AAH #723 – CES’ Gary Shapiro: Tech Wrecks and Future Salvation

Speaker 1: Out online After Hours is brought to you by bridge Stone Tires Solutions for your journey.

Speaker 2: Hey, thanks for joining us, everybody. We got a great

show today. Garry Vasselash, my co host, is out on vacation,

so we're gonna miss him dearly, but the show must go on, and boy do we have a great show today.

Our special special guest is Gary Shapiro. He is the

chief executive officer of the CTA, the Consumer Technology Association, which is the association that puts on CES. Most people

call it the Consumer Electronic Show, but you just call it CES now, Gary.

Speaker 3: CES, And I'm happy to be here. I know you

needed a Gary, you kept your contractor.

Speaker 2: And we got to leave. My buddy here from Signo

Auto Insights.

Speaker 4: Thanks for having me, John.

Speaker 2: Yeah, as always, So we got a lot to talk about tech things going on in the industry. But first

I gotta hold this up, Sean. I don't know if

you can get this. Gerry Shapiro has written the book

here called Pivot or Die, and I love this because it says how leaders thrive when everything changes.

Speaker 3: Man.

Speaker 2: Is everything changing right now, you know, especially in the automotive industry. But this is one thing I would love

to talk to you about you know, we're going to go into a lot of things. Let's talk about the

book a little bit, because my premise right now is the legacy automakers and the legacy suppliers better pivot and change right now because you know, they've built up one hundred and twenty years of business practices and procedures and it's just bogging them down. They just can't move fast.

But I'm talking too much. Gary, tell us about your

book and what the premise is.

Speaker 3: Well, in a sense, you do have to look at just what you said, because you take a company like Tesla, which came out of nowhere and all of a sudden, is worth more than the major auto companies put together, and you have a situation like how do they get there?

How do they get profitable? Well, they don't have all

the legacy. You know, some of its people and you're

paying in pensions and it's tough to change people because there's relationships there. But also there's practices as well, and

there's missing opportunities. Obviously, the auto industry missed the quick

electric opportunity that must got through. And if anyone if

you've read Walter Eisasin's book about Elon Musk. I mean,

he's truly brilliant and how and he really did work his way on the Tesla and come up with it and work it and design it and do everything about it.

But the auto industry has to pivot. They have to

look at not only their supply change, but their suppliers and how they do business. I have been visiting with

some of the CIOs in the auto industry in Detroit.

They're really on top of like generative AI and how it can make it some more efficient and we can get things analyzed and reported and you know, in a week, which would take several months. And so there are changes.

But think about the opportunities that are being missed today, Like the auto industry rushed to electric, stop what they're doing in self driving. At the same time, self driving

has the enormous opportunities for great pivots. You can create

cars that are living rooms and cars that are bedrooms, and cars that are offices, and cars that are entertainment units.

And who's better to do that than the people in Detroit.

Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I totally agree. And but you know, they

over invested in evs. They you know, they thought there

was a look. They saw Tesla making money hand over fist,

they thought they could do the same thing, and they just haven't been able to keep up with Tesla. And

you've been tracking us like crazy too.

Speaker 3: Yeah.

Speaker 4: So to to Gary's point, I think the Chinese EV companies didn't have the legacy, but they knew enough. So Tesla,

if you look at the past, they were a startup until they hired an automotive CFO, you know X four guy, I forget his name now, But then they really became more automotive. So there's still DNA of automobile bill manufacturers

in Tesla, and I think that helped them get past the startup phase. And you're seeing a lot of these

Chinese TV companies hire European Western automotive designers to get more Western flavor, European flavor, American North American flavor into these vehicles. And I agree with both of you. It's

more of a culture and a speed thing than a know how thing.

Speaker 3: And the current.

Speaker 4: Leadership just needs to pull hog change a bunch of things, and it's going to be a turbulent four years for doing that.

Speaker 2: I'm not sure if they can pull it off. So

what would your advice to them be, what does your book say? Pivot or die? You know, can you give

us some.

Speaker 3: Specific have to make big decisions, you have to take risks.

And I think following what everyone else is doing is a big mistake because everyone else is looking at the same pictures and the thing you go in the same direction.

So all of a sudden, it happens all the time in technology. Something happens is it turn everyone jumps on it.

And the truth is you have to have the first mover advantage. You have to be learning mistakes quickly. You

have to be able to make things. You can't have

a three year timeframe to get something done. You have

to be able to shift quickly. Now that there's advantage

of being small and doing that, there's advantage. Like look

what Steve Jobs did when he wanted to change. He

didn't go to his existing team and say let's change and affect our big money maker. He just created skunk Works.

Same thing. What did Jeff Bezos did? He created his

own competition with the Kindle against the Amazon bookstore, which is what it was. He came to our meeting caring

this thing. I thought he was crazy. I was wrong.

He was obviously right. He's better known than I am,

and he's wealthier too, but he pivoted and created competition with himself. That takes courage, and of course it's so

difficult in the auto industry, but there's a lot of lookalike cars. There's a lot of different things in most

industries because of COVID. You know, COVID actually had the

advantage of a phenomenal amount of innovation. People just went

in different directions, whether it's healthcare or traditional consumer electronics, uh, the audio industry. That really hasn't happened. Everyone dive dove

into electric and part it was the Biden administration throwing money at it, and they just stopped everything with self driving cars that frankly Obama had started that that Trump one had kept on and now Trump two, especially with the new Secretary of Transportation des who is like euphoric about automated vehicles. He's gonna, I assume, get us back

into because we electric cars. It's saturated market. There's so

much competition there, and consumers are concerned and for a lot of good reasons that they you know, it might be a good second or third car, but a first car only if you have a very tiny commute, and like even in Detroit area, like we can't go to the airport and know that we're going to get a charging station because there's only six of them in the maclam returnal. I mean, it's it's crazy and someone parks

there for a week, so like you just you just can't do it. So hybrids are obviously to me where

there's a directional shift going on, and I think we'll get to electric as well, but it'll be part of a mix of cars.

Speaker 2: But going back to your Skonkwork things, I want to ask you about this too. Ford started a Skonk Works.

It's out in California, it's not here in Detroit, and I'm hearing good things, although obviously nothing's in production yet.

Do you think that's the right way to do? I

go with the Skonkworks.

Speaker 4: I do, but it raises more questions, right because you get a great team, small team, nimble team, fast team.

But then you have all these engineers and overhead and dearborn what.

Speaker 5: Are you going to do with them?

Speaker 4: Because now you've proven with a small team you can move faster and build really cool things, and so it creates another difficulty or challenge for Ford and Gary. One

of the reasons that I was almost late was because I tried out of my mobility self driving vehicle, and I've tried out a number of them in China and recently Waimo in LA and San Francisco, Go. So the

other things that they should be looking at is what can we what can we do to make money while people are getting driven in these cars. And I think

to your point, because they're focusing on hybrids now, they they're they're peeling back on the evs, they're not focusing on what's next. And part of pivoting is looking at

what's next, what not not what your competitor is doing, looking at what's next. And I think one of the

big things because people complain about subsidies about China and labor rates and things like that, But at the end of the day, one of the biggest reasons that they're so some of these car companies are so great is because of the competition, and the competition is creating a lot of innovations and features that are going to end up being in vehicles in Europe and North America as well.

