In a more enlightened time, we understood the special role that "utilities" play in our national and local lives, and we understood the need for appropriate regulation. The cable companies and the large technology and big box companies are utilities, in every sense of the word, and have become indispensable to our governmental, commercial and private lives.
It is about time that we started reasonably regulating the utilities of the modern age, as to price, privacy, lobbying, unfair competition and manipulative practices.
13
What we need to do is break up the tech monopolies. Each got away with making purchases while our politicians were asleep.
Google bought 200 companies they should have competed against.
Facebook bought many too.
8
I love Kara, but I thought she (or a headline editor) was being facetious when referring to 'tech' -- not one category anyway -- as "our most important industry".
I'd hate to spend the next two months alone at home without the Internet, but make no mistake: it's nowhere near as vital right now as our food supply, or basic utilities like electricity, gas, & water, or even garbage collection.
And that's leaving aside health care.
"Most important"? Hah. It's not in the top five.
10
I think this article is a little self serving. The industry most important and in the greatest danger is healthcare. Save them.
8
Yeah, you can't eat social media or your iPad. My biggest fear of CV-19 fallout is food shortages. The produce won't pick itself. You think people get testy when their browsers hang, or their download speed gets throttled? Watch what happens when they're starving.
7
"Most important industry." Really? Ever try to eat a computer?
4
Actually, our most important industry is our press.
3
Hey folks - CDC says the virus can live for up to a day on cardboard and several days on plastic. So all of you folks who thinking buying online is the safest way to social distance better be prepared when you bring those packages, home deliveries and takeout food in your home.
1
I think the unpaid labour of caregivers--women, mostly--is the most important industry.
I know it won't happen, but I would dearly love to see tech go away. It's made us miserable.
3
It's okay to eat your feed corn, it's your seed corn that you don't want to eat. (former) Iowa farm boy.
2
This company has a P/E ratio of 1,865 ? This certainly IS a good measure of a company's true value. And the way I define the word "value" (reward received per dollar spent), this is maybe the lowest value to be had in any business deal I've ever heard of.
The P/E ratio for a stock is equal to the share price (what you pay to buy that share), divided by the company's annual pretax earnings of that stock, per share.
A P/E ratio of 1,865 means that if today you buy a $1.00 fractional share of the stock, you're going to have to wait 1,865 years for the company to reward you with $1.00 of earnings. And that's PRETAX earnings -- the after-tax earnings will almost certainly be less. So, you can expect to get to pay-back in some amount of time north of 1,865 years. And THAT assumes the company you invested in even pays dividends (the fraction of earned money the company pays its stockholders). Many companies pay no dividends, and many (maybe most) others pay next to nothing in dividends.
I don't want to disparage the author of this article or the company mentioned, but this is not a high-value investment opportunity, as I see it. Not unless the company will, with certainty, have a HUGE increase in sales in the near future.
@Iman Onymous You may have misunderstood Swisher's point-- in the paragraph after noting the nosebleed-inducing PE ratio, she writes "This is Wall Street over-indexing to very dire problems"
That is, she agrees with you.
1
I can't believe how bare the stores are. I don't see how lots of toilet paper is going to protect them from the virus
1
Wow, what incredible ignorance. Do you live in a bubble or what? The doctors and nurses, food producers, the grocery clerks, the truck drivers, the man on the street that holds this country together are it’s most important.
They are totally ignored and now we need them all. The huge corporations are not what it is about. They have been allowed to become huge monopolies under the last four administrations. The lessons of a hundred years ago learned about monopolies, robber barons, and the 1918 flu epidemic have all been forgotten.
We will all weep because of it.
2
Silicon Valley was given free rein to evolve in a libertarian environment. It has resulted in the New Plantation Economy.
1
Tech brought us the dream of our country being a service industry based economy. Looks more like a Stephen King Nightmare.
1
To me tech is an epic fail right now.
From Kara's perspective the tech industry is so "important" because it generates so much business & money. But commenters are pointing out another way to value industry, citing agriculture. It's true, I could live without technology but without food, I can't live at all.
I'm a User Experience Designer and a developer and I have another perspective, technology should have served us much better in the past 20+ years. Things should be a lot better than they are now. We should have more than just advertising and streaming video at this point, but Wall Street *values* easy profits above doing the hard work. Trying to solve real problems wouldn't be as profitable as an online meetings app.
I get Kara's perspective but it's this valuing of money over life that has got us into this situation. I'm glad I have Zoom and Apple TV but we had twenty+ years of historic growth and most people are so unhappy with their lives they elected Donald Trump. Twenty+ years of growth and we haven't even _started_ on tackling climate change, inequality, and health innovation and a thousand other things.
All that growth and all that profit making over two decades and here we are ... we're about to pay everyone NOT to work. I thought sustainability was important when it came to finance, I guess I'm wrong.
2
Big Tech may survive but many of its customers won't as long as Trump and Mitch McConnell control the Senate. Maybe Big Tech should use its considerable clout to get rid of the Know Nothings and Do Nothings in Washington D.C. and replace them with better government.
3
Seed corn is what you eat in a famine, Kara, not feed corn -- which is plentiful and goes to animals. Maybe we're in such dire strait that we will have to eat the feed corn, but I'm not sure the new metaphor will catch on.
1
Agriculture is our most important industry, whatever the numbers.
2
The military industrial complex will survive.
When I read the title about "our most important industry", I assumed it would be an article about farming. No food, no life.
1
The premise of the article is foolish: We have many other important industries.
We can survive without streaming videos, chat rooms,
Or zoom meetings (no one likes meetings of any kind). But we can’t survive without food and
the essential medications that so many depend on, like insulin.
4
Is there an argument that Healthcare is our most important industry?
Our Most Important Industries ... which produce nothing but distraction. The Emperor truly has no clothes.
