Techstrong Gang – January 14, 2025

Hi, everyone. Happy Tuesday. I've got nothing funny and witty to say today, situation in Los Angeles is, it's kind of dire and it's a tragedy, and it's nothing to kid around about.

We're gonna talk about it first today here on Text Drug Gang. Hey everyone, it's Alan Shimel here for Techstrong Gang. Happy Tuesday to you.

As I mentioned, we're gonna kick things off with a little bit of coverage of what's going on, the tragedy going on in Los Angeles. And, you know, we have folks here in, uh, tech Strong and FU who've had to evacuate, who are worried about their family's precious belongings, their very home going to, are they gonna have a home to stay in? So, it, it really is crazy.

We're gonna talk a lot about it for today, but let me introduce you to our gang members to discuss that and more today. Um, but before I do that, I wanted to mention one other thing. If you're not watching Predict 2025 today, head on over there.

If you're watching this on Tuesday, head over there. It's on right now. Predict 2025.

You could always catch text on Gang on Demand later. You can watch Predict Later too. But there's some amazing, amazing sessions on Predict, including what with my friend Steven fst.

So let me kick things off with our friend Steven fst, and of course Steven is the, uh, founder and CEO of Tech Field Day. I have Sister Future and business unit here with Techstrong. Steven, it's great to see you.

How are you, man? I'm doing pretty well, uh, looking forward to a baseball park tour with my friend John Schwartz. You know, maybe that's that big.

I hear Pittsburgh is, is, is is in Cleveland, are the two best stadiums, right? Steven? Let's hit 'em all, baby.

Let's hit 'em all. Play. You know what, maybe we could do like a show on Textron for that.

John and Steven on the road. Shoot. Oh, We could talk for hours.

Yeah, that, that would be it. From, you know, comedians in Cars. Um, Stephen, welcome.

I mentioned John Schwartz. He has, he has left the kingdom, his kingdom of Silicon Valley, and he's actually in Pittsburgh today of all things. Yes, I am.

I'm, I'm really happy and, and looking forward to seeing some robotics at Carnegie Mellon among other places. Um, I'm meeting with a lot of folks here and I think it'll be a lot of fun and quite educational and kind of segue into our first segment. Excellent.

Thank you, John. Thanks for joining us. Joining us.

Well, she's home it looks like, so No, no. Great story here, but it's our newest gang member. She was newest gang member.

We announced her last week. She's actually worked though with Steven and the Tech Field Day and Gestalt it folks for many years. She's working on our tech strong AI site, among other things.

It's Soha. Did I get it right? Saha.

Saha. All right. Pretty close.

I'll keep working on it. Sagner, welcome and thanks for joining us today. Thank you.

Good to be back on the Show. Good to have you. Um, joining us, we got a full house.

It's good to have a full house back here in the Boca Studio. On my far left, the guy with the ponytail in the beard, he's a future VP analyst. He came here to warm up, he says, from Native Colorado, where it's snowing in single digits and it's supposed to go down to, what'd you say?

Minus 1715 minus crazy number over MLK weekend, Mitchell, Ashley. Hey, Mitch. Good to have you here, man.

It's nice to be in defrost mode. Yeah, it's, it's visit. It's good for you.

I'm glad to have you here joining. Mitchell and I here, the lady in the middle, she is our sustainability and Echo insights, uh, editor and analyst, Bonnie Schneider. Hey, Bonnie, how are you?

I'm Doing well. Great to be here, Alan. Yes, thanks for joining us and adding a little class to the whole operation.

Yes, Mitchell and I here, you know, we, we use it for sure. Yeah. Um, all right, gang members.

Let, let's jump into this. I want, you know, Sona, John, you guys had, uh, an interesting, a little piece about how tech, I want to say, is helping to fight fires, but I don't, I don't want to be that optimistic, but it's certainly being applied to help fight these fires. What do we got?

Well, uh, you're right, Alan. That's a good way of putting it. They're trying to help, um, with drones, uh, robots that are remote controlled that can go into places where humans can't to help fight or at least find out what's going on in certain buildings that are ablaze.

