Video Of The Week: A Conversation with Fred Wilson and Carlota Perez

This was seven years ago. I went back and watched it recently and it has stood the test of time.

#Web/Tech

Comments (Archived):

  1. Rob Underwood

    Oldie but goodie … and a post just under the wire to keep the streak going.

    1. Rob Underwood

      “Huge bubble and a huge crash” = on point.

    2. fredwilson

      i posted it from my phone while in line for a morning film at Sundance.around 9pm last night, when we got home, i realized it had not postedno idea why. so i fixed it.

      1. Rob Underwood

        Great perspective from Carlota.How is Sundance? Any good stuff?

  2. Rick Mason

    I’m not certain that all her comments hold up. She stated that all the jobs that have gone overseas aren’t coming back. Tell that to the people getting hired by Foxconn in Wisconsin. Or the Detroiter’s at the new Chrysler plant that’s returning production from Mexico.But she did say it would take new leadership, someone who wasn’t a D.C. dinosaur. While it wasn’t someone from the tech world she was partially right on that one ;<).

    1. Alex Murphy

      Manufacturing jobs are different. Rather than assemblers, they are much technical. And these are not replacing jobs from somewhere else, they are brand new jobs, ones that didn’t exist.Big bubbles lead to pain … What do you think the stock market right now is predicting?

      1. Rick Mason

        Actually you are wrong. FoxConn is cutting jobs in China, 60,000 last year. Now the majority of those jobs were replaced with robots but some of them are jobs coming to America. FoxConn is now pitting Michigan vs Pennsylvania for yet another plant. In Chrysler’s case they’re saying the Mexican plant will be re-purposed for later production of vehicles to be sold outside the US, but for now all those jobs are gone.

    2. JLM

      .There are 2MM maquiladora jobs on the other side of the border which will be up for grabs in a couple of years.The whole border economy is changing with tax and immigration reforms.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

      1. sigmaalgebra

        IIRC it was POTUS Reagan who sometimes said “There you go again.”!!! :-)!!Well, there you go again, adding really important, crucial, facts, with numerical data and a date, to what otherwise maybe some Victorian garden party social convention or the IIRC British “Anyone who calls a spade a spade is fit only to use one” say that facts are socially incorrect, politically incorrect, and otherwise forbidden, conflict with the free expression of one uninformed emotional, social small talk remark with another, etc.!!!!Ah your facts are hard debunking of the politically correct view that US citizens should gratefully donate their jobs, have their kids drop out of high school and not go to college, pay taxes so that immigrants can go to US colleges for free or nearly so, to strangers from strange lands. So kind are the US citizens! And the US citizen wives of US citizens should not have children and, instead, encourage children and their parents to immigrate to the US. And if by some chance a US woman wants children, then she should adopt, hire a nanny, and proceed to her rightful place as CEO of a venture funded, high tech startup.Am I starting to understand this sfuff??????It would be MUCH easier to understand the politically correct, open borders, flood the US with immigrants, social justice warrior, Schumer-Pelosi new version of slave labor views without your solid facts!!!!!! :-)!!!!I know; I know; I’m supposed just to give up on facts, especially numerical facts!!!!Maybe the real situation is, (A) if someone has facts on their side, then they present the facts; else (B) they just spout emotional BS!!!!!I’ve been watching a grand master class in emotional total BS to cover up a new version of ugly slavery from Schumer and Pelosi.

  3. Quality > Quantity

    How about uploading up one high quality post per week instead of trying to fill space with whatever you can think of so that you can post daily?

    1. Rob Underwood

      I count 4 lengthy, meaty posts this week. Friday is nearly always a short one that is cause or funding related, and Saturday is usually a video of some kind.Care to take off the mask of your screen name pseudonym and point to your contributions over the last 7 days?

    2. Vendita Auto

      Owning Yourself

      1. jason wright

        self syndication

        1. Vendita Auto

          DNA & not as often as I would like

    3. fredwilson

      this is my blog. i can do whatever the fuck i want with it. how about you try to do what i do and see how that goes.

