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The tech boom bust since 2000 that has hurt America and Europe and which also laid the foundations for the loss of manufacturing and technology to China, ceding American leadership and critical advantage, is shown here in the WSJ. The role of the finance sector  is explained here. That has added one more factor to the factor of endless wars in the Middle East, where American and European investment in healthcare, education and new infrastructure was somehow diverted away, and much of America's and Europe's resources wasted- or not turned to the benefit of the people of America or Europe.  One financial firm that rode the tech boom to the hilt finds itself with unacceptable losses except in a severe recession. Tiger Global Management was using tens of billions of dollars from pensions, endowments and rich clients riding on some of Silicon Valley's hottest stocks.  With the plunge in tech stock values including startups in which Tiger pushed into aggressively now facing large losses after hyper valuations, Tiger's hedge fund which managed $23 billion at the end of 2021 was down 52% in 2022. Another of its funds that managed $11 billion has lost 62%. WSJ says this wiped out two thirds of the gains Tiger has made in the tech stocks since its founding. In addition large writedowns are expected on its venture funds valued at $64 billion at the end of 2021, says WSJ.  WSJ says cheap money (money somehow diverted from infrastructure and funding manufacturing in China instead of the US now goes by the misnomer cheap money) reshaped Silicon Valley in the last decade, as pension funds, rich investors and celebrities turned to well connected money managers such as Tiger to put money in tech stocks and startups. This WSJ report says compared to Sequoia Capital and an earlier generation of venture companies Tiger Global is simply not interested in management of companies it invests in, taking a broad brush approach, using Bain Capital for research, and trying to haul in a large load of fish like trawlers at sea hoping for some companies to make big gains. Many pension funds such as Calpers California's public pension fund invest in Tiger with a $400 million investment. WSJ also reports that Tiger Global's venture funds do not reflect the realities of the tech business as venture stocks will reflect the drop over 2022 and 2023, including its ByteDance Chinese tech investment which will need larger writedowns. Tiger has also not hesitated to get into cryptocurrency which has loss of about $1.5 trillion dollars. It is of interest to note that Julian Robertson, hedge fund manager of the 2000 period (when Clinton-Bush were US presidents) who ran Tiger Management provided the impetus for Mr. Coleman, then 25 years old, for the start of Tiger Global. Julian Robertson closed his fund in 2000 during the dot com bust. Coleman hired a Blackstone analyst and started on the next cycle of tech with social media platform Facebook now Meta, followed by China's JD.com as investments in a new China boom were started. The end result is that during a period of Middle East wars under Bush and Obama, and building dependence on Russian oil and gas supplies under Schroeder and Merkel, China was the gainer as the US and EU lost much of its manufacturing and technology to China. During this period US and Europe neglected investment in infrastructure that would benefit the people of America in ease of living and quality of life. Just as money was wasted in wars much of the tech investment was wasted. The companies that added value over time were started long before and relied on sales growth and new products that revolutionized their field such as Apple with smartphones that started well before the nineteen eighties, Amazon with logistics and its own style of management, Microsoft from an even earlier era. Tech monopolies Facebook, Google, and others would not be missed much in terms of real progress for the people of America. The cost is many decades of ceding manufacturing and technology advantage to China by US and the EU led by Germany. China 2030 and the war in Ukraine with China's support have shown how fragile the foundations have been with weak political leadership and a finance sector running backwards in terms of America's and Europe's strengths in new infrastructure, better healthcare, services and education for the people of America and Europe. Leaving it to the Biden administration and a new coalition of Greens and Scholz in Germany to begin the task of rebuilding America and Europe on strong foundations, including the dignity of the workers and families, that makes who we are and what we believe in, and why the free world believes in us. ...

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Seattle's progress as a Tech Hub by 2014.

