get things done.
In my view, ideas are a dime a dozen. Ideas are, of course, important but being able to execute the ideas is more important. I learned that by a long career as an M&A lawyer in Tokyo and Silicon Valley. Business plans used to be the basis for judging what companies were worth investing in. Now it's the experience of the founders, and whether they know how to get things done, that is evaluated. Execution, not ideas, are the key.
On that score, I think Donald Trump ranks pretty high. He is a skilled dealmaker. He knows that with any idea you have to assemble a group of talented people, and then proceed incrementally, taking small steps and then seeing what happens, learning as you go. That's the common approach by people who know how to get things done in the real world. But most politicians, like Kamala Harris, are lawyers who focus on idea and ideology rather than on getting things done.
My thinking is all politics is downstream of the ideology holding the party together. And that execution depends on what exactly is the plan you’re executing. People underestimate its importance because for a long time the ideas were established and thus invisible. The Democrats were pushing New Deal liberalism established between FDR and the Great Society and the Republicans the fusion conservatism of the Conservative Movement built by Buckley and the team at National Review.
It’s like Tim Cook. Cook is an implementer executive and can succeed because the big ideas at Apple are in place established by the innovator Jobs. As those ideas get out of date Cook can no longer succeed and Apple turns into Blockbuster Video, great at executing the wrong plan
Yeah, LBJ had a legacy for sure. Forty seven thousand dead young men in a vain attempt to keep a shithole Asian country from adopting the stupidest economic system known to man. My one unrealized bucket list item is to go to Texas and piss on his fucking grave.
I find Johnson fascinating because he was simultaneously one of the worst human beings to ever be president and one of the most successful at wielding the power of the office to get things done. It’s a lesson about where the lines are at getting things done and doing good. Why Robert Caro is so great!
Originally, yes in part. But pretty quickly it became about maintaining American prestige v. the Soviets. And people in American leadership did really believe the domino theory. They feared losing Vietnam of communism would lose all of Asia. That turned out to be very wrong.
Innovation is a pretty irrelevant skill in politics considering the answers to problems are all well trod ground.
This leads to idiotic articles about how a candidates ideas aren't “original”.
Let's not bring Silicon Valley enshittification to Washington, Washington is already bad enough.
“Uber but for politics”
“AirBNB but for regulatory agencies”
I totally disagree! I think innovation and ideas only seem unimportant because for most of our lives they were established and became background noise. Everybody knew what a Republican and Democrat believed. They formed party identities because of those beliefs. So 90 percent of everything that happened in politics was because of what the parties believed and their ideas, and nobody didn't notice because they took it for granted.
And now we don't know anymore so 90 percent of poltics has broken down and is up for grabs, which is why everything is a mess. And why nobody playing by the old rules understands what's wrong.
I think that's trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
I worked in both politics and tech. And a lot of what tech calls innovation is merely creating a portal to rent out existing assets. Thus for a decade innovation was, "Uber but for..."
With politics we know what needs to be done, we fight over it, it's the same year over year. We need policy ingenuity, and maybe innovation is a proper term for it, but I think it's trying to fit Silicon Valley ideology where it doesn't belong.
We don't need creative destruction in politics. Politics is to provide stability so the market can be innovative.
You should read my book on political realignments. Politics does change. Just in abrupt bursts. It stays the same for decades and decades until the ideologies get outdated, there's a crisis, and the entire thing falls apart and gets rebooted. Like what's happening now. And the solution is building new ideologies from scratch appropriate for the moment.
Sure politics changes but the problems remain the same.
How do feed, house, clothe, heal, fight war, not fight war, manage the environment, etc...
Very good points. Tonight's debate is now over, and Kamala Harris did well enough to probably win the presidency. That's just silly. She demonstrated no ability to lead the country. She never has. She doesn't have that ability.
I know -- I've watched her career here in Silicon Valley since she launched it 30 years ago by getting appointed to two state commissions as a 29-year-old by the 60-year-old sugar daddy and Democratic machine politician Willie Brown.
But I disagree with you on one big thing. Your categories of salesmen, operators, and innovators make sense. But I think for the president -- the chief executive -- we need what you call an operator and what I can an executive. We need a person who knows how to get things done.
In my view, ideas are a dime a dozen. Ideas are, of course, important but being able to execute the ideas is more important. I learned that by a long career as an M&A lawyer in Tokyo and Silicon Valley. Business plans used to be the basis for judging what companies were worth investing in. Now it's the experience of the founders, and whether they know how to get things done, that is evaluated. Execution, not ideas, are the key.
On that score, I think Donald Trump ranks pretty high. He is a skilled dealmaker. He knows that with any idea you have to assemble a group of talented people, and then proceed incrementally, taking small steps and then seeing what happens, learning as you go. That's the common approach by people who know how to get things done in the real world. But most politicians, like Kamala Harris, are lawyers who focus on idea and ideology rather than on getting things done.
My thinking is all politics is downstream of the ideology holding the party together. And that execution depends on what exactly is the plan you’re executing. People underestimate its importance because for a long time the ideas were established and thus invisible. The Democrats were pushing New Deal liberalism established between FDR and the Great Society and the Republicans the fusion conservatism of the Conservative Movement built by Buckley and the team at National Review.
It’s like Tim Cook. Cook is an implementer executive and can succeed because the big ideas at Apple are in place established by the innovator Jobs. As those ideas get out of date Cook can no longer succeed and Apple turns into Blockbuster Video, great at executing the wrong plan
Yeah, LBJ had a legacy for sure. Forty seven thousand dead young men in a vain attempt to keep a shithole Asian country from adopting the stupidest economic system known to man. My one unrealized bucket list item is to go to Texas and piss on his fucking grave.
I find Johnson fascinating because he was simultaneously one of the worst human beings to ever be president and one of the most successful at wielding the power of the office to get things done. It’s a lesson about where the lines are at getting things done and doing good. Why Robert Caro is so great!
Vietnam wasn't about Vietnam it was about France. Keeping France in the European capitalist alignment.
Nobody gave a shit about protecting Vietnam. As was evidenced by waging a war to protect France’s colony there.
Originally, yes in part. But pretty quickly it became about maintaining American prestige v. the Soviets. And people in American leadership did really believe the domino theory. They feared losing Vietnam of communism would lose all of Asia. That turned out to be very wrong.
France threatened that if America didn't preserve their tyranny in Vietnam then Russia might.
Right, the domino that concerned them was France.
Here’s hoping we see the birth of an innovator tonight.