1
The most important industry is the restaurant industry.
@Oldmadding Huh?!
2
I have no worry about that. The “good” usual American greed will revive industries.
What a stunning quote - that Zoom now eclipses in value the combined worth of United, American, Delta and JetBlue Airlines.
And for all that - what does Zoom actually own: a few staff, a few desks, a few floors in an office building, a bunch of 1s and 0s in cyberspace - and a whole lot of knowledge.
Taxes will be born by those who always bear taxes. The other 99% of the population.
1
"That is a head start that lesser rivals — who will now have to eat up their feed corn to stay viable — cannot compete against."
Shouldn't that be "seed corn", Ms Swisher?
"our most important industry"???
in terms of what may I ask?
In terms of jobs, clearly not, as tech's final solution is to eliminate jobs, not to add jobs. Tech's goal is to find ways to do the same thing without human labor. Amazon and Uber have as their long term goal the elimination of its drivers, warehouse people, and everyone who could be replaced by some kind of tech.
Furthermore, if they must use human labor to produce, they do so whenever possible in the lowest labor cost countries as Apple does in China.
If we eliminated all tech corporations in the US right now, we would most likely see a net positive gain in jobs as the we go back to doing things using more US based human labor.
Boy, you really have Stockholm Syndrome Kara Swisher.
1
Funny, I thought food production, maintaining enough clean water, safely processing human and other waste, and health care were our “most important” industries, not Silicon Valley-type tech.
For hundreds of thousands of years, humans and our predecessors survived without the internet or personal computers or AI or “smart” doorbells, ice boxes, and cat bowls.
The ongoing hubris of the S.V. Bros seems to know no bounds. *Most* important? Try going without your computer for 2 or 3 straight weeks. Then try to do the same with forgoing all food or all water or with accumulating raw sewage in your home, and tell us what it’s like.
Oh, that’s right, you won’t be able to because you’d be dead or close to it.
Most full of themselves is more like it.
1
Zoom and all their competitive set are essentially the same product. The fact that Zoom's shares skyrocketed has more to do with branding, PR and luck than any competitive or innovation advantage. In other words, markets are irrational, short-sighted and dumb.
Thanks for your coverage and analysis.
1
Amazon might pose as a tech company but tell that to it's army of poorly paid humans in both its sweltering warehouses and on the streets, all exposed to the coronavirus; meanwhile, in what lavishly furnished panic room is Jeff Bezos hiding?
1
Tech is not just going to survive the coronavirus; it's going to dominate the next 1,000 years of humanity. Investing in tech now––both in the stock market and through your own personal study––will be the single best decision you'll ever make. I started reading a book a week in science in 2010 and graduated from popular science to technical papers and text books. YouTube and Khan Academy have also educated a lot of people. It can be a little difficult without formal education, but self-motivated learning is the best anyway. The goal isn't just to be compensated and get a good job, but to contribute to the advancement of life on (and eventually off) Earth.
Hmmm. Our most important industry is the one on the frontline right now. It's HEALTHCARE. To heck with Silicon Valley.
1
In my book, farming and processing harvests, logistics supply to stock retail outlets shelves is by far much more vital than totally discretionary "feeding stations" that relegate to decadent, discretionary luxury outlets in my sentiment, pertaining to those who don't know or still refuse to use kitchens to prepare food for themselves.
N2 Most important sector consists of healthcare facilities and outpatient clinics availability.
PS This MUST STOP.
https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/07/american-food-waste/491513/
Companies like Google and Facebook will reignite the paper industry and bring back the 17th century stamps and seals, spies will be everywhere, and the military will be obsolete.
Curious to call it "our" industry..... It is the industry of its shareholders. Zuckerberg and Bezos have some loyalty to ordinary people beyond what can be achieved with effective image management? Look at the events in Myanmar. Look who got elected in the US and UK. Putin thinks it is all great. Is he our guy? Yes, the industry is important, and it seems only the Europeans are really working at trying to regulate it so it serves some net public good. In other places it is mere money worship and exploitation of suckers.
"The most important industry..." If you do say so yourself.
Wait, this is a contrarian editorial in the defense of big tech ("out most important industry") in a time of peak consolidation of a just-mature industry? Is this sarcasm?
When 30 percent of Americans are out of work, a figure predicted by the Fed which will exceed the worst of the Great Depression, who will buy 'Big Tech's' products?
Interestingly, the 1918 flu pandemic was deadlier (by mortality), just as contagious as COVID-19 and lasted almost 2 years. The US managed to continue fighting and winning a world war, and there was no global depression. Won't be the same this time because the world is led by a bunch of weak-kneed idiots trying to placate their confused constituents.
Great column. But it's seed corn, not feed corn.
What is America's most important industry during this plague year 2020? Ms. Swisher, you say high tech is our most important industry. Won't all human industries be culled during the Coronavirus pandemic? Will every human belief and ethos be smashed by an aeons-old plague that our narcissistic president thinks he can bend to his will? The world has an appointment in Sararra.
I simply fear the future, and have extraordinary levels of distrust in my own ability to see what is coming say, a hundred years from now.
We humans have proven ourselves to be bloodthirsty idiots, we have little problem with ruining the air, the water, our kids, so a few greedy people can own it all. Periodically, we choose to kill millions of people so we can own their oil or so we can murder their hopes in belonging in a healthy socialist culture.
Soon there will be a brutal war for survival and dominance. Past is prologue.
Big tech can be a leveling force, but looking at the devastation great wealth has visited upon previous empires, and looking at the accumulation of wealth into the hands of so few tech Gods, I just don't see us having much more than a "Blade Runner" future. So the industry that is most important for the future, really, is the outpouring of propaganda and the production of military machines and robots. Three people own more wealth than the bottom half of the economic ladder.