Uh, we have sensors that are all around the place and in, in, and forests and areas that are, that are susceptible to fire. Um, we've got, actually, there's satellite systems in use a lot. As I mentioned, drones.

There's a lot of AppSec. There's one called Watch Duty, which offers updates on active fires and crews fighting them. The weather conditions and push notification alerts, uh, been efforts by some of the social media companies like Amazon and Meta to team up with government agencies.

They have been doing this for a while to help the state anticipate where people will evacuate. So counties and states can provide them with housing, medical supplies and food. You know, the Department of House, Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate has been working with state and local fire agencies and private businesses to develop technologies.

You know, there's all these efforts, and yet this is something that almost feels, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna use the word futile, but it's very frustrating because as essential and necessary as this all is, we are really at the mercy of climate change, which has led to these record temperatures around the world. Oceans are, are unusually warm. I mean, we basically, and Bonnie can go into this much better than I could.

We've reached this era, this dangerous era of, of storms, floods and fires. So it is essential that these technologies put be put to use. But at looking at the scale of where this fire is, why, where these fires are, versus the technology that's in place, it, it, it seems kind of like a losing battle and, and utterly frustrating.

But at least we are making efforts to help people get away from the danger. I'm not sure how effective we will be in the long term in terms of preventing these types of things. There is technology that preemptively looks, uh, or smells things before they become smoke.

Um, there are a number of companies working on this. We've written about this over the last several months, but again, this is a really horrific situation, which we're gonna see more examples of, not just in California, but in other states. And it's, um, it's just an ongoing battle and something we're gonna have to face in stomach for years to come.

Sade, your thoughts? Um, yeah, I, I agree with John. Uh, tech is definitely playing, uh, small, but, uh, pivotal role in, uh, the wildfire suppression Yeah.

Is obviously being used to detect and, uh, protect the fire, um, for any kind of analysis and, uh, overall guiding the fault. Um, drones on satellites are used to survey the area, track the fire progression. Iot and AppSec are being used to spread situational awareness and, uh, for fast responders to communicate better and improve response times.

But it actually all comes down to the how effectively we are able to control, uh, the fire. And with climate change taking on, on getting worse every day, I, it, it's really a losing battle unless we do some, I wish there was a technology for that, but, uh, unless we can fight that, I think it's going to be pretty harsh for the people living there. Absolutely.

Yeah. I just, and I agree with both what you said and with the climate change, you know, some of the issues are that even if a fire is on track, they, they can say, okay, this is where it's located. Fires create their own weather.

And that would, that's one of the reasons that makes them unpredictable, and which they'll, which way they'll go from there and, and how the wind will move the, the embers and flames. But also in terms of climate change, the intensity of these extreme weather events that's been ratcheting up. I was just looking at the records for 2024 versus now.

Um, the problem is every event that we have is amplified and intensified. We saw hurricane force winds with this fire. So, um, unfortunately that's the pattern that we're leaning.

We're moving towards where we're gonna see more intensity with these events. It's a com combination of things, right? It is the w it is the wind intensity.

It's also the amount of fuel available because of climate. Exactly, Exactly. Record rains last year, and then a drought this year.

It, it was not a, a good situation for California Reach a, a wind level where the planes can't fly. So now you've lost one of your biggest battles. Your, your weapons battling this.

Definitely. The severity is so incredible. I mean, when you look at, there was a chart, I think it was on CNN or, or M-S-N-B-C that showed the number of major fires just in Southern California alone.

And that have been tracked since 1937 or thereabouts, and about 80% of them had happened since 2021. And you, you say with, with, uh, with the events and, and the, the climate change situation that we're in, I think it's just gonna ratchet up. So I guess I, I don't know, Bonnie, is there, i i just curious, is there anything, something like predictive analysis or any type of AI type of tool that Yes.

I mean, there definitely is, and I did some reports on it, uh, for Ecotech insights. Um, we, you know, we talked about the drones. That's one way of, of getting an idea of where these, um, fires may start.