Speaker 3: So that's a great point. I mean, you know, there's

the worst business in the world I think is TV set manufacturing. I mean, it's best for the consumer. You

get these huge flat screen tea I'm having two of them put in my house today. Flatscreen sets. They cost

less than a gallon of milkow month. I mean it's

crazy per weight and what they do and they're phenomenal.

But the TV manufacturers figured out another revenue source. A

smart TV actually now provides advertising so you don't have to hook it up to anything, and all of a sudden, the advertisement will come onto the TV set and they're getting revenue from that. It's a big deal. In fact

that Cees. We have a whole portion of Cees several hotels.

Now it's going to get about ten thousand chief marketing officers and platforms and it's the smart TV people are all there. They're getting their percentage increase from revenue from

streaming is amazing. The ads are getting. But that's what

they're doing, and that's what these marketers are doing. If

you think what the marketers are doing, if you're the last marketer to do something, you're paying the most. You know,

you just learned about Google ads. This here, well, too bad.

All the good words have been taken and you're paying a lot, But if you're the first one out there, it's incredibly cheap. And that's what a car can be

used as a platform. You own that consumer while they're

in the car. Now, obviously you have you know, satellite

radio is in there, and you can do other things that are I mean, obviously we've researched consumers recently and of those owning a vehicle already, sixty percent of them want to buy a car in the next two years.

And what do they want. They want the technology features there.

They want collision avoidance, they want the mirrors all around the tell them who's you know, the blind spot, and they want active all sorts of things. And of course

they want different services in the car. They want phone

compatibility and all these Well the phone now, once you get it in there, they kind of own it. But

I'm sure there are ways that things car companies could do to create their.

Speaker 2: Own See I'm very possumistic. I think the car companies

have lost the battle for a ton of vehicles. I know,

you like to call themself driving vehicles, whatever, it doesn't matter, you know, GM and just bailed out on GM Crewise Ford and Volkswagen through in the Tounel a number of years ago. I don't think there's one car company left

doing in house av development right now. The tech companies

have won. You know, Amazon has won, Wimo has won,

you know, as.

Speaker 3: Part of yeah Weimo is one of the keynots. The

president is keynoting. Yes. I mean it's well, we'll have

a lot of self driving there and we'll have a lot of ecor cars as well. But the point is

is that when you say self driving is not dead or autonomous vehicles, it's it's the Europeans, the Chinese, others are all moving forward to all we stopped for four years.

We don't. We still require you know, there's a limit,

a quota and a number of autonomous vehicles that could be could be sold. You can't yeah right, and you

can't cross state you have to change your car. And

we're like backwards. We used to embrace innovation and and

basically Congress stopped it, not because the Michigan legislators were great on it, but you know, he stopped it. The

freaking trial lawyers, they they make money off of carnage.

They want people to die. And I'm my hope is

that you know, I hate to say, but Elon Musk comes in and realizes that a lot of our healthcare spending, a lot of our deficit comes from healthcare. Healthcare spending

can be reduced if we didn't have several hundred that people, we don't have to have an emergency rooms. And forty

thousand people don't good, So.

Speaker 2: I love quoting this. So over forty thousand people are

killed in motor vehicle accidents in the United States are a year right now, forty thousand dead the dead, I mean, that doesn't impact the healthcare that much, right, but two and a half million, the number of two and a half million people are injured badly enough to go to the hospital crazy, some injured for the rest of their life, you know, closed head injuries. I'm sorry, but they're going

to cost society twenty thirty million dollars over the rest of their lives.

Speaker 3: There's so many reasons to do this, but the carnage industry, the trials are.

Speaker 2: Stopping exactly right. They're against it. They want it to

be perfect. And I've had this argument with them, and

it's like it will never be perfect. Human beings don't

make perfect things. So the industry's got to be honest.

People are going to get killed in autonomous cars a lot.

We might say, make up a number thirty thousand lives a year. We might prevent two million people from having

to go to the hospital. That'll have a massive impact

on the road.

Speaker 4: We'll save on gas costs because even if it's petrol still, you know, autonomous vehicles they're able to not lay on the gas so much and break so hard and things like that. So there's a lot of good that can

come from autonomous vehicles. And we're only talking about robo

taxis and you know, passenger vehicles because commercial vehicles are also going to be self driving, and I think that's probably closer to commercialization than a robo taxi obviously.

Speaker 3: So no, we're seeing that also, I mean we again we see this, Yes, and we have John Deere and Caterpillar and they're showing how they're doing all this incredible stuff and savings. Yeah, that was how I made money

as a kid, taking my job away. That's right.

Speaker 2: Well that a newspaper routes right, and you know, you know, what was the last time you saw a kid delivering a newspaper bike?

Speaker 4: Maybe his dad was driving him or something like that.

Speaker 3: Maybe right. But the one thing I will.

Speaker 4: Say, though, John, that's different with North America and China is that in China the EV companies are developing, as you know, their own intelligent driving systems, and so that is a converging much more so than anything happening in North America because WAYAM was completely separate. They don't really

have an OEM backing them. There are several so x

ponnd NEO le Auto. I've tried all their intelligent driving

and I've tried most of the robotax season x punds is really good. Huawei is supposed to be the best

in China anyways, and they've partnered with state owned enterprises and OEMs, and so there's going to be a convergence in China much sooner than because, like you said, in North America, they've kind of given up, right.

Speaker 3: No, Look, the tech industry won, the automakers, the tech industry.

I think they work together at Yeah, But I mean I'm concerned about the China because they are you know they are. I wouldn't call them an enemy, but they

are a threat in the sense of the US, not only militarily but economically because they laid that they were going to do this out several years ago and they're just doing their operating on their plant. Plus they have

no privacy restrictions in China that we have in data and bureaucracy, and they don't have lawyers the way we have stopping everything, I mean putting a litigation text in every American business.

Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, you're right, it's not a battle between them.

But you mentioned Europe. Really there's not much of anything

going on with advanced autonomous development in Europe.

Speaker 4: I was still Germany is gonna be one of the last countries in the world that will adopt able taxi.

Speaker 2: So well, yeah, I mean, look, it's the American tech companies and the Chinese that are leading the charge in all this development.

Speaker 4: There's there's an English company called Wave now they've just opened an office in San Francisco, and the irony is Waimo uses Jaguars, which are which is an English brand, and Wave, which is an English autonomous vehicle company, are using Ford monkeys must than monkeys running around testing them in San Francisco and the Bay here. So so there

is a if you could call them European. I guess

if you say English because of Brexit, now they're not really part of the EU.