Now, if we could take money out of politics, and stop the slide to...well, Asimov's Foundation Series is about as close to trustworthy future history as I can find.
Hugh
1
Kara believes Big Tech is our most important industry? Yikes.
Don't you mean "the most self-important Industry."
1
Read the article twice and still don’t know what is America’s most important industry.
Oh, wait ... You’re kidding, right?
We need tech but we can get along without AirBnB and Uber.
Tech being "most important"? Hardly. Important, yes, but not "most important".
As we're learning, it's the non-glamorous industries that are far more important. Grocery stores. Healthcare. Even trash pickup. Those were all around and functioning long before "tech" came into the picture.
Yes, "tech" no doubt made them better and more efficient. But that's it. "Tech" is a tool.
I'll take an open and stocked grocery store over someone posting idiot memes on Facebook or Twitter any day.
Video conferencing and collaboration tools such as Zoom are facilitating work and study from home.
But real learning occurs when a mind is strengthened with skills that endure.
In the information economy, that means the ability to read and comprehend complex texts and write new texts that cogently synthesize the written information.
Reading and writing were the original remote learning technology, 5000 years ago.
This article is written at a grade 14 level. Eighty percent of high school seniors and fifty percent of college freshmen will find it very difficult to understand.
Zoom will not strengthen these students’ reading or writing.
But a new technology will: Visual Syntactic Text Formatting, VSTF.
VSTF integrates emerging concepts in visual perception, eye-movement control, pattern recognition, short-term visual and linguistic memory, and the brain’s synchronization of lexical and syntactic processing that occurs in sentence comprehension.
In longitudinal, randomized-control studies of middle and high school students, funded by the US Department of Education, VSTF improved students’ learning from complex texts and strengthened their reading and writing skills for all text formats. Regular use of VSTF increased students’ standardized text scores, including the ACT by 3 points, 15 national percentile ranking points.
VSTF is not a mere perceptual teleportation technology, it is cognitive enhancement technology.
http://www.liveink.com/Walker/Big_Tech_Pandemic.htm
I think you mean "seed corn."
Tax churches.
I'm in Tech - The most important Industry is Farming, Transport, and Food packaging.
Why doesn't the NYT get rid of their Tech Writer and get a Agriculture Writer. Stop interviewing Silicon Valley Hucksters (see Zoom and Uber) and start interviewing Iowa Farmers, Texas Truck drivers, and Supervisors of Meat Packing plants in Missouri.
Ms Swisher needs to, Nay - MUST, move to Nebraska, to be at the heart of the most important US industry.
2
Video conferencing and collaboration tools such as Zoom are facilitating work and study from home.
But real learning occurs when a mind is strengthened with skills that endure.
In the information economy, that means the ability to read and comprehend complex texts and write new texts that cogently synthesize the written information.
Reading and writing were the original remote learning technology, 5000 years ago.
This article is written at a grade 14 level. Eighty percent of high school seniors and fifty percent of college freshmen will find it very difficult to understand.
Zoom will not strengthen these students’ reading or writing.
But a new technology will: Visual Syntactic Text Formatting, VSTF.
VSTF integrates emerging concepts in visual perception, eye-movement control, pattern recognition, short-term visual and linguistic memory, and the brain’s synchronization of lexical and syntactic processing that occurs in sentence comprehension.
In longitudinal, randomized-control studies of middle and high school students, funded by the US Department of Education, VSTF improved students’ learning from complex texts and strengthened their reading and writing skills for all text formats. Regular use of VSTF increased students’ standardized test scores, including the ACT by 3 points, 15 national percentile ranking points.
VSTF is not a mere video technology, it is a cognitive enhancement technology.
http://www.liveink.com/Walker/Big_Tech_Pandemic.htm
Why do you keep waling on big tech and social media – and cast an absolutely blind eye to the endemic extortionate pricing rampant in big health…
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/24/us/politics/coronavirus-ventilators.html
Look at the lead-in pic…
Been spitballing them at the electronic and physical size and complexity of a color laser desktop printer…
Upon seeing this pic, re-swagged to the size and complexity of a mid-range designer-brand vac – but then…
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-52021757
Keep in mind, bulk purchase of these (vent’s, not vacs) at $36,000 per unit had been cited as a buying opp’y in 2015…
https://nypost.com/2020/03/19/we-didnt-have-to-have-ventilator-shortage-leaders-chose-not-to-prep-for-pandemic/
To drive home the abject avarice of this – all someone would have to do is produce a ventilator limited to veterinary use…
Priced accordingly – but otherwise identical…
So, couple of high-tech questions and then I’m done:
> Way things’re going, think a single Chinese carrier going to ever buy a single 737 MAX
> When they have 3X the smartphone use and auto output we do – and 30X the ventilators, should need again arise – we going to keep pretending their economy’s 1/3 the size of ours
> With quarantining driving the point “home” (though being resisted by organized teachers) that remote student access to all the world’s info, knowledge, lessons – real-time or archived – just a click away, what will school (re)opening days look like in 9/21
2
If “our most important industry” is the one that aided and abetted Russian meddling, Trump’s election and inane Twitter babblings, on-line bullying, white-supremacist recruiting and anti-social media, to name just a few, God help us all!
1
America's most important industries turned out to be supermarkets and delivery trucking. Without them, we'd be screwed. The Uber of laundry or whatever....we'd do fine without them.
I am pretty sure the most important industry is farming - the next is the infrastructure to distribute food and essentials. Throw medical providers, labs, and researchers in the mix, and for fun, education.
Those that provide the communication and automation infrastructure to the above are probably the most easy to replace.
Now is a real opportunity to realize and assess that the conservation industry could expand and be very important, and more importantly, valued accordingly.