And the modeling has improved overall for where a fire I remember going to actually to Boulder, to ncar, uh, where they do a lot of weather, um, prediction and modeling. And it's improving. But the problem again, is, is that you have to factor in that the, the intensity of climate change.

So the, the massive scale of particularly the Palisades fire, I mean, that's why, you know, you're seeing these firefighters come in from multiple different countries and different areas just because it is just so large and so intense. And unfortunately, as we are looking at Tuesday, Wednesday weather, we're looking at more fire danger with the winds. I wanted to quickly jump in here on one of the tech, um, a, one of the AppSec that you guys led with in that story.

Uh, the watch duty app. Um, this thing has been absolutely incredible. Um, you know, kudos to the people who created it.

Um, kudos to the people, uh, you know, to making it free. And it shows, to me, it shows that the power that tech can have to really help people on the ground. So essentially they're crowdsourcing, uh, information from, um, well, basically any source they can, they're organizing it and collecting it into a special purpose application.

I mean, it's kind of sad that we need a, a fire, uh, wildfire, um, tracking application. But, uh, we do. And it's become, uh, as of today the number one free app in the iOS and Google App store, uh, surpassing something called chat, GPT, which I, I'm not familiar with.

But the, uh, you know, the watch duty app has really rocketed to the front. And from what I'm hearing, my friends in the Bay Area and in LA and in, um, you know, uh, the rest of California are saying that this has become sort of the most, um, well-known app. Uh, everyone has it.

Everyone's using it. Everyone's tracking the progress of the fires and air quality and figuring out whether they need to evacuate. Um, there's even been situations where they've gotten, uh, false reports of fires and they've used, uh, this app to, uh, refute those and, uh, to, you know, make sure that they're getting accurate information.

That, to me, shows what tech and what the app economy can do. 5 million times as you, as you mentioned, it's, it's, uh, it's use Steven, and it's also, anyway, it all comes down to is the people are much more important than the property. Um, I mean, it's as, as, as hollow as that might sound, it is true.

I mean, in a sense, the safety of, of people above everything else, and what we can do to help them or keep them informed is, is so crucial in these types of situations. 'cause it's, this thing is moving so fast, it's become so large and devastating. And, and the, the forecast, as Bonnie mentioned, doesn't look like we have much relief in sight.

This is where I think, uh, disaster robots are, especially game changers. They can navigate any terrain. They can douse fires, they can rescue people under dangerous conditions.

And that, I think, can save a lot of first responders from harm and risk. And, uh, many firefighters serving in the state prison too, have been deployed to battle the bla. Um, they're paid less than $10 a day and a dollar extra for responding to active emergency situations.

So using tech is absolutely imperative. Uh, and, uh, yeah, helpful. This is one too where there's an intensity level that you reach in a hurricane, a firestorm, tornado, whatever it is of, or earthquake of which you can't do anything about.

Right? It is just all gonna overtake. So it's as much about response as well as it is prevention.

So you gonna have to worry kind of just like security, right? Yeah. You have to worry about both sides.

The same thing earlier. You know, Steve, I think Steven, you mentioned the, the watch duty app. com.

Is that right, Steven? org. Dot org.

But, uh, yeah, and it's actually available as a web app as well. If you, uh, if you don't have your, your phone handy, that's great. Yeah.

Look, I, I wish there was a wand, magic wand we wave here. But, you know, one of the biggest problems I think we have as a society is we're always looking for simple solutions to complex problems and climate change and, and its effects on weather and fire and flood and pestilence. And, you know, the four horsemen of the apocalypse are complex issues and problems that there are no simple fixes and answers for.

Um, in the meantime, you know, thoughts and prayers sounds hollow, but our hearts go out to everyone in the Southern California area who is dealing with this, uh, calamity. And will, you know, maybe I, I'm always a big believer in tech can make the world tech can make the world a better place. Maybe there is something that'll pop up that can help them here.