Speaker 2: Right, And I got to stand back. I've been saying

that no American company I'm missing Tesla. Tesla is in

fact Tesla. It came out today. I think that they

want to have robotaxis running in Austin, Texas next year. Really, yes,

next year. So it's it's common, it's coming fast. And

I'm like you, I've been a huge proponent of autonomous vehicles because you know, electric vehicles. All electricity does is

change the way you turn the tires to move the car.

Autonomy changes mobility. It'll have a massive impact on society.

Electric we'll have some benefits in climate change and stuff like that. And electric cars are a better driving experience,

you know, I think for most people. But autonomy that

changes everything.

Speaker 3: Well, it certainly changes that for people that are older, people that are disabled, you can put kids in there, people that are inebriated. I mean, it is a game changer,

there's no question. But electric The problem with electric is

a lot of people in America believe that electricity comes out of the air. And now it's free. I mean,

it is nice not to go to a gas station.

I mean, they do save money in that, but that electricity has to come from somewhere. Right now, we have

a serious electrical problem. The first time CS is focusing

where does all this electricity come from? Because we have

electric cars, we have generative aire. We're doing a whole

quantum computing conference in quantum us is a lot more than you know, it uses more, but it should be quicker than generative aiah. So we are. We're in trouble

with our cloud forms. You know, cloud computing is doing

and they just suck up electricity, so we don't have anyone.

That's why the tech companies are talking about creating on nuclear reactors, right like who would have guessed that a few years ago?

Speaker 2: That's right, Yeah, I mean they're talking about reopening Three Mile Island, and what I can't remember well is that Amazon somebody wants to buy all the electricity out of.

Speaker 3: It, and maybe, okay, yeah, that'd be all right. But

but but the point is that the government's truck stepped in and said we're going to stop that. So we'll

see where that goes. But I think there's even among

the environmentalists who are posed nuclear I think there's a consensus among the policymakers we got to go to nuclear. Look,

I've spent the night and done an umbark on an aircraft carrier. There is five thousand people living on it,

one hundred miles out of California, in the middle of the Pacific, totally powered by nuclear power. If we could

power a boat, we're putting American lives at risk. Certainly

we could power a lot of things with nuclear.

Speaker 2: Yeah, my only problem with nuclear is, you know, the half life of the nuclear waste is ten thousand years.

Speaker 3: But what's the half life of our planet if we don't get away from fossil fuels at some point? You know,

what are the odds that you know, we won't have problems in two hundred years and some of the other solutions.

Just what is there all this renewable It's a tiny percent. Correct.

The Canary Islands actually get from wind sixty to seventy percent of their energy, but they're a wind tunnel. I

was there recently, and France actually is best on nuclear.

They get sixty to seventy percent of their energy from nuclear.

But you know, we are like we're tiny at this point with nuclear. We just have to step up. And

I think you'll see that's where I think some of the efforts someday.

Speaker 2: Well, these new nuclear reactor designs that don't produce as much waste, or even the waste can be used as fuel, And there's a lot of stuff being focused now on fusion that would get rid of my understanding, my limited understanding of it, a lot of this waste. But to me,

the way, I'm sorry, the waste is a problem because every nuclear reactor is on water. It's on a big river,

or it's on the ocean. And I found out the

reason why is that the reactors are so damn big and heavy. The only way you can move them is

by barge. You cannot do it by truck or by rail.

It's got to be by barge. So they're right on

a water source. We have not as a country. In fact,

no country has figured out what to do with its waste really, And so what do we do. We store

it right there at the nuclear power plant. God forbid

that there's a terrorist attack or some sort of technical snaff ooo, you're going to irradiate a major water source wherever it is. So and like I said, ten thousand

half life who's going to warn people ten thousand years from now don't go dig there. And besides, who's you

know these all this waste has got to be in pools of water and it's got to be monitored. Who's

going to do that for ten thousand years? So that's

my problem with going all, you know, a whole hog on nuclear talk about kicking the can down the road.

It kicks it down the road for thousands of years.

Speaker 3: I hear your concerns. You know, we'll be able to

ship it into space, We'll be able to do things. Okay,

I'd only slip on that. I only slip of the

some things electric cars that we're so reliant on China for some of the minerals, that it's so expensive to fix when the battery breaks an electric car, I mean, and it is difficult with salt around and saltic conditions.

There's a lot of issues with electric cars. And I

think that, you know, the range anxiety that people have is real, There's no question about it.

Speaker 2: It's just I think that My guess is we'll see everybody can take their guess. In about three years, this

is going to be largely solved. We're going to see

second gen EV platforms, second gen batteries. We're going to

see new chemistries. The sulfur battery stuff I think is

really promising, and we're going to see a lot more.

Speaker 3: Public chargers love hydrogen.

Speaker 2: Hydrogen I think makes a lot of sense for long haul trucking and for trains. I don't see it happening

for decades in pass cars. That could all change, though,

that could change.

Speaker 4: So China is focusing and investing in hydrogen. So I

think anytime the Chinese government says we're going to invest in the technology, it's going to be viable at least in that country, which likely makes it viable in another trees.

But yeah, I agree with you hydrogen is certain use cases are better for hydrogen. And I do agree that

batteries swapping charging, whether it's wireless charging, whether it's fast charging, I think that's also going to help with range anxiety.

But Gary, you make a great point. I just got

an evy myself. It barely gets two hundred and fifty

miles of range. And I live in Metro Detroit, like

right outside like in Troy, there are like five chargers, like like level two charges that I can go to and they're always taken up until like nine o'clock at night.

And so I tell my wife. She thinks I'm going

to the bar. So I'm like, hey, where're you going.

I'm going to charge my car.

Speaker 3: That's crazy, like what that's gonna So had we had a bunch of chargers installed in Augaraze, the building we own in right outside of Washington, d C. And you know,

I will say it increasingly in demand badding and it is, it's electrical, is real, It'll be there. It serves a

lot of purposes. If you know your community, you know

what you're doing. But you know the soccer families that

I deal with when we're driving to OHI in Indiana, there's no way no one could have an electric car, right, And that's just the way it is. And it's and

it's not a great starter car for a kid either.

You know, our son just got his.

Speaker 4: License and oh I was going to so I was like thinking about it's too small, But I was thinking about getting a used bolt because they basically have new, brand new battery packs because GM replaced all the old battery packs and then like four years from now. I

was going to give it to my son, but I decided to get a Nionic five. But to your point

earlier about how the consumers are looking at these connected features and the safety, it's funny you mentioned that because in China, Chinese consumers what they want out of be any an EV or a connected EV is number one.

The connectivity, you know, the home life in the vehicle, and then safety, which means intelligent driving.

Speaker 3: And so.

Speaker 4: In my opinion, the opportunity that Tesla thinks they have spent charging eight thousand dollars in China for FSD is not going to be there because BID is hiring one thousand engineers and software guys to start developing the intelligent driving systems themselves. They're working with Dji on some of that,

and so BYD is just going to democratize that and they're going to push the price down. So low Lee

Auto is already giving it away for free as part of their vehicle. It's standard, it's not free, it's standard.

