bert hubert
2 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2022–2024
36:43 · 13K views · Jan 16, 2021
A conference presentation by Bert Hubert on how companies lose their technological edge and become outsourcing hubs. It argues the same dynamic applies to whole countries and continents, and ends with suggestions for reversing it.
HN points to it as a sharper explanation of why outsourcing and specialization erode deep expertise, in threads on Intel, Boeing and software decline.
5 comments from Hacker News
I quite like Jonathan Blow. I think this talk is kind of poor though, I remember watching it a couple of years ago in its full context (linked in the youtube description: [LINK] ). IIRC it had a bit of a "kids these days" / "they don't make 'em like they used to" feel to it. It's not untrue , but it doesn't really explain anything. IMO, a MUCH BETTER version of a similar point was outlined by Bert Hubert in this article: [LINK] - How Tech Loses Out over at Companies, Countries and Continents (Video version: this video ) In short, this goes beyond software; it's in general about why the incentives around specialization and outsourcing/offshoring cause innovation and expertise to die out. Bert Hubert takes the example of toasters, but it's of course very generalizable: > The problem is that this is not just a toaster problem. This is a continental problem. All over Europe, this is happening simultaneously, where we’re saying, look, we’re not that much into actually building things anymore. > So we’re just getting everyone else to build stuff for us. [...] We’re just thinking about things and then telling some other people how to do their stuff. > In the end, you cannot survive if all you create is intellectual property.
I quite like Jonathan Blow. I think the talk mentioned in this post is kind of poor though, I remember watching it a couple of years ago in its full context ( [LINK] ). IIRC it had a bit of a "kids these days" / "they don't make 'em like they used to" feel to it. It's not untrue, but it doesn't really explain anything. IMO, a MUCH BETTER version of a similar point was outlined by Bert Hubert in this article: [LINK] - How Tech Loses Out over at Companies, Countries and Continents (Video version: this video ) In short, this goes beyond software; it's in general about why the incentives around specialization and outsourcing/offshoring cause innovation and expertise to die out. Bert Hubert takes the example of toasters, but it's of course very generalizable: > The problem is that this is not just a toaster problem. This is a continental problem. All over Europe, this is happening simultaneously, where we’re saying, look, we’re not that much into actually building things anymore. > So we’re just getting everyone else to build stuff for us. [...] We’re just thinking about things and then telling some other people how to do their stuff. > In the end, you cannot survive if all you create is intellectual property.
Probably a repost, but this excellent video talks about the problems with outsourcing everything (i.e. the L J Hart-Smith report) this video - the report itself is fairly accessible and an eye-opener on what happens when you outsource all of your core competency. The only remaining thing is a weak 'systems integrator'. And the best part is the suppliers have more leverage and less compliance/liability than you do! Because nobody even knows their name.
OP, you will likely be interested in this talk by Bert Hubert: How Tech Loses Out over at Companies, Countries and Continents: On how companies lose deep knowledge and stop innovating [LINK] As a video: this video
There is an article and talk about this general process of losing technical leadership here: [LINK] this video and here is one about the EU & 5G outsourcing: [LINK]