Anyway, we're gonna take a break here on Textron Gang. Today. We're gonna come back and Bonnie has a, a piece on, on promises being made to reduce all that plastic Yeah.

That winds up in the ocean and all of that microplastic stuff you're watching. Textron Gang. Hey everyone, it's Sunny And Cher.

Ladies and gentlemen, tech enthusiasts and future Gazers gather round the biggest, boldest, most mind blowing predictions for 2025 are coming your way at the Predict 2025 virtual event on January 9th. Oh, Sonny, you're predicting something. Again, last time you tried this, you said laser disc were the future.

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See you at Predict 6 20 25. Be there. Hi everyone.

Welcome back to the Techstrong Gang. Will, we're talking about promises made are they, promises kept. It's interesting when you look back over the past few years, the major tech companies targeted 2025 for the year, a hundred percent plastic free.

And some of these companies are already achieving this goal. Like Google, for example, Hey, announced last year, Hey, we're ahead of schedule, we did it, but others still are not quite there. Maybe they're 99%, but, um, all of the big techs says they are on target.

And this is the year we're going to see no more plastic when it comes to packaging, which can make a big difference in, uh, when it comes to fighting the battle of keeping our water clean and, and landfills less filled with plastic. So I took a closer look at three companies and seeing where they, what they promised and where they are now. Hi everyone.

I'm Bonnie Schneider with your Ecotech Analyst Insights 2025. That's the year that all tech giants promise that they'd eliminate all plastic packaging. Well, now that we're here, let's see how they're doing.

Leading the charge is Google, who's already crossed the finish line ahead of schedule their pixel phone. Fitbit and Nest Packaging are now completely 100% plastic free through Google's paper-based material. They've decreased their carbon footprint in transport.

Apple is racing to meet their 2025 target. iPhone packaging has reached 99% plastic-free status. But there is a reason for optimism, fiber-based packaging.

Apple is on track to meet their goal. Meanwhile, Samsung's Galaxy for the Planet Initiative faces its moment of truth. This year, Samsung has already made significant strides.

For example, check out the Samsung Galaxy S 24. It comes in a box lined with a molded pulp tray made of 100% recycled paper. Samsung, though is still working to replace some plastic components in their packaging for Tet Giants.

It's a sprint to the finish line to deliver on their 2025 environmental promises. Though some of the materials that these companies are using really shows that they're implementing their own technological skills and solving problems. For example, one that hasn't completely been implemented, but it's seriously being looked at is seaweed as a substitute.

Yes. So, uh, it'll be interesting to see if that that comes through. What's been happening now is really companies are, like Google is changing the type of paper that they use people using pulp, um, paper, you know, for bot, you've probably seen that with packaging.

Mm-hmm. So, uh, the innovation is here, it's coming, but I think in the coming years, even after we achieve plastic free 2025, it's gonna get even more, um, interesting and, and different in terms of types of materials We wouldn't necessarily think. One of them I mentioned in the piece, or maybe I, I didn't mention, but I was thinking about mentioning it, was Dell had tried something with mushroom fiber for packaging.

Really? Now they didn't stick with it because it turned out it was a very expensive, and it was a little bit difficult to massive produce and scale. But look, it shows ingenuity that they're, they're trying to think of, I would think, yeah, same easy, but you, we see it in, uh, I think it's in Whole Foods actually, and maybe some of the other stores.

You know, when you buy your fresh produce, you used to get those plastic bags off the roller and you're ripping open it by, by us here. Uh, they're using compostable mm-hmm. Compostable bags now that aren't quite plastic.

They're plastic gly, but much more economically, uh, not economically, environmentally friendlier. Uh, look, I get that Google's doing this, and Google's certainly a big company, but they're not, I mean, in terms of the amount of consumer packaging they put out there, pales pales in comparison to Amazon. Right?

I mean, and, and I full disclosure on, we've been an Amazon Prime member for many years, and I usually get at least a delivery every other day from Amazon. But I've seen a, a tremendous, uh, change in their packaging. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. You know, more smaller, easier, more lightweight, less plastic, more recyclable or recycled ingredients. And so kudos to that.