But most of the other systems in China are less than one thousand or fifteen hundred dollars, and so just to charge that premium. But and FSD is not going

to run not going to be a runaway success in China for sure. So I think that's where the rubber

meets the road because because John, we have these North American autonomous vehicle companies, we have these Chinese. They're going

to do battle in Europe, They're going to do battle in South America, a Latin America, Southeast Asia, like long term in Middle East, to try to dominate and compete in those markets because there's not likely going to be an American autonomous vehicle company in China and then vice versa.

Speaker 3: Right, So that's that's I mean seeing a GM plout of the Chinese market then pull out of autonous vehicles, that I mean, I understand it's difficult for an American company.

The Chinese rite the rules in their favor. We don't

have those same rules. We don't require a US partner,

and the government gets their hand, which is the government in China. We don't have those same requirements. But it

hurts to see GM get out because there was such a great advocate for autonomus vehicle.

Speaker 2: Right, you know it it hurts me to see them do that, and it you know, it speaks to the short term focus of American companies. And I understand GM

is going to have to put billions more are into GM Cruise before it ever got a return on it.

But someday, I think we're all agreed. Someday autonomy is

going to be a massive profit generator.

Speaker 3: But there are other choices. You could partner with someone

that well. But the guys partner with the tech company.

They can do all sorts of things. I don't think

this is unless they're just writing off the whole thing and walking away from it. There's an asset.

Speaker 2: No, they're going to put more effort into their supercrew system.

They had a next gen coming called Ultra Cruise, which is going to be hands off and eyes off. But

they acted that program right.

Speaker 4: So I was told that when they opened the Mount View office they were looking to consolidate and figure all that stuff, and then the Cruise thing happened. But the

irony is is that GM has invested heavily in an autonomous field company called Momenta, you know this in China, So they could have a robotax here, an autonomous vehicle in China sooner than they would in the United States as it stands right now, which is kind of crazy to think because I think they wrote a four hundred million dollar check six five or six years ago. And

then Toyota is also invested in Momenta in China as well, so again full steam ahead. The level of competition, the

types of technology that's available to most Chinese consumers is leaps and bounds ahead of anything in Europe and North America.

But it's going to bleed over for sure, you know, to your point, because American consumers eventually want that themselves.

Speaker 3: Well, I just want to make are GM. It's a

great company. They're a memor of mind. I drove up

a GM Cadillac over here today. I believed a GM.

It's a beautiful car, it's a beautiful company, and it does have great leadership. But I'm starting to wonder, you know,

I know this will sound far afield. So like the

United Health you know, I've learned a lot about them.

You know, they're at the top five fortune and five hundred company top five. How do they get that way?

They only pay thirty two They have thirty two percent of their claims. They don't pay for health insurance. Yikes,

And the industry standard is sixteen percent. So that the

executives got super wealthy and the stock carters got wealthy by denying people health care, and it goes to like capitalism, I believe in passionately, but I'm starting to get changs if that's a very bad way to run a company in my view, because you're you're hurting people that boards of directors I'm not speaking, my GM's speaking generally. They

could choose their way. They could go for the short

term profit, like we could run a trade show. We

could cut out all the buses and we spend over a million dollars in buses. We could do it. We

could cut out the carpet. We've cut out the signs.

We needn't cut out of marketing. We could have one

hell of a year or two or three, but you know, you got to focus on the loan. You need a

board that's focused on the long term of people incentivized.

Speaker 2: No, no, I'm glad you brought that up, because that's a pet peeve of mine. Boards of directors set the

goals for what theseos have got to achieve, and by the way, they also set the pay for it.

Speaker 3: And you know it's the.

Speaker 2: Old adage, tell me how you're going to measure me, and I'll show you how I'm going to perform.

Speaker 3: So it it.

Speaker 2: You know, so much of this criticism that you know gets heaped on the CEOs. The problem really starts with

the board of directors, or maybe I shouldn't say the problem, but the challenge of trying to run a business that is odd, graphical and long.

Speaker 3: Term, right. I mean, United Healthcare will be the Harvard

Business Review case study. And it's not over it yet.

I mean, I know it's tragic this guy was killed, but I don't think most Americans. My wife's a doctor,

and when I when it first SATs United Healthcare, we hate them as doctors. They just deny everything just as

a matter of course. It's just difficult. It's just it's

I can't believe that people are denied healthcare. I was.

I'm not an expert on health care in Truran's at all, but but the facts are the facts. I mean, if

you're denying so many claims, you're hurting people. That's right,

and that and and that's when government, you know, even even who knows what this government the next guvin will do, but they'll do. I can't imagine they're not going to

do something about well, that's what dogs you're supposed to do.

I think, Yeah, so or well, they're supposed to cut government spending, and this is probably I mean, they're private health care insurance, and so what they're doing in the sense is they're charging corporations a lot of money to have health care for their people, or labor unions or others, whoever has healthcare, and they're not getting value at it.

I mean, the people are being hurt and not getting served.

It's just it's tragic to be waiting for your insurance persons.

I mean people die that way.

Speaker 2: Yeah, so hey, look, we got to take a quick commercial break. We got a lot of more things to

talk about. We'll be back in just a minute. But first,

a shout out to our great friends at Bridgetown.

Speaker 1: Making a life full of memories, one road trick at a time.

Speaker 2: That's what really matters.

Speaker 3: Rich Then weather.

Speaker 1: Peak Tires with the seventy thousand mile women at Warranty.

Speaker 2: Okay, we're back talking with Gary Shapiro from the Consumer Technology Association and two Lee from Sino Auto Insights. But

what do you think is going to be the big thing at CEES next year?

Speaker 3: Well, it's oh yeah, next year. That's next year.

Speaker 2: I mean, you know, we're still we're still in twenty four as we as we do the show.

Speaker 3: Technically is we had a lot of all staff meetings this week in Washington see to go over everything is happening and it's going to be an amazing event. I

mean it's January seventh through tenth in Las Vegas. And

first of all, the keynot speakers, like, we got the hottest companies and I realized so many of them in mobility.

You know, Navidia, what's a hotter company than that? Jensen

is is speaking xem serious is speaking CEO WAYMA speaking.

We have also we have other companies that are in mobility there. That's okay, you can look at your checking

my notes there because well it's not fair.

Speaker 4: It's not the de facto auto show for the United States.

Speaker 3: Yeah, really is. Delta CEO is actually speaking at bast

speaking in the sphere. Oh never before as a trade

show uses for this sphere For those that don't know, it's like several thousand seats and it is this. You're

in the middle and you are immersed and covered in sound and video and I can't even It's like describing ice cream. I can't the experience of a sphere. It's Delicious.

I would also a Volvo group as well. Uh yeah,

speaking Panasonic. It's just if I.

