by New Rules [5-2-2025 published].

(What is described here is echoed in many other quarters & no amount of tariffs will reverse this. — RAD)

Rise of US as a tech superpower was based on three pillars:

Strong industrial base, which created demand for engineers

Robust government support for scientific research

Immigration of high-level scientific talent from across the world

The Silicon Valley boom occurred in the 1990s, but by then the factors that enabled its success were already starting to crack.

The biggest problem was the deindustrialization of America and the financialization of the entire economy.

After the 2008 Great Recession, the US government cut interest rates to zero and pumped money into the economy. This had two effects:

Reward tech companies, even those with bad business models

Incentivized tech companies to become more financialized

The financialization of Big Tech made the industry far lazier. For example, there’s a belief in the Silicon Valley that you cannot build a new operating system anymore.

By contrast, Huawei just released a new modern operating system -- Harmony OS Next

Financialization of US economy has also created perverse incentives for America’s best and brightest. They don’t want to go into mechanical engineering, physics, or ‘waste time’ on cutting-edge research. They want to go into finance and management to earn the BIG $

One of the secrets to America’s technological dominance was “brain draining” elite specialists from other country. But, Chinese tech talent that emigrated to the US are now moving back to China.

US Drain Brain to China: A Symptom of Decadence

by New Rules [3-25-2025 published].

Between 2010 and 2021, nearly 14,000 US-based Chinese scientists (or Chinese descent) had returned to China by 2021, and counting.

CRUCIAL talents such as:

Dr. Guo-Jun Qi: An absolute legend in AI, who worked in the US for 10 years has decided to come back to China.

Dr. Kun-Liang Guan: A MacArthur "genius" biochemist with over 30 years of experience in the U.S. recently joined Westlake University in Zhejiang Province as a full-time chair professor.

Dr. Sun Song: An award-winning geometer and former professor at UC Berkeley, who moved to Zhejiang University's Institute for Advanced Study in Mathematics to contribute to China's mathematical research efforts.

Dr. Gao Huajian: A renowned physicist and former Stanford professor, now at Tsinghua University, continuing his distinguished career in China.

Dr. Song-Chun Zhu, a prominent computer scientist at UCLA (though of Chinese descent), returned to China to lead the Institute for Artificial Intelligence at Peking University. His case underscores China's ability to attract top talent with career-defining opportunities.

Dr. Luke Gibson: An ecologist who moved from San Diego to Hong Kong and now is in Shenzhen. China offered him a relocation package worth $1.6 million

The loss of expertise threatens America's competitive edge in critical science fields like AI.