When there is enough to eat, and when important daily needs are accessible and readily available, there is enough time to watch cat (or whatever) videos.
When your daily activities are not causing irrevocable environmental damage and driving other species to extinction, cat videos seem less frivolous.
An added bonus, rescind the ability of the financial system artificially influencing availability and development strategies by remote control.
Perusing the latest financial information from China one bright spot for that countries economy which you seem to have failed to mention in your otherwise excellent article, Ms Swisher, seems to be reports that industries related to construction continues to be productive. This of course relates to the Chinese' previous heavy investments in infrastructure like road, rail and power grid development. I also note that due to that countries Leadership's previous investments in the development of Green Technology, once the virus is under control, the Chinese are poised to leap frog over the West's backwards and halting investments in implementing cost effective and dependable energy supplies of the future.
So, just wondering Kara, given the latest financial info from China (and our own experience during the Depression with both construction of infrastructure and with the production of alternative energy supplies, like the Tennessee Valley Project) what you think of a new multi-trillion dollar taxpayer funded bailout that ignores investing in jobs and industry that have already been shown to help in financially shakey times?
“All U.S. citizens will all become shareholders in a way” is another way to say all tech companies will become agents of the governmental command and control structure.
of course, "taxes" means the government, not the average citizen, is vested in the profitability of tech companies, so you could also say that government is vested in making sure technology thrives. regulatory decisions and sovereign debt have become lucrative business opportunities -- not just here, but globally.
as for "footing the bill," dr. krugman recently opined that the government can run large deficits forever, provided there's economic profit in doing so. those deficits go to bail out failing businesses and provide minimal economic, medical and social support to the herd animals.
we're witnessing the power accommodation between two systems of command and control, one regulatory and the other technological. the obvious and ongoing trend is their mutual cooperation in a single corporatist state for oligarchical enrichment. "power" does not like to live in two houses.
if you never felt like a herd animal before, ask yourself: where are we all headed, and what do i expect to find when we get there?
1
I'm glad to see that someone is paying attention to the "ginormous" debt being piled up. As the author says, someone some day has to pay for it.
OK, this is a good article about tech. How about an article on energy? Right now the government is going to subsidize fracking companies that deserve to go bankrupt, given their high levels of debt and unfavorable costs of production. And what at the effect on green energy companies, now that the prices of oil and gas are so low?
5
If Amazon, Facebook and Google disappeared tomorrow, we could replace them within months. They're good at what they do, but their main advantage was that they got there first. Now that we know what can be done, many organizations would be able to replicate it if it became necessary or useful.
9
Not sure I agree with your premise. We were able to build an incredible country before Tech, as you call it, which rose from nothing. I think you are confusing convenience with importance. Before Tech, as you call it, we were fine. Now with it were still fine. To me there is little change except for Tech’s crushing effect on the more meaningful aspects of life like neighborhood businesses who employed local people in exchange for convenience. Don’t confuse value with importance.
10
I'm old enough to remember when AT&T was broken up. How did that go? I'm young enough to have experienced how poor Google's competitors in search are. In olden days I waited 20th in line at national-chain bookstores as one cashier dealt with customers and three baristas sold over-priced muffins; I now buy general-reader books, at a discount, from amazon.com. While critics lobby, and, especially in Europe, politicians denounce American companies for taking advantage of the tax regime, I'm sticking with companies that give me "good enough" rather than "worse but government-approved".
3
@Martin Daly I think you were going to the wrong bookstores. I didn't have that experience, and still don't.
1
@Martin Daly, I have been a bookworm since my Grandpa taught me to read during WWII and took me to the library. Been using it ever since, and you wouldnt believe how techy and convenient it has become. I do use Bezos for reading reviews and buying other things I am too decrepit to shop for in stores.
@Bob R Lucky you.
Our 'most important industry' is our College and University system and its continued strength, independence, and the public's belief in it.
15
Isn't the largest business in the US the real estate market, both residential and commerical transactions, dwarfing all others? Isn't this why it was important during the Obama era, after the Bush economic crash, to lower the interest rate on mortgages?
3
Isn't our most important industry the military industrial complex? Roughly half of every tax dollar goes to support it.
8
Zoom is like any other tool. It has potential for good or ill, depending on the actions and intentions of the user. I've used it as a participant in video meetings, all related to church functions (student ministry collaborations, vestry meetings). I have no intention, nor wherewithal to buy stock in the company. If it's going up in value, it's too late to buy, anyway.
2
Advertising revenues will plummet as large fraction of business suspend operations. Those are the revenues of Google and Facebook.
6
@peter Yes, often overlooked is the fact that Facebook and Google are in the end media companies that have the big advantage of not having to pay to produce their own content.
They are no more revolutionary than newspapers, radio and TV were in their time.
2
The underlying problem seems to be ... with their concentration of theoretical and practical intelligence these firms are positioned to outmaneuver the tax collectors....in my opinion.
4
I think it is also important to realize that these large tech companies grew, prospered, and benefited from being located in America. Even when they out-sourced, or brought in talent from around the world, they had success because they were American companies. They benefit from the American consumer, the American taxpayer, American infrastructure, and the American worker. Yet so far tech has definitely had a light tax burden. Rather than wait for some long hoped for "benevolent social consciousness" it's time to get real and tax accordingly (btw the same is true of many industries, not just tech).
14
Good luck extracting tax from businesses with no physical products, overseas headquarters, and unlimited shape-shifting. This is America, kiddies! Political and judicial policy remains exclusively with wealthy industries, trade groups, individuals: we just built that into our law.
Besides that detail, the massive hit to our economy just from this pandemic isn’t going to be paved over with consumer buying, which actually is most of the picture. We are going to be personally and corporately poor for a long spell, and buying, using less. The recovery has to reestablish small business with dubious access to credit; the market, which actually owns the banks, always rewards the ascendant, which isn’t us.