Speaker 4: May add to to to Gary's list. I know X

Punk's going to be there introducing the air hot the Evy toll, so John, we should take.

Speaker 2: A look at.

Speaker 4: Speaker is going to be there showing off some of their vehicles in the Autonomous Vehicle Company. Deep Route is

going to be there as well. They all reached out,

so that's how I know.

Speaker 2: I don't know if he's a Speaker, but I know Akio Toyota is going to be there too. Oh really yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's why I do these things. I learned

to Toyota come and.

Speaker 4: It will be my first year coming to CEO, so I've never been my gosh, wear comfortable shoes.

Speaker 5: Yeah, that's what I heard.

Speaker 3: Optics in Las Vegas are further than they appear, so you could walk there. You can't. We spend it's the winter.

We spend a million dollars on buses that are free to go around and take people places. But it does

require planning. We have a great app and things like that.

But you know, the West Hall will have the first time we have a mobility stage actually as well, and it's the newest conventions that are hall in Las Vegas, and it's fabulous. And but the thing is, the mobility

is so big we have to spread out elsewhere as well.

But of course there's a whole big section on healthcare, there's robotics, there's there's obviously everyone's and we talking about Jenner.

Todai will have several thousand exhibitors. We have a separate

area for startups. It's called Eureka Park, and believe it

or not, Shark Tank does their tryouts there. Mark Cuban's

walking around. I know he's coming to the show. You

have others. Mister Wonderful will be there. There's so many people,

but it's not only that, Like the Walmart executive team goes to uh Eureka Park. They everyone. It's energizing to

see what the startups are doing and that, but there's so much to see you can't see it all.

Speaker 4: And there's a there's a handful of startups in Detri that are going to be presenting.

Speaker 3: I think if eury can park too, so that's great.

And the Lieutenant Governor actually is kind of there's a great mysterian delegation always going Look.

Speaker 2: I remember former CTO Adelphi when Delphi was still a big supplier, told me he walked through there with his checkbook and when he saw something he'd like, he'd write a check. And yeah, So I mean they're not just looking.

Speaker 3: Oh yeah, they're having to do business. Several thousand investors

from Angel investing to the biggest funds that are there.

And the only interesting things about a lot of companies this is are one opportunity to show to the world who they are. Because we'll have about one hundred and

forty thousand or so plus or minus ten thousand, and over forty percent of those people are not even from the United States. They're coming in from elsewhere, which is phenomenal.

Think about over fifty five thousand people. There's nothing like

it in the United States in terms of people coming in.

And when other people say we're the next Cees or things like that, that's just simply no way because it takes it's taken us a long time to get this big.

And we and we independently audit our events because we're a platform. That's how we view ourselves. Like like your

media company, we're a platform and we have an obligation to present everything. If we present, even if we have

an opinion on something, we'll present the other side as well.

We'll and buye people to speak, a lot of eleven hundred speakers, and it could be the keynotes will be streamed live, so any of your listeners when they're done watching what you're doing.

Speaker 2: That's right, they can go from their show to your show right.

Speaker 3: Well, And and we'll have a library and we'll keep building on that over time, but not all obviously, just just the big speakers will be out there. But it's

it's a It will have over five thousand media coming to the show, so it's it's it's probably the bigger. Yeah,

we're going to go with what halls to go, Well, it depends what you're interested in. But you know, I

tell everyone to go to Eureka Park because you'll be inspired when you go there. But go to the halls

of the biggest companies and see what they're doing. I mean,

when you you know, even like if it's an agriculture company like John Deere or you know, Caterpillar, to see what they're actually doing and how they tell it's just it's just it's amazing.

Speaker 2: And I will say, you know, having seen the cat and the deer displays there, they're jam packed because they've got big, big machinery in there, and everybody loves looking at big machinery and everything that they show to At least in what I've seen, they're all autonomous, autonomous mining trucks, autonomous contractors.

Speaker 3: One big first time exhibitor is Oshkosh. You know, I

only know them from the clothing I learned. They make

a huge amount of vehicles.

Speaker 2: Oh no, those are two separate companies, I believe. I

think Oshkosh Apparel is different from Oshkosh Trucks.

Speaker 3: Well they are different, but it's Oshkash. But yeah, but

the vehicles all sorts of different vehicles. And they want

to be there because it's important. A lot of publicly

traded companies are there because they want people to know what they're doing. Sure, and that's and that's what they're there.

They're there for the institutions, there for the media, but also like some of these big companies with the big construction equipment and other things they're taking orders for getting customers from around the world would never otherwise know them or see them. So this to them is a show

they continue to invest in and the whole and the other thing is like seven of the ten largest auto suppliers are there. This is it's not We're not a

public show. And to make that clear, you have to

be connected. But we have the auto ecosystem there. You know,

the chip companies are there, other companies are there. It's

just all the way up. So you'll see a lot

of people in this town that will be there. Oh yeah, if.

Speaker 4: Someone new to the history, when did it turn to becoming more of a like a mobility showcase in an auto show?

Speaker 3: You know, the car PC goes way back. Wasn't that

Ford and Microsoft or was it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,

that was the first. But you know what happened was

we're based in Washington, that's where our office is. I

have an apartment there, and I married this woman in Detroit, so I had to have a business reason to keep coming back and forth to Detroit. You know, I said, no,

that's not really it. I think what I've been saying

for twenty years from the cees keynote stage is that every company is a technology company. And the car companies

figured it out actually fairly early, that people didn't just want zero to sixteen three point two seconds. They wanted

to get those those brand names like it was Bo's and Sony and others, and audio boxes. They want it

in their car. And now it's just obviously they want

to replicate their home and their office in their car, and that's what they want, those comforts. And you know,

some of these things you get like well here, like you get the heated seats and heat the steering wheel and other technologies. Once you get the benefit of a technology,

you don't willingly give it up. I remember when people

made fun of the remote controls on their TV said, who need dad? Who needs a microwave ove? And who

needs a cardless phone? I mean, if you look at

the history of technology, these things like why do I want that to all of a sudden, like I can't live without it?

Speaker 4: It's so true, and it's more broadly defined now because like five years ago, six years ago and video might not have been an automotive jugger not but like so now tech companies are really really specialized in mobility and automotive.

Speaker 3: So I think absolutely that I'll give Jensen credit. He

came to me like fifteen years ago and talked about keynoting this is his third time keynoting I wish I'd paid a little bit more attention and like, you know, maybe like just stock that's right, but I did.

Speaker 2: So here's my CEO history. They'll tell you. I went

probably for the first time in the late nineties and up before then, the big thing for automotive and CEES were the speaker companies and you could get you know, woofers for your cars and tweeters for your you know, all this stuff. And then I went there going back

to Delphi because HD radio had just been introduced and they were going to announce it at at CEES. And

then the auto industry started to realize and it was probably Tesla that kicked it off. If your company had

a tech cachet, oh, Wall Street wanted to invest in you, so they all wanted to be seen advanced tech companies.

