Marc Andreessen

Yeah, this is really important. And this is where it's so much different than the past. This is where our interaction with China is so different than our interaction with the Soviet Union 50 years ago, which is, to your point, just the overall level of activity of offshoring.

Yeah, this is really important. And this is where it's so much different than the past. This is where our interaction with China is so different than our interaction with the Soviet Union 50 years ago, which is, to your point, just the overall level of activity of offshoring.

American manufacturing companies never really offshored anything into the Soviet Union, but they offshored a lot of stuff into China. So there's a lot more activity that's gone overseas. But the other thing, you know this, but it's really important, is the complexity of the supply chain. Take the iPhone as the canonical product.

American manufacturing companies never really offshored anything into the Soviet Union, but they offshored a lot of stuff into China. So there's a lot more activity that's gone overseas. But the other thing, you know this, but it's really important, is the complexity of the supply chain. Take the iPhone as the canonical product.

There's a document you can download online that's probably a little bit dated now, but it goes through the componentry that make up an iPhone and where that stuff comes from. I mean, at least it's probably a decade-old document now. There might be a more recent one, but the one I read a decade ago, there's parts in the iPhone from 40 different countries.

There's a document you can download online that's probably a little bit dated now, but it goes through the componentry that make up an iPhone and where that stuff comes from. I mean, at least it's probably a decade-old document now. There might be a more recent one, but the one I read a decade ago, there's parts in the iPhone from 40 different countries.

And so by the time that iPhone is getting assembled at Foxconn in China, it literally has had 39 other countries have sent stuff in, getting built into subcomponents of subcomponents into components and cars are the same way and robots are going to be the same way and anything sophisticated, anything computerized or mechanical is going to have that attribute. And so

And so by the time that iPhone is getting assembled at Foxconn in China, it literally has had 39 other countries have sent stuff in, getting built into subcomponents of subcomponents into components and cars are the same way and robots are going to be the same way and anything sophisticated, anything computerized or mechanical is going to have that attribute. And so

By the way, it's actually hard to even get this from the trade numbers because I believe this to be the case. China actually gets to take credit for the export value of the completed iPhone in their export numbers, even though the economic value add of what happened in China is single digit percentages. Because so much of what's in the iPhone comes from 39 other countries.

By the way, it's actually hard to even get this from the trade numbers because I believe this to be the case. China actually gets to take credit for the export value of the completed iPhone in their export numbers, even though the economic value add of what happened in China is single digit percentages. Because so much of what's in the iPhone comes from 39 other countries.

The analysis you really want to do is what's called economic value added. You want to basically say, OK, of the thousand dollars that went into the iPhone, what's the pie chart of the value of where those things came from in dollars? And the answer is from all over the world.

The analysis you really want to do is what's called economic value added. You want to basically say, OK, of the thousand dollars that went into the iPhone, what's the pie chart of the value of where those things came from in dollars? And the answer is from all over the world.

This is the problem with a simplistic argument about reshoring or about reversing globalization, which is we're not talking about bringing a steel plant back from China. We're talking about unwinding a supply chain that has 40 countries involved with things going back and forth all over the place as everything is built up and assembled.

This is the problem with a simplistic argument about reshoring or about reversing globalization, which is we're not talking about bringing a steel plant back from China. We're talking about unwinding a supply chain that has 40 countries involved with things going back and forth all over the place as everything is built up and assembled.

And look, the modern economy, the reason an iPhone costs $1,000 and not a billion dollars is because the efficiency gains from that level of economic specialization and trade have been profound. We have a material standard of living today far higher as a consequence of this. Our standard of living in the U.S. is much higher than it was.

And look, the modern economy, the reason an iPhone costs $1,000 and not a billion dollars is because the efficiency gains from that level of economic specialization and trade have been profound. We have a material standard of living today far higher as a consequence of this. Our standard of living in the U.S. is much higher than it was.

And then billions of people around the world have been brought out of poverty. So economically, that system has done quite well in many ways. The problem is it runs up against reality in a bunch of ways. So one is national security. So this is the problem with the Taiwan chips, the Taiwan fabs.

And then billions of people around the world have been brought out of poverty. So economically, that system has done quite well in many ways. The problem is it runs up against reality in a bunch of ways. So one is national security. So this is the problem with the Taiwan chips, the Taiwan fabs.

It's like, okay, if the US military is going to be running on autonomous AI-driven drones and self-piloted fighter jets and self-piloted submarines in the future, as opposed to what we have now, boy, we're going to need those leading-edge chips to power our military. If China seizes Taiwan and they own the means of production of those chips, the American military can get those chips.

It's like, okay, if the US military is going to be running on autonomous AI-driven drones and self-piloted fighter jets and self-piloted submarines in the future, as opposed to what we have now, boy, we're going to need those leading-edge chips to power our military. If China seizes Taiwan and they own the means of production of those chips, the American military can get those chips.