Sure, there’s some sort of difference between us and Italy after the waves of Black Plague, but please notice that so far, our sole recourse has been to hole up, just as in 1300. Tech, (and as a science guy, technology is a terribly misused term), tech isn’t doing more for us than showing us how close to the edge of collapse our world is.
12
Where were our lawmakers when Big Tech grew with no governmental oversight ? Why are they still not paying taxes?
As for valuations of the Unicorns, it is a strategy of Wall Street to make huge profits completely ignoring viability or profitability.
We Work, Uber, Lyft and Beyond Meat and many others fall into this category.
But let’s not forget the Big Corporations who used their profits to buyback stocks will taking on huge amounts of debt.
6
Most of these tech 'giants' pay next to nothing in taxes. Most of these tech 'giants' hire more 'contractors' without benefits than actual employees. Most of these tech 'giants' are amoral - the terrible externalities they cause are mere speed bumps on their path to obscene profits. It's time for massive government regulation.
23
@Markymark By "massive government regulation" I assume you don't mean the types and kinds that gave the world the Soviet Union (the Workers' Paradise), Eastern Bloc countries, Mao's China, Fidel's Cuba, and Hugo Chavez' Venezuela. Just checking.
@Markymark I agree but I think you are too polite.
Most of these companies have gone over the line into immoral behavior.
Short list...price gouging for life saving drugs, disabling devices so people have to buy new ones, Using government services but paying no taxes, inhuman working conditions...
I am going to stop here but the list is so much longer!
I truly hope Americans do NOT return to the life they have been living. I hope they are learning positive things from this pandemic. The skies are cleaner, the waters are clearer. People are coming together. Hopefully this trend will help them realize which industries they ought not to support. So sick of the car industry driving economies. There has to be a better measure of success for a country than the amount of cars it produces. Greed and living for pleasure do not have good outcomes. Good luck America. Make better choices.
16
@Catalina Good luck with that thought. Most American are descended from people who came here for a "better life", ie they wanted to make more money than was possible in the old country. The other reason was they were religious zealots looking to escape persecution or turn their "beliefs" into money. In the old country the catholic church had a big monopoly on the wealth that could be generated that way.
Both still hold true today, it will be difficult to change overnight.
2
@Hugh: You have identified two key traits of the first European-Americans — religiosity and energetic shaman/shyster-style marketing. The religiosity has caused enormous damage over the past 50 years as the most religious people (Christian fundamentalists, ultra-Orthodox Jews, radical Muslims, etc.) are the most anti-science/knowledge/expertise and anti-progress. The too-clever marketers — with religious fervor — have convinced too many of us that more, better, newer “stuff” (conspicuous consumption) is more important than personal relationships, caring about the “general welfare,” sharing good fortune with the less fortunate and protecting the environment.
Good luck getting big tech to pay taxes. If they make a profit (many do not), they’ll shelter it overseas.
9
@David G LA only political will prevents collecting offshore taxes. This could be the turning point against all sorts of chicanery
I think this is a good time to questions the advertising and consumerism on which the 5 big tech companies rely.
Let's face it, most of the things they advertise are made in China, which counts on 'us' to buy the wares and trinkets at unrealistically low prices and dumped on our markets. China, in recent decades, has been acting like the imperialist colonisers of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries.
They devastate our natural resources and we cannot seem to resist the low priced manufactured goods that they dangle at us. Like colonizers, China is increasingly building infrastructure in our countries that we should be building for ourselves. Now is not a time to praise the Big Tech companies that depend on us being at their mercy. Now is the time for countries to rebuild local economies without dependency on companies that act like colonizers. We need to praise, encourage and subsidize the ingenuity and entrepreneurship that are held locally in our midst.
17
Interesting set of priorities defining tech industry as our most important industry. Today I would have said healthcare. Tomorrow I might choose agriculture ... after all we need to live, and to live we need to eat. Tech may play an role in enabling this , but we did well enough without it.
23
I'd think twice about mixing social media, Twitter in particular, in with "technology" we need now more than ever. The world never needed Twitter or Facebook and needs them less now than ever.
If we want to talk about national healing, turning off the lights at Twitter would be a great place to start.
33
Let's stop worrying about the stock market. It is completely disconnected from Main Street and the rest of us.
This is because 70% of trading these days is automated, algorithm-based computerized trading by hedge funds and similar traders. Their high-volume trading programs search out minute trends based on programmed history and other data. There is no analysis of a company's fundamentals or future prospects; they trade when the program tells them to trade, in huge volumes to take advantage of even the smallest of changes in pricing trends.
Obviously, the NYSE and NASDAQ are making most of their money off of this type of high volume trading, whether the market goes up or down, so they are not exactly eager to stop the gravy train, even if means that the stock "market" is not much of an actual market at all.
14
These companies have become way too powerful. Admittedly, the convenience of the services and products they provide is great, and we have come to depend on them. However, the concentration of their industries and their dominance within those industries as well as the reach of their involvement in other industries are threats to our societies, particularly to democratic and republican government. Look at Google's involvement in education, translation, voice communication, phone and computer manufacturing, to mention only a few industries. Look at their control of data. Look at what Amazon is doing to retail and the social fabric of our communities. We must control them or they will control us. Of course they'll survive.
3
I certainly haven't done any hard research, but it seems to me the military-industrial complex, with all of its suppliers and all the money it brings to every state --- that is the most important industry in the USA. It includes technology.
I don't like that situation one bit, but there it is. Armies have been around forever, Facebook - not so long.
4
@Patrick Leigh a one trillion dollar drain on our economy every year. think about how this impacts our education system, infrastructure, social network issues, etc. it isn't making our country greater...it is destroying this country. only bernie sanders ever talked about it, and he's gone
@alan
I agree, and as I stated above " I don't like that situation one bit."