I, I think Amazon's done a great job with that. Seems like they're in a unique position bonding where they could kind of push those things down their ecosystem partner sellers. Yeah.

Yeah, that's fair. Maybe some incentives to help other people reduce their packaging that uses plastic. And I always think, well, what is the consumer reaction when they, um, open the box?

Like, if you get a new iPhone, is that something that consumer appreciates that they see the I do. Yeah. But you know, me, I'm, I'm a coastal elite, but when you winding, um, Give an I care, But I, yeah, I, I, I would say, uh, you know, to Mitch's point, I would love to see Amazon push that further down, because a lot of the things you buy on Amazon, in fact, isn't it, more than 50% of the things you're buying on Amazon now are being fulfilled by others.

Um, you know, and a lot of that stuff comes still in terrible plastic, plastic, plastic, you know, um, things are being drop shipped from China. Um, you know, all sorts of, of, of, of really negative environmental impli implications from, from your shopping experience. And it is so jarring because when you order something in that Amazon frustration free packaging that comes in that nice little cardboard container, and it's easy to open and it's small and lightweight and, you know, it is like night and day, I would love to see them push more.

Uh, and I think they will push more to their suppliers. Uh, on the Apple side, it is really obvious. Uh, I just bought one of the new Mac Minis, um, you know, that's, uh, you know, it's a hundred percent made of recycled materials, uh, the cases and, and, uh, the packaging was all paper.

There's no more plastic in there at all. They've even removed the stickers from the package. Um, you know, and, and, and as a consumer, um, you know, the, uh, the unboxing experience from Apple has always been, um, you know, just bar none at the best.

And it still is, you know, I mean, they've moved from, um, plastic to, to paper to, to, to cardboard, but their packaging is still pretty, uh, pretty dense, pretty solid. Uh, I think Apple could maybe, um, even move away from those trademark, um, really expensive, fully printed packaging. But, you know, we'll see if they do.

But at least they've gotten rid of the plastic. I always felt terrible. You know, you tear open a new piece of electronics, um, and it's just a, just a load of plastic.

Another company I'll call out, by the way, Seagate, I buy a lot of storage, you know, storage nerd. Uh, they used to have everything shipped, um, you know, wrapped in plastic and blister packs of plastic, plastic here, plastic there. Uh, they've moved to a hundred percent cardboard packaging as well, which is really nice to see.

Um, you know, you open it up, it's, it's no worse. It's just, you know, not something that's gonna be sticking around in the environment forever. Just taking the shrimp broth shirt.

Sorry, shrink wrap. I'm in, I'm in Florida. You go with shrimp?

I have little breakfast. Just dinner. No, the, uh, shrimp wrap.

You, You mentioned seaweed, so maybe they got shrimp wrap. Shrimp. Shrimp wrap.

There you go. The next shrimp innovation shrimp. That would be a moving to, you know, plastic, but then also using paper kind of sealed to seal the packaging.

So you don't need shrink wrap on that extra plastic layer. Just, it can be small, incremental changes. Doesn't have to be the whole thing.

Whole scale. Look, I think overall we're making progress. I should mention, look, this the, if you didn't catch Bonnie's video that preceded this, it's available on Techstrong TV as well as on Echo Tech insights.

Bonnie's portal. Mm-hmm. Site where she has all of her, I don't know.

It's dozens and dozens of videos. Hundreds videos now. Yeah.

On Echo Tech. So this is the kinda stuff that appeals to you. Please go check it out, Bonnie.

Thank you for that one. That was great. Great piece.

Let's take a break. We're gonna come back for our third, uh, our third segment today. And, uh, you know, do we have a chip war nation state chip war on our heads, or coming down the pike?

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Visit the builder community hub to learn more. Hey everyone, we're back. Alright, for our third segment today, it's just a heavy day of segments.

Uh, you know, uh, president Biden on the way out the door is, is ready. And yet another executive order. This one detailing or around, uh, AI chips, GPUs and whatever may come next.