And then as the industry started to transition more to electric vehicles, but especially autonomous and all the UX stuff and the connectivity, the tech industry realized, holy crap, this auto industry could be a huge market for US. And

I can tell you I had been out to Intel back in in the nineties and to Motorola, which were the big biggest chip makers. Then Intel wanted nothing to

do with the auto industry. Moto did it because it

was some extra volume, but they didn't have their heart in it. Boy has that changed because, like I mean

in video, I mean, automotive is a huge part of what they're doing.

Speaker 3: Yeah. Actually, I'm thinking back now to the beginning of

COVID when we ran out of chips. Essentially the auto

industry was cut off first because they were out of fairness, the toughest bargainers and they wanted the cheapest possible chips.

So the chip company said, well, you know, you could wait online. We got bigger customers that are spending big

money for all those great things we do. So I

think the car companies themselves have gotten a little more sophisticated, recognizing just not it's just not how much what your supply is, it's also what you're paying what those chips can do.

Speaker 4: And to your point, you know from sand to basic is six months, generally speaking.

Speaker 3: How does that happen? Right?

Speaker 4: And so, But a lot of the OEMs years ago were using indirect buyers to buy silicon, and so they didn't understand like the processing and the time frame and the lead times, and so they thought they could just bully a TSMC or an Intel, and so they learned quickly, and unfortunately a lot of the OEMs they still don't hire experienced silicon buyers and sourcing guys and logistics people.

Because when I was at Apple, I learned to drink through a fire hose because I didn't know anything about silicon.

But I learned in six months because I just sat right next to an engineer and he explained to me what the seven layers and how this turns into a way for how the waiver turns into and then how it's packaged and all these things. And we were flying

chips from Taiwan, prototype chips from Taiwan to Shenzen just to make first you know, production for first first production the next morning, because you know, we were working with Ati at the time and Nvidia at the time because they were just graphics suppliers. And so I learned early

on the importance of the silicon part of it, and so that's ingrained in me. But it's such an interesting

time because every major connected vehicle has an Nvidia chip and a Qualcom chip, whether you're American, European or Chinese.

Speaker 3: Those are two hot companies and are both big there at CEES. But it's not just the CHIPS's changed dramatically

in the last several years. It's the pervasive. This is smartphones,

every one of which has a tremendous number of sensing devices.

But those little sensors they don't cost a lot, you know, in a few cents, and very smart people are putting them together and they create some algorithms and they solve some consumers problem and all of a sudden there's a huge business and another billionaire. It's it's right, oh yeah,

so yeah, so yeah, so yeah. We got We actually

got through legislation, became a law that said anyone with a hearing impairment should be able to get a cheaper hearing it the way you get eyeglasses at a CVS.

And you know, we fought the three hearing aid companies that they're several thousand dollars each, but we won and we got it, and now like the amount of people listening and hearing is great. And an eye company came

along and said we're going to put make it part of glasses. You won't even see it. And they're big

at s it's Exeteral Lexotica, with which owns a lot of the brand names in it. All of a sudden,

they're there, so so and that's what the CS is.

It's coming together of innovation in a magical way where it's just the exhibits are doing business with each other and everyone's doing business and it's once a year. And

when we had this, I talked about a little bit in the book, this this tragedy of of COVID, and then we thought we were out of it. Then omicron

hit at Thanksgiving and then spread to the US and all these major companies started pulling out a ces, including frankly GM We was supposed to Mary Berry, was supposed to Keino and they had built this whole big thing and they pulled out. They said it's not safe. We

went forward with the event anyhow, thanks to companies like Qualcomm actually and and others that were very big, Abbot Labs others. They I spoke to their CEOs. They really

encourage you got to we got to get out of this.

You know, a million, but it was a million people to day. But we went forward and you know who

loved it, all the smaller companies and the companies that were there. They said, we got a lot of the

exposure now because the press kept coming.

Speaker 2: And I'll say as somebody who attended the show then too, Boy, you could go anywhere in Vegas. It was not a

problem at all. Whereas an a normal CEES week, Holy crap,

I mean that the traffic, you know, it's just crazy.

It was, it was, but that COVID year, you could get anywhere out the problem.

Speaker 3: The toughest pivot, biggest by board said, get decision. It

was the biggest business decision of my life because you're affecting tens of thousands of people and what they do and that and that was a tough one. What it

was the right call because it helped bring America back and it was the first big business event to come back.

And then you know, we just now we just we've adopted healthy, a lot of safety and healthy things. We

try to get air and we but still we got to get together. I'm the pay cheerleader for the technology industry,

but I really believe we got to get together because that's how the business RELATIONSHSIPS formed. That's how you go

into new categories and new errors and get ideas. Because

everybody has to partner. Now, I mean every car company

has Zleean partners because nobody has all the technology or the ideas. And that's why it's better if companies go

in different directions rather than go in the same direction, have the same type of thing, the same features in a car and all that because you could you could figure it out. And the reason the car shows have

struggled so much is because you want to reach the consumers.

You could do it now with technology and get exactly the demag effort for that specific model, with those features, for that card and what it feels like. It's tough,

it's tougher with it with it.

Speaker 4: And if you if you don't have live shows like so, one of the one of the things I try to tell everybody is you got to go to the Chinese auto shows. You got to touch, feel, see these things,

because you know, watching a fifteen minute YouTube video about the Xpunk vehicle, it doesn't do it justice because and you know, to your point, you got to see the excitement from everybody else in the booth and feel it.

And I invite anybody that wants to understand electric vehicles what's next to go to the Shanghai Auto Show next year because I'll be there Number one, because I'm a nerd and I'm like you, I want to see, I want to touch, I want to I want to talk to these people, right and well, I.

Speaker 3: Want to talk to you after CEUs and see what you say. Because you said you've not been to CS

I have not. If you think the Shanghai Auto Show

is exciting, wait till you go to see it.

Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm looking forward.

Speaker 3: I mean, we're obviously much more the cars. Not there's

anything wrong with his cars, but there's so much there and some much that could go into a car and ideas for cars, and it's and it's it is more at the also the supplier level. And when you hear

the chip come like when you're in the video Jensen speak, I mean, come on, I don't know if you've ever heard him speak.

Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, he's yeah. So yeah, I'm really looking forward

to it. I don't necessarily I'm only going to look

at mobility stuff. I'm just going to look at whatever

kind of Well, I'm looking forward to everything, a lot of it, and then in the events of the evening too.

Speaker 2: So a lot pivoting slightly. I'd love to get your idea,

what you think about the new Trump administration coming in elon playing in a role in that you're in Washington, You're really plugged in. You talk to so many people

in in in the tech world. What do you see happening?

It's I mean, there's a lot of to unpacked there right.