Kara correctly frames the issues surrounding investment and tax challenges lying ahead. She causes us to think reflectively. During good economic times, investment assets are often bought at inflated prices based upon greed. During bad times, similar assets are sold due to fears. Contrarians such as Warren Buffet make investment decisions guided by analysis of evidence. Their end game objectives focus upon beneficial outcomes in the long term. By comparison, corporations who leveraged their balance sheets with unsustainable debt are especially vulnerable. Many of these corporations will now receive federal funding. Government support is essential as we attempt to restore equilibrium to our economy while tackling a pandemic. But mismanagement of fiscal policy had already caused annual budget deficits to grow exponentially thereby adding to our public debt. What lessons will we learn? Will our future be governed by greed, fear or objective analysis of evidence?
4
The American economy needs to be far more diversified in terms of its output.The country needs to develop its manufacturing base. It needs to become far more self sufficient.All the companies mentioned are incredible in their own right.But they also have enormous defects; Apple employs cheap labor in China. Facebook and Google are partially thieves.The country surely would like to see companies being built that they can be truly proud of.Business entities that believe in paying excellent wages and benefits.Companies that are so well designed and managed, they can weather any storm. Global climate change continues on its path; it will pose enormous challenges to our little spot in the universe.
Well done Zoom but does such a valuation make any sense.
4
In the longer run a pandemic is a small perturbation. Its effects will get lost in the noise. At most it might catalyze social changes that would happen anyway.
But climate change is a trend that seems unstoppable. We might hope that the pandemic might hasten a global depression that could buy a little time to confront the fatal trend. Those of us who cling to optimism might still find grounds for hope. It won't last long.
8
To Kara's point on valuations of zoom vis-a-vis the airlines--I ask, when has the stock market ever made sense in recent years? (Even though it is, to Mr. Trump, the economy).
Imho, would be benefit of this crisis to come out on the other side and see the market for what it is--nothing more than a large casino with no relevance to the real world.
7
I choose as our most important industries these three, one of them non existent, one of them barely functional, and one of them either unknown or not understood by the Trump clan and hangers on.
Most important: Medical research and the government agencies that are supposed to support and make use of this research.
The Congress, barely functional during the Trump regime but apparently trying just now to function to save the people.
Universal Health Care as practiced in the country from which I write and in all neighboring countries - non existent in the USA.
If health care could be provided for all in America at the cost level it is provided in UHC countries, then maybe the future economy of the USA could be saved.
There must be economists working on that view of the future.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
20
Sorry. After reading the subtitle "Governments need Big Tech more than ever" I'm convinced you're another mercenary on their payroll.
What we need is a far better understanding of Nature - her quirks and anomalies that lead not only to pandemics and climate change, but also to the interactions between species (animals and plants) that lend this planet so much glory.
We don't need tech. We need love. Granted - I am biased, I'm a biologist. But I'm on nobody's payroll.
31
@Kenneth Brady - Kenneth, I read your comment before composing mine. You took care of the need for what I will call an understanding of the need for a continuing ever better understanding of NATURE.
Now in reply I can add to the understanding of nature at every level and over time.
Clmate change has fallen out of sight thanks to Corona but it is still going on and has been highly evident in Sweden at all the levels I can keep track of. I offer one:
In 2011 the Östergötland County ecologist brought to fruition a plan to restore ponds that existed in an area close to me but that had all been drained in the 1700s to provide land for returning soldiers to farm. One goal was to entice waterfowl to return, specifically Cygnus cygnus.
This succeeded. An aerial photograph of one of the ponds shows a swan pair taking up residence on a tiny bedrock island. I came back from the USA, discovered the pair, photographed them and their first offspring.Have photographed the same pair ever since.
In November 2019 the time when they have always left, neither they nor any others left. There was never any ice on the ponds or snow on the forest.
They are handling climate change quite well.
Can we?
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
8
@Larry Lundgren Tell us how they would handle the annual influx of tens of thousands of uneducated, Spanish-speaking immigrants.
“Our most important industries” are you serious? None of the tech industry can make a ventilator, N95 masks, or personal protective gear. These industries sell ads and bits and are largely irrelevant when what we need most is based on atoms... real things. Things that will save our lives, as opposed to simply amuse us until life is over. Tech is largely useless.
49
@Keith
I agree, industry based upon atoms is much more solid than one based upon electrons. I hope no one starts an industry based on quarks; we would really be in trouble.
5
The 1918 pandemic came and it was largely addressed by quarantine and time. Then life went on largely as before. Today's pandemic is remarkably different. Humans have quickly mobilized to counter the virus in a ways unthinkable in 1918. Viral genomes published via internet leading to races for testing kits, vaccines, pharmaceutical treatments, and antibody detection are proceeding and shared across the globe. Massive coordinated responses to slow the contagion amongst the human population of literally billions of people. Innovative solutions for protective equipment shortages and incubators are coming to the surface. Education, business, and industry utilizing technology in ever evolving ways. The Black Death of the 1300s brought significant changes. Our pandemic may not be as profound, but it certainly will be significant for the global response and innovations in efforts to save lives. We're all in this together.
10
Price-to-earnings ratio is not a good metric for a new, rapidly growing company. I would note that for most of its first 15 years, Amazon was either unprofitable or barely profitable. This means that its P2E ratio was either absurdly high or negative.
Also, there is nothing wrong with eating feed corn (although it is not meant for human consumption) - you meant to describe smaller companies as consuming their seed corn, which is more of a problem.
