STEVE
And some of the things I wanted to talk about, I was reading through this and Marlo, you mentioned during the break a little bit we’re talking about Apple chargers and that kind of dovetails into one of the articles. So let’s talk about the chargers first. So, the European Union has come out with a dictate. It concerns Apple and there’s a little dark side to this that you brought up, and we’ll get into that. But, on the surface this should make a lot of Apple users happy. One of the big headaches with Apple, my wife’s an Apple user, I’m not, but every time she gets a new phone, she’s gotta get a new charging cord. Or because they change it with every phone.
MARLO
And you could maybe say the same with Android too. Maybe not as often. USB-C‘s been around for a couple years now.
STEVE
Yeah, once I switch to C, I’m sticking with C. That’s it.
MARLO
You can stream video through it. So, you can hook it up to your television. It’s like an HDMI in that regard. It’s very universal. So, the European Union has stated that by 2024, all smartphones and all tablets have to use USB-C. There is no other exception.
STEVE
And we’ve heard rumblings of that. Talking from the United States that it was coming. So, now that the European Union’s done it, I’m guessing it’s gonna come a little quicker in the United States.
MARLO
It’ll be interesting to see if this comes about and it could be the one caveat that we were just talking about where,
STEVE
Cause that’s the one of my box checkoffs when I’m looking for a new device is, does it have C?
MARLO
Right. But a lot of people don’t think about it until you bring it home and you’re like, “oh my goodness” – it’s got another different one. The challenge that I have with this, now, I like this because I’m the same way as everybody else. I hate carrying all the different chargers. The downside to this, of course, is innovation. And the European Union is dictating that you use USB-C and they’re saying in 2024 for tablets and for phones and 2026 for laptops. So, they’re projecting four years into the future. Now, I don’t know of any USB cord that has lasted four years because there’s usually the next iteration of things. So, one would have to think that they’re gonna continue to get better. So, does this stifle innovation because all of a sudden? Now, the European Union is not gonna be using anything but USB-C for the foreseeable future.
STEVE
What happens when you take away that innovation piece and take it out of the private sector? Because, you’re subsidizing it or you’re mandating it. And that takes away the private sector’s ability… inspiration to innovate. You’ve taken that out.
MARLO
Yep. So I don’t know. On one side, I’m 50-50 on this, because I’m gonna love if the United States were to do this too. “Hey, Marlo, my phone is dead. Can I borrow your cord?” Sometimes I don’t have the right cord with me. Well, I usually do cuz I have a whole gadget bag I carry with me.
MARLO
I have it right here. Are you ready? We didn’t go down our usual rabbit hole. We were talking about production of products coming back to the United States chips and such and chips and such. Of course the chip shortage really brought this to light. I just saw a video of, I think Ford had rented out one of the race tracks to store their vehicles because they’re waiting for chips. It’s $2 billion worth of pickup trucks sitting there waiting to be delivered.
STEVE
GM had actually started sending out vehicles without all the chips. I ran into a guy back in August that had a brand new Yukon and it didn’t have the air conditioned seats, it didn’t have this.
MARLO
So they’re shipping them out-
STEVE
They’re like “Take it.” We’re gonna deduct that off the cost of the vehicle and then when that chip is available, you’ll get a recall notice and come in and we’ll put it in for free.
MARLO
So, Intel is building a $20 billion computer chip facility in Ohio and this thing is huge. Now, I’m just looking it up for the second time here because I know that you and I talked about this a while back. It’s a thousand-acre site. Just east of Columbus, expected to create a thousand company jobs and 7,000 construction jobs. Support tens of thousands of additional jobs for suppliers and partners. This is going to significantly impact Ohio and Columbus but $20 billion going into this chip manufacturing facility coming to the United States by Intel.
STEVE
Well, if you think about it, what do you need to make chips? When I first heard of that, it was like, why would you put chips in the rust belt? But then think of where the chips are going. So the auto industry, of course, huge in Ohio and Michigan’s right there. Indiana. Illinois, They’re there. So that piece of it. But you need energy, a lot of it to make chips. And you’ve got the Marcellus Shale play right there and then you need water and you’ve got Lake Erie right there. It makes a lot of sense that to locate in that area. It’s quite the deal.
MARLO
They announced this in January of this year, coming online at the end of 2025. So we’re gonna build this thing in two and a half years.
STEVE
So my question though, is, because of what’s going on in China. We just discussed that a little bit at where we are at with the elements that it takes to make a chip. So all the rare earth elements that go into a–
MARLO
Yeah, but chip computer chips aren’t really, it’s all the other stuff around them. Silicon’s the biggest deal–
STEVE
It is mostly silica, but it’s about getting those resources right because that’s a massive plant.
PAT
There’s no shortage of rare earth elements in the United States.
MARLO
North Dakota itself has a significant positive, Montana and South Dakota, already have mines in existence and I just think it’s a matter of time before you start seeing it.
PAT
Well, a lot of the high end ships are made in Taiwan, right? And that’s a vulnerable part of the world.
MARLO
Intel is the number two semiconductor manufacturer, globally. 73.1 billion in revenue last year, behind South Korea’s world leaders. Samsung Electronics was 76 billion. So, I would imagine after this manufacturer or this facility goes into place that’ll probably bump Intel to be the number one semiconductor manufacturer in the world.
PAT
But at the same time, AI is creating a world where a lot of workers might be superfluous. So, how is that all gonna play out over the long run? And in as AI, when you enable the fellow who ran Google, wrote a book with Kissinger about AI, he sees AI as everyone’s personal assistant really.
MARLO
I see it that way too, actually.
DAVE
Yeah. He wrote The Age of AI In Our Human Future, Eric Schmidt. But, who’s gonna have access to that? How democratized is it going to be that everyone has AI and can do their jobs? Or is this really for an elite class or a professional class and everybody gets left behind? As well as the biotechnology, people will be able to increase intelligence and all sorts of things.
MARLO
Elon Musk – Tesla – over the last couple days… did you see the robot? So the robot is, this year, was on its own power. Last year, they had somebody dressed up in the robot. This year, it actually walked out on the stage by itself and waved at the crowd and it’s humanoid, looks very much like iRobot. I just could not believe when I looked at that robot, I was just thinking that right away.
STEVE
Which is better than Terminator.
MARLO
Better than Terminator. Yeah. But to your point, I do believe everybody’s gonna have their own. You’re gonna have this artificial intelligence that’s your assistant.
DAVE
We already do, with a smartphone.
MARLO
We do. but it’s gonna get better and better where this person’s gonna make your doctor’s appointments for you. Then, I wonder if it’s gonna be something like Lyft and Uber where you can get gig-type jobs, right? So, your robot then will go to work for you, right?
And be able to get these jobs. And then if you’re a person with means, you have the ability to have better robots – and this is where I think the divide will come in, where you know you’re gonna have people who are still working manually, you and I are out there flipping burgers or whatever it is. But, the person with means has their robot going to flip burgers for them instead.