Speaker 3: But you know the thing about Trump is we we we do have some experience with him. But I tell

of our employees we don't take a position on the president race. But no matter who wins or what happens

with it, where I'm going to find positive things? And

I found a lot of positive things. I mean, for

one thing, the election, it didn't look like the Chinese of the Russians made a difference. There was a clear result.

There wasn't riding in the streets. And frankly, people vote

split even in Michigan for example. You know they went

for Trump, but they went for a Democratic center. It

shows that people they could vote, they could think. Americans

can actually think and make decisions and not have a party tell them what to do or tell them based on their skin color or their religion how they have to vote. And that blew up, It kind of blew

up the assumptions a lot of the media had and people had about how they should think. So that was

great in terms of the business environment. Honestly, I'll be honest.

The Biden administration was horrible. It was just terrible because

the Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders were picking everyone and Biden didn't really care, and so they were running all the business. The Department of Labor, the Federal Trade Commission.

Federal Trade Commission literally went to Europe and had them suing American companies. They took one of the best we had,

you know, the robotics companies made the Rumba, which was started by these MIT grads thirty years ago. They were

finally getting out of they sold to Amazon, and they went to Europe and said Amazon, don't let Amazon buy this company. And they had to lay off three hundred people.

As soon as the europe decided to sue them and say, we have the worst administration in my lifetime for business.

That's over. We have a new FTC chairman coming in.

We don't have this person who's never worked at a business in her life for a day, who is thirty two years old and took the best agency in Washington, highest morale and turned into the lowest. So she's going

to that will be righted. And what we're seeing other

good appointments, I'm some of the little kinky. I mean,

you know, the problem of labor appointment is interesting. Scares

us With the overnight she supported legislation allowing overnight unionization, no worker rights, no privacy rights for workers, and that you have to give up your phone number and add home address to any union representative or someone trying to organize you. It's a little weird. So we'll see what

happens of that one. But in terms of the Congress

being all Republican h and also it's it's kind of unfamiliar because there's there's testing going on of what the boundaries are, like is Trump like does he own the Congress or you know, and yesterday does Elon Musk own the Congress? This is this is a phenomenon. Elon Musk

is the most powerful non governmental person now not only is he running five companies. I mean, it just boggles

my mind. The guy's in an advanced form of human being.

He's brilliant and the way he makes things happen, and he's like Steve Jobs in a way, you know, three people are a lot of like Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and Steve Jobs and that. And you probably know I've

every encounter how Steve was very strange for me personally.

I thought it was me. Turns out really wasn't. He's

just like that. But they they they're they're all brilliant.

They all have what they go for, the big thing, and they all have lack of certain self awareness and how people are reacting to what they're saying. I don't know.

Speaker 4: I called that a reality distortion field.

Speaker 3: That's an apple and multi Yeah, And so that's where those are people, amazing people that are changing the world in big ways. You know Trump's book everyone talks about

the art of the Deal. The book that I read

that's hardly written but has a great point is something like the big Thing, and he says he only goes for big things. And reading his son Jared Kushner's book,

as I recently did, it's true, I mean, and he talks about how Trump operates. If you want to understand Trump,

read his son in law's book. He just lays it

out there. I mean, it's very complimentary obviously, but Trump

did have a good four years and a lot of things he did. He got things done, and I was like,

I'm hopeful in the big picture, like if we could get the Midias situation resolved and Ukraine resolved, I mean the economy and people start buying cars again, they'll be optimistic.

But right now there's a lot of unset And of course, how could I not mention tariffs.

Speaker 2: I was going to ask you that if you didn't bring it up, because not only that impact the auto industry, it's going to impact the tech industry big time.

Speaker 3: Oh and depends what you're talking about. China tariffs, Canada,

Mexico tariffs, talis on. Everybody tis here in tarofs Sarah.

I mean, it's like it's the COVID of our era.

But the reality is is that tariffs are taxes, and he's trying to control inflation. How is he going to

do that by taxing everything that comes into the United States?

Plus the business and decision plus like when you get rid of all the people that are here illegally, well, those people are the ones that are cleaning our hotels.

We have the last time we tried to do this, we had fields that didn't get picked of fruits and vegetables and fruit, right, like I My head's rated to exploding at this point, like I just but I've been wrong about Trump and anything I've ever said about him because I can never predict him, and that's his strength, and his opponents and our allies can't predict him, which gives him a certain amount of strength on the world stage that nobody else will have. That's right, it's all

of these men of the years, all of a sudden.

Speaker 4: But to your point about tariffs, We've been working a lot with investment firms and riscial management teams because before Trump was elected, Biden had these restrictions on Chinese IP and technology, and so they're wondering, okay, where do we get our supply? You know, how do we manage that?

And then Trump gets elected and then he starts talking about tariffs and now they come back and say okay, and we just helped them lay everything on the table.

And because it's not just China now he's talking about Mexico, he said, and canon all Europe and so and there was an article in the Detroit News yesterday just talking about how you know, there's three or four tiers, right, even if the part Actuallythylb's from Mexico. It'll likely have

Chinese components in it if it's, you know, an automotive part.

And so to your point, if we're to battle inflation, tariffs is probably not going to help him do.

Speaker 3: This thing, absolutely right. And then there's there's another layer

besides the tariffs is the companies are not allowed to do business with Actually Trump started this, and it was on human rights abuses in China. He gets zero credit

for it, but no one knows that Trump was actually made a bigger difference on human rights in China than anyone.

And he had all these companies starting with Huawei and and others that had the wiggers in his other province that was another one anyway, So he's he's all sorts of companies, for example, that that are not in the CEO.

Speaker 4: Didn't lift those restrictions.

Speaker 3: Biden didn't lift any of the restrictions. He added a

lot of companies, and he kept almost all the tariffs that Trump had. That's why they couldn't debate that as Democrats.

And it was just very difficult because Biden didn't Biden supported the Trump tariffs. So and and Trump's in love

with tariffs, it is a power of the president. Shouldn't

have that. He took up the Congress gave years ago,

and he figured it out. But there's something there's some

limit on it, and it will probably be tested in the courts. Oh but but to him. But the thing is,

it's just a lot of this is just negotiating. Yes,

let it'll land up with But meanwhile there's business executives, and there's plans, and there's Wall Street, and there's real people that are affected by these things, and it's it's a big deal.

Speaker 4: Well, a lot of companies are holding parts right now.

They're ordering ahead, whichause they're unsure.

Speaker 3: Well, for those of you that are thinking of getting something for the holiday season, this is a good time to stock up for Valentine's Day and for everything else in the future for a while, because you know, it's it's right.

Speaker 2: It's in Brazil. The story came out this week. What

BYD's got something like thirty thousands, forty I can't remember the name, big pile of electric cars, you know, stranded in Brazilian ports. But it's just that they're because Brazil feed.

Speaker 4: They just fed the.

Speaker 2: Supply chain because Brazil wants channel to raise terraf Brazil has always been a very high tariff country.