5
The restaurant industry employs 15 to 16 million Americans. It is labor intense. For every McDonald’s outlet there are 6-7 independent small businesses that cannot survive an extended closure, the bills keep coming with no or limited revenue, rent, utilities, insurance, not to mention spoiled inventory
Today, even our gas stations are restaurants Take a look around, we are a take put nation
11
There will be agriculture without any tech, not vice versa.
45
@richard Agriculture was first, and close on its heels came large standing armies for the purpose of stealing the neighbor's crop by brute force, and defending the home crop.
5
Erm, no. Our most important industry is certainly not Big Tech. What will save us is medical science and research; not streaming TV, virtual meetings, and online shopping.
66
@Santa
I think Kara's mistake (possible oversight) was her ad-hoc definition of what "Big Tech" is or actually encompasses. I would submit science and medicine are more empowered and reliant on digital technology than ever. Let's not forget the processes that move the electrons through your Google search or email are involved with the movement of electrons through your MRI, EKG, and subsequent analysis of both as well.
Like the blacksmiths of old, the paper, pencil, and slide rule are gone. The workflow of planning, research, and design should not be conflated with streaming TV, superfluous advertising, and the reckless flow of misinformation. Kara has some interesting ideas here but extrapolating them too broadly would be, I think, incorrect and not particularly useful.
1
As big tech gets bigger, little tech gets smaller. It fact, the coronavirus may be to little tech what that asteroid was to the dinosaurs.
We now have about five banks that control most of the money. Five tech companies that control, well, the universe, a handful of media content companies that control everything that goes into our minds, three phone companies, and a few massive chains that own all the hospitals. There are three drug store chains that control the distribution of most all medicines. They will all weather the storm. They will all get their handouts. Their shareholders will be made whole no matter what happens.
So you say you want to start your own business? So you think you can go to the bank down the street and secure enough capital? So you want to go to college and start a professional career without being mortgaged to the hilt?
Dream on. Small shops are closing left and right and this virus will devastate many of them, all to the benefit of the giant firms.
The world in turning into the movie, Brazil, where our individual worth is set by the information we generate. You might want to turn that smart phone off.
27
@Bruce Rozenblit , Wise words, as usual, from Mr Rozenblit. I personally use my local credit union, local small pharmacy, local library, and....Walmart, which allows me in my decrepitude to order online, choose a pickup time, drive to their store and pop my trunk so they can load my groceries.
High tech has had fantastic successes—look at how fast the coronavirus genome was decoded and how soon laboratories all over the world were working on cures and vaccines. That's high tech and ultimately will have huge effects. But computing just computes; it doesn't act. The engineers and workers in companies who figure out how to make 10 million masks and gowns a week instead of one million will have far more immediate effect (and, no, 3D printers can't make a million masks a week but they can do other things that help).
Dave
5
We're about to find out how important farmers and their Mexican laborers are, as well as truckers, store stockers, cashiers, etc etc etc.
Tech is flashy until the power goes out or some other cyber hot shot hacks the system. Which they eventually will.
73
@Entera But we can all be farmers. In most places there is enough open space to put in some organic vegetables, and a chicken coop. In addition to its economic value it would be therapeutic. And we would have enough self-respect to refuse to work for Amazon or Walmart, and feel secure enough not to cling to racism. It seems to be a win/win/winning idea. Including for the chickens.
4
@Paul Easton
Do you sew? Are you a cobbler? Can you weave fabric? Build your own appliances, your own pots, pans? Make your own soap? Deodorant? Medication? Furniture? Pillows? Blankets? Make your own light bulbs? Batteries...?
How much food are you growing as of today Paul? I don't know about you but it's 35degrees in my neck of the woods. I doubt that West Hartford, 40 miles south of me is much warmer. We had snow on Monday and more possibly coming today.
I get that some of us can grow some of our food. We have an acre of land that could be turned to farmland again, but, what about apartment dwellers? Do you think they can grow all they need on their windowsills? What do they do right now? We all need access to food right now, not in August. What do we all do in the winter, when chickens aren't laying eggs, when nothing is growing? It's nice to pretend that we can be completely self sufficient.
Instead of ridiculing the low income workers who work in vital industries like farming, food processing, grocery stores and retail stores, and yes, even places like Amazon, maybe we should consider paying them a living wage. Maybe we should consider universal health care so the lowest to the highest on the economic ladder all have access to needed health care. That is how we fix this. Not by becoming survivalists in a dystopian world with the people who have the ability to fend for themselves pitted against those who can't. I don't want to live in that kind of world. Do you?
3
@Paul Easton People who live in crowded cities like Manhattan don't have yards or even a patch of soil. A window box will only feed you for so long.
I hope this thing doesn't last long enough for people to plant victory gardens and wait for the veggies to ripen and be harvested.
1
Amazon, Instacart, and other "gig" companies like them classify their delivery employees as "contractors" instead of employees. They do this to avoid the laws that protect employees, and to avoid paying legally-mandated social security, medicare, and unemployment contributions for them.
These so called "contractors" are not covered by minimum wage laws, OSHA safety regs, or the right to organize a union. They aren't provided paid sick leave, paid vacations, or a pension. These are people we desperately depend on times like this.
The companies will tell you that the employees have "flexibility." Yes they have the "flexibility" to go into debt, to get evicted, and if they need health care, to hope for the best.
We need to update our laws to prohibit this vile practice. In addition to harming these employees, delivery companies that actually hire their own employees (eg UPS and FedEx) face unfair competition. Democrats and Republicans need to make these modifications in their Pandemic Package.
96
@Kraig Yes, and out coronavirus response needs to cover those contract workers. And the gig economy workers, the self-employed, and the homeless.
It's all for all or we all lose. $2000/month for a Temporary Universal Basic Income (TUBI) would be by far the fastest and easiest way to do this.
With no means testing. We can just raise taxes a bit on the wealthy to claw back the part they get.