And, uh, you know, prohibiting China's, uh, getting their hands on this technology or trying to prohibit China from getting their hands on this technology. Uh, there's a lot we've discussed over the months and weeks here, whether it's from Taiwan to China or, or what have you. And anyway, Nvidia obvious, for obvious reasons is, is pushing back.

And, uh, they want a different sort of plan. They'd like to see something else. And, you know, quite frankly, there's been reports China is trying to circumvent these, this whole area by buying GPUs through third party countries and bringing them in the back door to the tune of like billions of dollars.

Uh, um, incoming administration promises to be tough on China. Will they extend this? Uphold it, rescind it.

Steven, what? You, you follow this area? What do you think?

Well, what precipitated this is a, uh, blog post, uh, by Nvidia, um, where they called, uh, I mean, it's pretty aggressive. They called the Biden administration rule misguided. Um, and they're trying to preempt this rule by basically saying, Hey, Trump is gonna be president.

New administration, new policies, you shouldn't enact policies. Man, I find this whole thing completely disingenuous. Number one, uh, Biden's still president for another week.

And as last thing I heard, until you're the president, you don't get to make foreign policy and, uh, economic policy decisions. Um, number two, uh, you know, to have Nvidia say that, uh, the Trump administration is gonna have a radically different policy on exports to China, seems like maybe they weren't in the US during the first Trump administration, because Trump was very aggressive on China. And, um, o obviously he didn't stop, uh, ship exporting AI chips to China in 2016 because that really wasn't a thing.

But he did, uh, try to block other exports to China. And so to have them think that, that the policy under, uh, new Trump administration is gonna be radically different is just, just doesn't, uh, ring true to me. But the big thing, as I've said for a long time, I am not a fan of these export restrictions because frankly, they are likely to basically bite in the wrong direction.

What's happened is by trying to restrict exports of specific chips, number one, China retaliates by, um, you know, and, and in pretty soon you get yourself into a trade war that's bad for people in both countries and, and around the world. But number two, what's happened for the US tech industry is that Chinese firms have risen to the occasion and produced their own alternative chips. Um, by all accounts, China's producing, uh, AI processing GPUs at record pace that are actually very, very good.

Uh, China maybe has jumped into the lead on high bandwidth memory, and it's very likely that, um, this trade war will actually solidify China's growing, um, importance in the international tech sector. Uh, we just also got news, uh, yesterday that, uh, the Chinese trade surplus was a record high over $900 billion trade surplus, um, coming out of China. So it, it doesn't seem like these things are working.

It doesn't seem like they're having the intended effect. They're likely to have the exact opposite effect. And frankly, to think that somehow the Trump administration is gonna be any different from Biden on trade policy toward China, I think it is just utterly ridiculous.

I think we're in for more tariffs, more trade fights, and frankly, uh, more, uh, success for Chinese, uh, technology. I Was thinking of the same thing. You equate this to a tariff, right?

Another form of restricting commerce and, uh, that very much fits the Trump approach. And is it a negotiating weapon? Is it something that weapon, is it something that, uh, he actually implements?

We'll see, but, um, I, I don't, I don't see Trump rushing to save China anytime soon. What does Elon say? Yeah, Hold on.

Yeah, I totally agree. Yeah. Trump's uh, extreme tariff plans is definitely not going to reverse the situation anytime.

So, and absolutely it is also not going to have the kind of crushing effect on the Chinese industry as one would expect. Matter of fact, I think he, Trump can have Biden to thank for this Biden's kind of taken the arrow by implementing this before he gets in office and he can leave it alone and let it, let it go through and not have to pick re Well, Biden did that when he came into office. He didn't rescind many of the tariffs on Chinese products.

Exactly. Exactly. Um, Steven, you mentioned that $900 billion surplus, that wasn't just with us.

So that was worldwide. China's import export. Mm.

And I wonder how much of that is them buying Russian energy at below market prices to, so that put and Curry's favor with, with the Chinese Communist Party, and then China turning around and selling Russia needed goods and services for their war machine, uh, at, you know, premium pricing as well. So there, there's a lot of that. I, I think that goes into those numbers.