      1. jason wright

        tiger

      2. JLM

        .Guy’s actually paying you a huge compliment though he may have committed a foot fault in the process.YOUR words are far more interesting than funding, videos, fillers.Charm school for both of y’all in 2018?Writing every day for 15 years is HUUUUUGE!Great snow this year. If you ski for a couple of months, you get really good.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

        1. PhilipSugar

          C’MON MAN! ESPN football reference, where they show dirty or other really bad plays and yell C’MON MAN!I’m surprised he even responded to the asshole,You know it wouldn’t be unreasonable if Fred said if you don’t agree with my point of view don’t post. It wouldn’t make things as interesting and it would leave this place an echo chamber but it would not be unreasonable.On a light not the Mascot versus PeeWee game at Vikings Stadium starting at minute 1 is priceless.https://www.youtube.com/wat

          1. JLM

            .C’MON MAN, if you raise the expectations of your audience to expect daily wisdom, then of course they are disappointed when you give them something less.It was a compliment.I admit to not being interested in Kickstarter campaigns and old videos. I just don’t care enough to bitch.I never watch the NFL even their mascots.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

          2. PhilipSugar

            Hey simple, don’t read or watch. I give Fred total credit the reason his blog is read so much is that people know that they will see something every day. No different than the newspaper. I don’t know of any others. So you get out of habit because you don’t know when there will be a post. Fred…..every single day. Every day. I’d be pissed too,

          3. LE

            Well though in all honesty saying what you said makes more sense (and serves a better purpose) than the way that Fred reacted. You’d have to agree. And Fred has said this in the past but it’s no obvious to anyone who isn’t an inveterate reader of the blog and remembers that is the way he rolls. “What is on my mind is what I blog” (something like that).people know that they will see something every day… So you get out of habit because you don’t know when there will be a post…And yes the habit is important. It’s also intermittent reinforcement. It also gives the commenters a break as well ‘ok I can keep my mouth shut today since I don’t have time to watch Carlotta video’.Fred doesn’t owe readers of the blog anything and can do what he wants for sure. On the other hand I wouldn’t say it’s unusual to catch a bit of heat when you are a target and have put yourself out there in a public way like he has.In this case the audience is the customer in part. And when the customer says something you sort of have to take it in stride as much as you can even if your first reaction is to say ‘fuck you customer’.Back when I sold my first business I negotiated down both the legal and accountant fees. I know the accountant was saying ‘fuck you’ but he held his cool and gave me a huge discount (1/2 at least on fees) (because he had quoted a low price and then it changed). And the way I presented it. [1] Ditto for the attorney. Many many years later I am still with that accounting firm (big firm by the way) and still paying them money. (Lawyer went out of business).[1] In a way that said “I still love you and this relationship will not end it will continue” <— Very important concept.

          4. PhilipSugar

            You make up a snarky fake disqus name to hide behind, you make an insulting comment (basically saying your posts suck), and tell him what to do, and you have put in no effort making the world a better place, you just sprayed graffiti.Frankly, I get the response.If I said: Hey Fred you should consider having some guest posts while you are on the West Coast, then I would expect a civil response like: This is my blog and I don’t do guest posts anymore.

          5. LE

            Fred actually never had a manifesto of ‘daily wisdom’. It was more ‘this is what’s on my mind’. So the only ‘crime’ that I see here (I like to boil things down to crimes and charges) is that he didn’t cheerfully point that out.Besides as we both know sometimes the entertainment, enjoyment and discussion strays far from what is on Fred’s mind regardless of the post of the day.I don’t care about the NFL (or any sports) other than the business side and how they have the country by the balls (going down hill from what I read).

        2. LE

          I think a conclusion was jumped to as a result of the comment which could be warranted but then again maybe not.Last night I went to pickup some takeout food. The restaurant was busy. While I am at the counter an attractive younger woman walks up to me with a glass of wine in her hand. Now let’s stipulate that I am not tall and good looking like you or Fred is first. So this isn’t something that happens to me much if at all. Anyway I was immediately taken back when she said something to me (‘don’t bother putting your name in there is a long wait’) and was invading my personal space. I thought ‘wow she is trying to pick me up’. That is the conclusion I came to. I wasn’t nice to her in any particular way and more or less said a few words ‘I am here for takeout’ and then she walked away. After a few minutes. I later told the story to my wife and she got jealous (I even left out the attractive part).So my point is my wife assumed ‘attractive’ (I never said she was) and I assumed ‘picking me up’. But that’s probably not what was happening. She was probably just a little tipsy from the wine and maybe she was a talkative friendly person who knows.Both Fred and Phil think the guy is an asshole. That could be the case but I also think there is a bit of ‘take your jack and shove it’ going on here.This is a reason why you should never assume guilt on your part w/o knowing for sure that someone even thinks you are guilty.