12
@Kraig The change may well need to be made, but let’s hope they don’t lard the Pandemic Package with every liberal wish list item.
@hooper What do you do when a 20 yr old dropout blows his $2,000 a month on booze and dope, sleeps in parks that he/she also uses as an outhouse and comes down with some communicable disease? Free top-notch medical care? To be entitled to all the minimum essentials, an individual must have some obligation to contribute to a society's welfare.
I would make the argument that farming is America's most important industry.
107
@Matt K Yeah, when i saw the title of the article, i thought the answer was perhaps "Hollywood" because of its cultural influence but farming would be up there as #1 or #2. Tech as most important industry? Really?? People can't survive without the grains and veggies that our farms produce.
2
@Matt K I'm in tech, and I don't believe this - Farming, Transport (Trucking), Food process, Energy, Bio-Med.
Wall St and Silicon Valley can shut down and we will be inconvenienced, but Nebraska and Iowa shut down - we are in full Mad Max world.
8
@Matt K
Good luck.
For the most part, the bloom is off the rose when it comes to big ( and small) tech. The majority pay few taxes and pay their now indispensable contract workers peanuts while offering no benefits such as retirement accounts and healthcare. Most manage to offload any problems their workers and clients may have onto cities and states. I’d say there’s zero goodwill left for tech these days. It doesn’t help to read that Zoom now has a market cap of $44 billion, especially knowing that before going in to the Coronavirus pandemic 30% of Americans had 0 to minus savings wealth.
I get it that the focus of this article is on the benefits and ubiquitous use of tech today, and that this pandemic will only increase that usage. Still, this is an industry that increasingly leaves a sour taste in many mouths. I can only hope that when tech has it’s hands out for stimulus dollars someone in charge will be looking at future tax paying enforcement policies.
35
When this passes, I don't want to order anything online for a long time. I am so eager to go back into stores and small businesses and be among people rather than online.
69
Excellent piece. When this Pandemic is over there will be a lot of high touch business models that will need to be re-thought.
5
Personally, I think many people will find renewed value in what you refer to as “high touch” businesses.
It may make sense that tech oriented persons are more comfortable with impersonal or low-touch ways of being, just as it makes sense that such people would be drawn to the tech-creation field to begin with. If you’re more at ease with things than with people, you’re likely to work in fields where the focus is on interacting with things more than people.
But not all, and maybe not most of us are not like that.
11
My daughter is a pre-K teacher in NYC and used Zoom today for a 25-minute class. With eleven 3- and 4-year-olds, on a variety of devices from smartphones to laptops. Some of them had parents supervising, others just had their parent hand them the phone. And, it pretty much worked. The kids took it all in stride - though they did sometimes all try to talk at once.
I hope my virtual committee meeting tomorrow does as well as these kids did.
12
Many carbon-heavy ones are not supposed to survive; that's the whole point. Creative destruction, indeed.
2
I had not doubt at all that the tech sector would be thriving in this situation. Jeff Bezos wants to hire more workers to work his "fulfillment centers", or as I refer to them warehouses. He wants to do this even though the coronavirus was found in several of his warehouses around the world. Can you imagine how quickly this could spread, going from warehouse worker, to driver to customers? The workers will also take this virus home and spread it to family, neighbors and community.
I know, people want their stuff, but if they are complying with distant rules, they aren't going anywhere anyway.
Mark Zuckerberg is a walking talking human infection who refuses to distinguish between political opinion and outright lies. I would gladly make him party to any number of libel suits.
40
@cl
One hopes when the Democrats gain the White House, policies for contract workers will get serious policy changes. It is simply egregious that an American worker gets no healthcare, no retirement, no guarantee of full time employment if desired and must rely on welfare provided by us, the American taxpayers. And we all know the Bezos’ and Zuckerbergs dodge paying taxes on their obscene wealth.
38
@mltrueblood Contract workers and gig workers are the modern day version of serfs, scrabbling for any current income while consuming their own assets. This deepens and perpetuates inequality and it’s dire consequences.
13
@cl Bezos and Zuckerberg are going to meet in the afterlife in the deepest pit of hill. And no one will care. Just like they didn't care.
People can sit on all the video conference calls they want, eventually real work has to get done. Already we're seeing Zoom and VCC-in-general burnout.
23
Worth more than all four airlines pre-corona or post-corona? Because that could be pretty misleading. And just my opinion, but people will always want to do business face to face. Just like most home buyers want a walk through before buying, not a video tour. Video conferencing is catnip to millennials but it’s most definitely not the wave of the future.
8
@Biz Griz True, but how many business trips have I taken that could have been done using video technology? Many.
10
@Biz Griz
A bit ironic that you're using this technology to type your dismissive response, no?
I am a porcelain doll artist. A virtual doll convention was held in January 2020, before corona virus had come onto the radar of most Americans. They had 1000's of participants from artists, to collectors, to historians, to costumers to just admires of dolls, teddy bears and childhood playthings of yesteryear. They featured on-line history presentations of the doll industry, history of individual companies, presentations of rare dolls and toys, and several costuming seminars that were interactive with the participants. I have taken interactive doll making online classes with a teacher in Illinois from my Massachusetts home. I have taken online furniture restoration classes and have viewed hundreds of free videos on FB, youtube and the artists' own sites. If not for these technologies you so easily dismiss as "catnip" I would not have access to a wealth of information, from building a porch to tiling a floor, to repairing a dishwasher, to preparing meals that I would otherwise not have access to and too much more to list. Many of it is freely shared by a generous artist, baker, cook, learned handyman. I ran an internet jewelry business that enabled me to have customers throughout the world. Purchased supplies from small businesses via internet.
I'm 61 and highly insulted by your dismissive attitude that this is nothing more than an opiate for the ignorant, indulgent masses.