Speaker 3: They're one of the worst in the Americas. But I

don't think that's a reputation we want because you know, one hundred years ago the same thing happened and we ended up with a great depression. So I think Trump

measures himself by stock market performance. He will measure himself

by inflation. He can't have high inflation because then two

years from now, the whole Congress will change. That's right,

And you.

Speaker 4: Know, but but Gary, I go back to the whole reality distortion field. Right, he can they can have high inflation,

and he could blame it on something, and then.

Speaker 2: You know, his supporters are going to believe him.

Speaker 4: That's honestly how I feel.

Speaker 2: I mean, like, don't believe him for a while, but you knowcheck and they don't have enough money, you're going to turn against.

Speaker 3: We'll turn against. I mean, there are his supporters were

there forever he's big on loyalty. There's Democrats and others

that will never ever support it. But there's this middle

which determines which way the country goes. And the middle

was not pleased with the Democrats this time. For a

whole range of reasons, and they're really concerned about immigration.

I think Trump may mistake that though, when people start seeing, you know, there's one thing to have criminals here and deport them, it's another thing to take people that have been working here for thirty years who actually contribute to social Security and get nothing back, right, which is real.

Speaker 2: We'll see if he actually goes after them.

Speaker 3: I mean, I think they'll go after people that are off the criminals. Yeah, yeah, people are sucking off the system.

I think if he's smart, I'll go after chain migration, because chain migration is you're bringing your elderly relatives and family and then they just get Medicare and Medicaid and that's just taking money. I think he'll say, well, if

you want it, you have to put up the money to pay for them. So that's that. They'll go in steps.

So we'll see what happens. But I think he'll set

some records in terms of But I feel bad for like, literally these millions of people they're just trying to I know they're here illegally, but they're humans. They're not illegals.

I refuse to say it that way.

Speaker 4: And to your points, it's like there's a lot of bluster in the beginning because he wants to create like a floor that's moving under European leaders whatever, you know.

And then he comes back around and says, I have a deal for us. And then he comes back to

the public and says, I'm a deal maker. I've made

a great deal for.

Speaker 3: The United States.

Speaker 4: So I kind of see that. And I had made

a prediction in my newsletter that within the next four years is going to be a Chinese EV built in the United States or North America.

Speaker 3: Yeah, I think that's gonna happen. I'll make a shorter

term prediction that the TikTok is going to be. But

by my hush song, who came here last week and said, I'm going to be spending on hundred billion dollars, what do you think he's going to spend it on?

Speaker 4: Well, and remember that Data Bricks had gotten a huge investment, which is I think a Masa invested company.

Speaker 3: So well, but you're trying to support that, but you're I mean, yeah, that's how the Chinese companies will be able to come here. They got they have to build, fact,

But the other challenge is where are we going to get the workers to build these For first all, if he's kicking out all the immigrants that are not here and we're at full employment, just where are these people going to come?

Speaker 2: Well, they don't have the skills. That pivots me to

the last topic I want to cover here that combines both tech automotive robots. And it's like, every time I

turn around, somebody's doing a humanoid robot. And so you know,

Hyundai bought Boston Dynamics, which I think is probably the best robot company in the world in my opinion.

Speaker 3: It looks so cool and human dog is and you know Tesla is.

Speaker 2: Doing the Optimus Prime, and but there's a ub Tech in China. But there's a bunch of car companies talking

about they want to use these robots in their plants, working on cars, working on components. Any thoughts where those

humanoid robot.

Speaker 3: Things, Well, there's two points there. One is that to

the extent we build factories in the US, they're not going to create that many jobs. Actually, I mean building

the factory will create us. But the factories themselves to

be efficient, they have to be super efficient. And there

is a huge amount of robotics already now in factories and developed contestation centers and everything miligrat Amazon. It's it's

it's so robotic, but actually you're talking about the form factor of humans.

Speaker 1: Correct.

Speaker 3: So yeah, I love my job because I've read a lot of science fiction when I was young, and a lot of it's coming true. But I am I had

a discussion this week with a woman running our show and a lot of the president of organization and we're talking.

We're talking robots for twenty twenty six being a big part of CEO. That is the future. I don't want

to start selling the next thing. Yeah, that's a big mistake.

Speaker 2: I got next month show to sell.

Speaker 3: But robotics is definitely a huge We've got to be there and it's it's the humanoids are looking or coming.

Speaker 2: But you know, a factory robotics, Yeah, what do you think too?

Speaker 3: Yeah?

Speaker 4: I agree. I'm because the largest assembly plants are going

to be on the aerospace side and on the automotive side.

And I think for most of the automotive factoryst at least in China, it's all automated except for final assembly.

There's a lot of humans doing the final assembly part of it. But if you go into a Chinese factory

it is much more automated than I think Americans are.

Westerners will give it credit for. You know, there's an

artificial there's an artificial difference here because unions and I think if GM and FORD could get rid of some of the union workers and replace them with and it doesn't need to be humanoid, right, they.

Speaker 5: Can restate that, by the way, but yes, not get rid of like I think they would choose to hire less, retrain, retrain.

Speaker 3: Yes, but.

Speaker 4: Yeah, twenty twenty six looks like it's going to be the year. There's another company called Figure in Silicon Valley

that is doing humanoids too.

Speaker 3: Well. There's something coming up January fifteenth or so. It's

the long shoreman's union contract for the East Coast and the guy who heads it, who was indicted for a lot of things. But the key witness was killed and

he actually said there shouldn't He said, the Michigan's not big on tollbooths, I know, but there's a lot of areas of the East Coast there are, so we don't We should have humans and people should wait on cars on the toll booth lines to keep those guys employed.

We shouldn't have automated going to toboos. This guy says

he's they got what they wanted wages, which are six figure salaries for all their workers. But now they're fighting automation.

That's the issue. And Trump met with him and his son,

and Trump agreed with him.

Speaker 2: So as they supported Trump during the election.

Speaker 3: Well to say that you're against automation or factories, if Trump goes that direction, you know, I fear for the future of the US. Totally agree. Yeah, no, look, you

got it. We've always embraced innovation and done things better

and we've been the leader in the world. And that

would be like one hundred day degree reverse and we might as well go back to the George Washington Times and start plowing the fields by hands you know, ox right, yeah, by ox in futures. Yeah.

Speaker 2: Well, look, we're gonna have to wrap it up. We're

at the top of the hour here. But Gary, thanks

so much for coming out.

Speaker 3: A great discussion.

Speaker 2: I'm going to see yes anyway. Now, I'm doubly excited

to get there. So this is cool, and you're going

to be there for.

Speaker 4: The Yeah, I'm looking really really forward to it.

Speaker 2: So good Thanks again, Thank you both of you.

Speaker 3: Happy holidays, guys.

Speaker 2: Yeah, holidays too right, and I want to thank all of you for having tuned in.

Speaker 1: I'll online After Hours is brought to you by bridge Stone Tires. Solutions for your Journey

AAH #723 – CES’ Gary Shapiro: Tech Wrecks and Future Salvation

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