          1. PhilipSugar

            Let me give you a pro tip. She was not flirting with you. She is an asshole. She thinks you are less important than her and are not worthy to eat there.I have had this happen multiple times. Part of why I like to dress like I do, I find nothing more satisfying than having somebody come up to me and make a derogatory comment and then stick it in their face.Love it. Gives me happiness to see that smug look wiped right off their face.You know there is a pecking order seating at the Palm’s restaurant? I eat at the top table in shorts.You know when you board a plane and it’s overbooked and you are on standby? I love when eight Bank of America are crowding the counter and one tells me I am not going to get on because there are only two seats left and the counter person personally walks up to me and hands me a ticket.I love when I am in the Dominican Republic and somebody says they are full and the maitre d’ comes up and sits me ahead of the ass that has been waiting for an hour.Love it.

          2. LE

            Well in this case it was a chain restaurant and she was ‘admin assistant grade’ so I don’t think that’s the case here, but your point is taken. Ditto for the gals she was with. Football college types.I’ve had what you are describing though happen other times. Even today I drove to the post office and there was a gas leak (apparently) and the fireman first responder comes over nicely to my car as I drive up to park and is deferential to me and tells me really nicely to come back in 45 minutes. I was in the 911. I’ve had other cases where I walk out of my suite (looking like you describe tshirt etc.) and I get treated a completely different way. Of course for all I know he would have done that in another car for sure but the pattern seems to be the pattern. That is not why I drive the cars that I do I drive them because I like the car. There is really nobody where I am that I need to impress that is for sure. Funny a friend of mine had the same car and rented a place in the Hamptons and joked that it was like a Chevy there.As far as dress I don’t want attention in any way and for some reason it seems everybody remembers me almost to the point where I find it annoying (and others would like it but I don’t at all.).Look I am the guy who got the big hospital contract dressed in a down vest vs. Xerox. And in a way I think that helped me as part of the ‘shtick’ that got them thinking.One of the things I liked about my 2nd wife (and still joke to this day) is the crappy shirt she wore on our first date that was totally unflattering on her.

          3. PhilipSugar

            Even more reason. Frankly the people that are the least “trash” tend to be the most gracious, except for true assholes, and they exist in spades. Mainly the exist for people that are not confident because either:They are posers.They know they don’t deserve it.Or the worst:They think their shit smells like roses.Look at my last name……think people eventually don’t figure me out?

      3. Kasi Viswanathan Agilandam

        am visiting your blog after 3-years and things have not changed much :-)….liked the angry Fred :-).

  4. jason wright

    “…which is sponsored by the European Union, and i keep in touch with reality”. Chuckle.http://avc.com/2015/02/the-

  5. jason wright

    My new go-to shoes are the Altra Paradigm 3.0 – i’m getting ready. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…from 14:30 sounds like a description of a place where universal basic income has a role…and from18:40 where the plan to introduce it has to be agreed.I find this even more inspiring:https://www.youtube.com/wat

  6. William Mougayar

    … especially that now her theory is being tested against the crypto market.

    1. jason wright

      how do you think her framework will stand up to the test of crypto?is crypto quite the same as a canal, a railway, a car, et.c.? they are fixed objects of physical mass. Once made they are inflexible to future adapation. crypto has characteristics that replicate capital’s innate characteristic of being liquid, and more like an energy that flows and changes shape and direction and location almost at will. Only if there are better returns elsewhere would capital exit crypto. The idea that capital will exit crypto abruptly (a real crash, not a fluctuation) seems less certain to me.

      1. Lawrence Brass

        Crypto is a structural change in the economy and it offers structural strength on its own. Instead of too big to fail schemes to keep it alive it evolves and regenerates by forks dictated by its governance structures. It potentially offers a better system.Take into account all the crashes it has survived, the DAO, weaknesses in its own design, the exchanges that went belly up. It is strong, it is adaptable, it inherits this from its creators.It weak points are still the exchanges and probably it loose governance structures which, paradoxically, may provide the strength to counter corruption attempts.imho always implied.