I'd be interested to see in the US China market, what, what the, the balance was if it's gone up, down, or stayed about the same. Yeah, I, I don't have the numbers on that, but there were some more details in this. And it's not just energy that, uh, drove this trade surplus.

In fact, um, if you look at the, uh, the growth of trade, um, it's been very, very steady since, uh, you know, 2018 essentially, um, in the first, uh, during the, the first Trump administration, the Chinese trade deficit fell, um, and then it rose and rose and rose and has been rising, um, throughout the pandemic and ever since. So, um, another aspect of this, like we mentioned, this is global. This is not just China, us of course, our audience is global as well.

Um, you know, many countries around the world don't share the American administration's viewpoints on tariffs and restrictions on access to technology. And in fact, many of the, uh, countries around the world are very, very happy to import Chinese goods because, uh, they're increasing in quality. And in many cases, like with solar panels and electric cars, China is in the lead.

Um, in fact, uh, the New York Times story about this trade deficit specifically focused on the export of Chinese electric cars around the world, which have been phenomenally successful. Anyone outside the US is nodding right now because they're buying Chinese electric cars by the handful. Whereas, uh, anybody inside the US is like, what, what is a Chinese electric car?

I never saw one because we don't have them here, but around the world, they're incredibly successful. But let me, let me just wrap myself in the flag here a second. If these cars are incredibly successful and being sold at below market or below cost and everything else because they subsidized, I dunno that Anybody's saying they're Being totally low cost subsidized.

Well, but they're being, but the, these companies are being subsidized by the communist party there, right? I mean, that, that's the, the key to it is that that's been the history. That's that's the, that's their game plan.

That's their model, right? They, they'll subsidize it until they grab enough market share and then, you know, try to squeeze the profits out of it. So if, now, if you wanna say, I'm not buying or I'm not gonna allow Chinese electric vehicles in here because it's strategic that the US maintain their own electric vehicle market, that's one thing.

I you could agree with this. I also Wouldn't bet on the Trump administration taking that, that tactic. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. But if, if they're being, if the cars are being done with forced labor, child labor or subsidized by the Chinese Communist party, I, I, I can understand why we would wanna do that. That's all I'm saying.

There's a bit of irony here too. Um, you know, and Nvidia stock price isn't hurting these days, as we all know. No.

Well, well that's what you ask yourself too. Why is Nvidia pushing back here? Do they just, they don't want to give up that China market.

They truly don't. Sure they don't. But the irony I wanted to point out was this coming on the hills of Jensen Wong saying, uh, the quantum market, their chips 10 to 15 years away and quantum quantum stocks drop whatever it was Yeah.

With the drop right Now, he said to kibosh on Quantum. So, you know, he, he has his own influence on markets too, don't we? It's Also interesting that Jensen is one of the only tech execs who hasn't publicly given to Trump's uh, inauguration.

Really? True. Yeah, that's true.

I heard they, they gave out, they ran out of prizes to give to the people who, uh, Steven, you got any of those tech field coins left? Maybe we could send those to the people. Give a million bucks.

Yeah. If, if somebody donates a million dollars to me, I will make you a special tech field Bitcoin. Yeah.

Funny stuff. Anyway, hey guys, I think that's gonna call a wrap on today's TechOne gag. Just heads up again, head over to predict 2025.

If you're interested in what's going to happen this year, that's the place to go to. Hey Dick and my top 10 DevOps Mitchell's there with his top 10 development Yes. Session.

Steven has a session. Daniel Newman has a session. We've got people from, uh, Microsoft, some from some of the other hyperscalers that we're not allowed to mention.

Um, just a lot of good people talking. Good stuff there. Predict 2025, we'll be back tomorrow with a fresh gang.

We've also got a ton of great tech, strong TV on here for you today, so check that out. Lots going on at Techron as always. But for now, this is Alan Shimel on behalf of our gang today, thank you very much.

Have a great day everyone. We're out.