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Germany has shown that low tech contact tracing efforts work- no apps needed, a phone, a desktop computer with a centralized database, and most important the human relations skills of the person doing the calls. The  sensitivity to the situation facing each person being called, being able to talk to the person in the language they speak in a multilingual environment such as California, is shown here. A 40 person team operates in San Francisco consisting of public health officials, clinicians, medical students and librarians. They call the contacts of people with coronavirus, arrange tests, and as needed send packages of food and medicines to hotel rooms or homes. Every call is expected to last 15 minutes but all sorts of questions are handled.  English and Spanish are used. Here one of the persons doing the contact tracing says she does not use apps, just an open source software used in the fight against Ebola. Definitely low tech, no waiting, get going is the message to every city in the world. She says apps software such as what Google and Apple are putting out can tell you whether the person went to some place, but cannot tell you more about that person, cannot tell you about problems the person is having being tested, and how they are having difficulty providing for families. One of the big lessons from Germany and efforts such as this one in San Francisco, and in other places such as Paris, Singapore, Taiwan, is that there is a complex nature to contact tracing that cannot be solved by tech. In fact the best thing to do is to get started immediately, with a phone and a database on a computer, as long as you have a person who has the motivation and skills, empathy with people, a lot can be done. Waiting for apps is a dangerous waste of time is shown by the low tech German experience, and the experience in other places. Most important is starting immediately. The example shown here of working with migrant workers in contact tracing shows in the most vulnerable places it is these human relations skills that count, that no tech app can do. It requires detective skills to find out and get people to share their history of movements and contacts for 14 days . In Singapore crowded dormitories house 300,000 of 1.4 million migrant workers. Singapore using an app also but its use is secondary. Apps don't work in many situations but fail in the most critical situations such as these dormitories and other eccentric or atypical situations such as faced by South Korea with religious groups and gay communities, elderly people in Europe, that generate the worst dangers of spread and need to be cluster isolated quickly. Human contact tracing has a history of being an effective method and was used in China and South Korea during the 2003 SARS epidemic. More countries need to adopt the method used in Asia and in Germany, particularly Britain, the U.S., France and India. It is OK that Britain's NHS and India's national government with Aarogya Setu app have put out their own apps which balance privacy concerns with the need to act immediately and cover the entire country, but the hard slog of human contact tracing teams in each district is indispensable. This is why the former Health minister in Britain calls it Britain's national mission to do this. Speed is key- putting together teams across the country in every district from skilled volunteers or government workers, and pulling together the phone and a centralized database on a computer as basic equipment. The fact that this is easily doable and people with human skills needed can always be recruited as they have been in Germany- from public officials in local government who are less busy in lockdowns, medical students, clinicians, volunteers, people from different professions- makes it inexcusable not to learn from others experience and get going. Just Do It. You want to reopen business, professions, offices and public services- Just Do It, it makes this possible. You want to prevent spread of the virus- Just Do It, it makes this possible. You want to limit damage to the economy and get the recovery going- Just Do It, it makes this possible. People of all shades of opinion can agree on this- its the only thing that works, even when there is a lack of enough proper accurate testing. ...

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Wadhwa describes the impact of patent trolls on the U.S. patent system. He says the patent system in its current form, with extensive patent defenses by technology firms costing billions of dollars, litigation by companies that are not representing inventors, and the overall negative effects on new companies, actually reduces innovation. There has been a surge in lawsuits regarding smartphone and software patents as a result of businesses that collect patents and sue to earn money through legal settlements.

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Amazon sales growth was 81% for AWS in the 2nd quarter 2015.

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Microsoft has done poorly in anticipating and developing products for the internet and mobile devices. On the enterprise side the server and tools business has done well. Microsoft's Server And Tools business made operating profit of $8.2 billion in the year ending June 2013, up 13% from the prior year. Office 365 sold on a subscription basis to accomodate the shift to cloud computing, and other cloud products are expected to make up for decline in Windows revenues with decline in PC sales. Satya Nadella, who ran the Server and Tools business from 2011 till he was shifted to head the cloud computing effort in the reorganization of 2013, is a candidate for the CEO position.

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Interview with Levinson of Genentech and answers to a wide range of questions about ther drug discovery process at Genentech, the cost of Avastin to treat cancer, the long years taken to develop the drug, the development and pricing of Lucentis for macular degeneration from the basic process of blocking the VEGF protein that helps the macular degeneration develop. The reasons for the pricing of Avastin- $55,000 for one year. And of Lucentis $2000 for one shot and the possible equivalence of Avastin and Lucentis so that doctors can take a small fractional dose of Avastin and use it in a tiny opthalmic syringe for cost of $50. The research budget of $1.86 billion. And the philosophy of Levinson about attracting the best scientists to Genentech by giving them opportunities as he puts it for "doing great science." And his emphasis on making Genentech a great place to work. Genentech was on Fortune's top twenty list 4 years in a row and No 1 in 2007 and No 2 in 2008 behind Google. Can Roche keep this up without Levinson and his team and the culture they have fostered, and the way they have created a great place to work ? ...

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The problems with the the Facebook IPO price include the extremely high valuation of 42 times current earnings, says Winkler, especially considering the learning curve for making advertising effective on a social network platform. This suggests large volatility in the share price before settling down. The fact that Goldman Sachs, Accel and other so--called "smart money" is selling about half of their holdings also is cause for concern.

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GE's consolidated tax rate from 2005 to 2009 was 11.6%, including foreign, local and state taxes.

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G.E. reported profits of $5.1 billion from operations in the U.S. in 2010. Its American tax bill? G.E. paid no taxes, claiming a tax benefit of $3.2 billion. G.E. does this by lobbying for tax breaks, aggressive strategies for reducing taxes including concentrating its profits offshore, and innovative accounting. G.E. has a large tax department, which some call the nation's largest tax law firm. Other firms are following the same practices The corporate share of the U.S. tax receipts has fallen steeply over the years- down to 6.6% in 2009 from 30% in the 1950's. This raises all sorts of questions in the current budget deficit situation facing federal and local governments.