Andy Kessler

WSJ: No Thanks for the Feedback

Follow @andykessler

https://www.wsj.com/articles/no-thanks-for-the-feedback-11619373972

Garage bands know about feedback loops. If you place a microphone in front of speakers, the sound picked up by the mic gets amplified and then fed out to the speakers, which the mic picks up and it gets amplified again and again. The circular process turns the sound into a screech or squeal.

After the presidential election, some Trump supporters filled Twitter with conspiracy theories of election fraud, including a mysterious box in a red wagon in Detroit, ballots “magically found” in Milwaukee at 3 a.m., and fraudulent Georgia signature checks. Almost all were made-up nonsense, later disproved. But President Trump repeated many of these claims, especially in his Jan. 6 “Save America” rally speech: “They should absolutely find that just over 11,000 votes, that’s all we need. They defrauded us out of a win in Georgia, and we’re not going to forget it.”

The same squid-brained cosplayers who made this stuff up in the first place then believed Mr. Trump when he said, “Make no mistake, this election [was] stolen from you, from me and from the country” and stormed the Capitol. This is the worst case of squealing circular logic that I’ve ever seen.

But not the only one. We had endured a summer of protests, with charges of “systemic racism” and calls to “defund the police.” In a June article, former presidential candidate Kamala Harris wrote that “structural racism lives on in our policies and everyday life.” This systemic stuff is good politics.

Or is it? Last month, at U.S.-China summit in Anchorage, Alaska, Secretary of State Antony Blinken brought up “deep concerns with actions by China, including in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Taiwan.” The top Chinese diplomat, Yang Jiechi, responded with a 15-minute tirade in which he asserted that “the challenges facing the United States in human rights are deep-seated. They did not just emerge over the past four years, such as Black Lives Matter.” I wonder where he got that idea. Circular thinking. Who’s fooling whom?

You see it all the time.

WSJ: When to Invest in a Stupid Idea

Follow @andykessler

https://www.wsj.com/articles/when-to-invest-in-a-stupid-idea-11618767345

When I read that technology can construct an image of your face from your DNA, my initial reaction was: That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. Fortunately, I’ve had a lifetime of stupidest-things-I’ve-heard things (like Bleep) became reality. Like the Kübler-Ross stages of grief—denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance—technology goes through similar phases.

My phases of techno-hype: Incredulous. Will never happen. Dread. I’ll try it. Booster. Overhype. Failed expectations. On to the next paradigm. Understand these before plunking money into passing fancies.

We know the famous will-never-happen predictions. IBM’s Thomas Watson : “I think there is a world market for maybe five computers.” Digital’s Ken Olsen : “There is no reason anyone would want a computer in their home.” Funny now, but not unreasonable at the time.

I’ve learned to harness those knee-jerk denials when I know that technology performance will increase and costs decrease. Classic scale. I’m actually suspicious of things that aren’t controversial from the start. I live in those denial phases—ask my wife. Why? Because almost every time, no one believes in the future. That’s the time to invest. Until everyone believes it and then some. Then it’s probably time to sell.

Think of the 2007 iPhone introduction. Typing on glass, are you kidding me? So many white-collar warriors hurdling through airports were thumb-writing on BlackBerry s—a k a Crackberrys. Take away my keyboard, even though it’s tiny and painful to use? Over my dead body. Well, we know how that turned out. BlackBerry is now worth $5 billion. Apple a bit more.

Same for electric cars.

WSJ: Don't Think, Just Bleep

Follow @andykessler

https://www.wsj.com/articles/dont-think-just-bleep-11618162999

Cancel culture has a vaccine. Its name is Bleep. At the 2021 Game Developers Conference Showcase last month, Intel touted research and sample screenshots of technology that “uses artificial intelligence to get rid of other gamers’ hateful and abusive audio chat.” Silicon Valley never ceases to amaze.

Oh, how Meyers Leonard, a National Basketball Association player formerly with the Miami Heat, could have used this in early March, when a video surfaced of him spewing anti-Semitic language while playing the videogame “Call of Duty.” He was fined $50,000 by the NBA, traded and summarily cut and released. Game over.

With simple, easy-to-use slider controls, like fiddling with the treble and bass, Bleep lets you adjust whether you hear, say, swear words. Settings include none, some, most and all. How nice. I wonder who decides what constitutes swearing. Does it work in all languages? Adolescents of all ages will have a field day finding new phrases to defeat Bleep.

But that’s only the start. You can adjust, choosing between the same four settings, for sexually explicit language and even white nationalism. “Use of the N-word, including all its variations,” according to the Intel presentation, doesn’t have a slider, only an on-off switch. Warning: You can get canceled for even discussing this.

Also available for filtering are ableism and body shaming, aggression (“negative language intended to wound the recipient”), LGBTQ+ hate, misogyny and even plain old “name-calling.” If you can’t play “Call of Duty” and call the person you’re about to virtually shoot a lying, dog-faced pony soldier, why play?

You know who else could have used this technology? American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten.

WSJ: How to Answer the ‘Trap Question’

Follow @andykessler

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-to-answer-the-trap-question-11617559915

Being a CEO is hard. You work like a beast of burden to build your company, hire smart workers and delight customers so they’ll buy your products and you can show great returns to please investors. Then, no matter how successful you are, you still get asked social-justice “trap questions” like “What are you doing about inclusion and equity?” Just by answering, you’re assumed guilty. Some of these things might be important, but more important than growing the company to create those inclusive jobs in the first place?

This year’s Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research Summit included a fireside chat with Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. Unlike his clipped predecessor, Mr. Nadella turned the company around into a cloud colossus. Former Microsoftie Jeff Raikes, like George Stephanopoulos interviewing Nancy Pelosi, asked the softball questions.

But these are Seattle-soaked folks, so Mr. Raikes had to ask the unanswerable trap question: “Let’s talk a little bit more about equity. Before the pandemic, the world was facing big challenges: climate change, structural racism, economic insecurity, wealth inequality and more.” Oh boy, here we go. “What is the responsibility of the corporations,” he asked, “particularly the underlying connection to racial justice in the U.S. and elsewhere?”

Mr. Nadella isn’t CEO of a trillion-dollar company for nothing. Coolly and calmly, he explained that “the social purpose of a company is to find profitable solutions to the challenges of people and planet,” crediting Oxford economist Colin Mayer for the definition. “Driving broad economic growth is perhaps the biggest thing that a company can do,” Mr. Nadella added. “In order to have the pie distributed evenly, the pie should first grow.” Left unsaid is the pie should never stop growing.

Mr. Nadella’s comeback was the best misdirect to the trap question I’ve ever heard. Every CEO should pay attention. Mr. Mayer’s definition of corporate purpose as finding “profitable solutions” is—shh, don’t give it away—basically the same as Milton Friedman’s “the social responsibility of business is to increase profits,” except with the crowd-pleasing word “planet” tacked on. The definition was even part of the agenda of the World Economic Forum, making it suitable for John Kerryish globalists everywhere. Write it with a Sharpie inside every CEO’s eyelids for future reference. The answer is brilliant.

Here’s a different take. Years ago, I was on an investor panel with Jeff Ubben of ValueAct Capital.