        1. Darius V

          Do you mean crypto or blockchain as the structural change?

          1. Lawrence Brass

            Both, understanding crypto as the economy built on top of blockchain technology. The delegation of trust to algorithms in general.There is a speculative component in crypto that is the volatile part as in any new tech or financial invention. But the framework it provides, i think it is solid.The only thing i really fear in the future is a precisely crafted and broad networked attack against the crypto networks.

          2. Darius V

            Thx for clarification, I see the crypto currency more like a stock market right now with the coins actually having no utility for commerce, hope this changes and we can start using them.On the framework the decentralized concept sounds great but performance and latency can be major blocks in adoption in most real-time use cases we’re used to as consumers of data. This is very early days but just thinking about the replication and inherent connectivity latency between even two nodes it would be a hard problem to crack. Even in the more controlled cloud settings, and using microservices, latency can be an issue and many real time applications are using caching to counter that. Looking forward to see what the tech minds come up with.

        2. jason wright

          and your description of crypto reads like the history of the fiat capitalist system. it formed, changed, crashed, recovered, reinvented,….over many years, decades, and centuries.

      2. William Mougayar

        We don’t know if there will be a clear crash or something else.

  7. Alex Murphy

    Amazing what she called out.”Crisis of leadership,” trying to smooth out bubbles, “if leaders don’t do anything, then it will be like the 30s”… 5 years later, enter the Nationalist Authoritarian leadership wave around the world.Chilling.

  8. Tom Labus

    I always come back to Robert Gordon’shttps://press.princeton.edu…

    1. JLM

      .Good read. Not sure I agree with it, but very thought provoking.JLMwww.themusingsofthebigredca…

    2. sigmaalgebra

      > Weaving together a vivid narrative, historical anecdotes, and economic analysis, The Rise and Fall of American Growth challenges the view that economic growth will continue unabated, and demonstrates that the life-altering scale of innovations between 1870 and 1970 cannot be repeated.Naw, not even close: Since 1970, in strong contradiction we have Moore’s law and the Internet. We have electronic ignition for car engines that make the engines last much longer. We have high bypass turbofan engines for commercial airplanes. We have GPS and its applications. We have scanning, tunneling electron microscopes that can image individual atoms, important for Moore’s law. We have free electron lasers that can yield the structure of complicated biological molecules, important for basics of cell biology, the war on cancer, progress on other diseases, and pharmaceuticals, important for farmers and more, have much better weather prediction, have some fantastic progress in medicine, with have great progress in logistics with FedEx, have fantastically better productivity in office typing, copying, filing, mailing, and general document processing, much better tools for architecture and engineering design, much higher farm productivity, etc.

  9. Kirsten Lambertsen

    Great choice on a very fitting day. Well played.

  10. pointsnfigures

    first dot com bubble wasn’t related to govt-it was related to irrational exuberance of the mkt. second bubble was built on the back of poor govt policy. without fannie and fred backstop the bankers cannot build that bubble. her comments with regard to crypto are interesting (bubble or not?, crash or not?) Because we are theoretically “smarter” are we avoiding a bubble in crypto?Jobs are coming back to the US because of a change in public policy-which is just companies following the market. Change the incentives and behavior changes.

    1. Chris Lu

      One way I see the crypto aspect is we are getting constant 50% corrections (almost once a quarter). That kinda resets everything a bit and allows for slightly more sustained growth.It seems everyone in crypto knows Carlota’s research and everyone is expecting a large crash in the future. I think we might see specific projects crash, but it would require a large external event for a market-wide crash (think gov regulation, a hack of the underlying protocols, etc)

      1. pointsnfigures

        how big of a threat is gov regulation do you think?

        1. Chris Lu

          I think its quite high in the near term. The SEC and CFTC seem to both be antsy about the crypto markets. I think its a function of retail investors, lax regulation, and low ability for recourse that worries the government the most.

  11. Guy Lepage

    As a fairly long-time avc.com community member, I have to put this interview into my AVC top 10 best all-time posts.A lot of people in my sector of technology are really pushing for the break up of society and believe that a “self-state” system will be the future. I personally have close friends from all over the world and believe the opposite will be the future. I sit in the camp of the majority of the world becoming a more educated and more social place. More coming together than moving apart.A lot of what Carlota says in this interview, based upon her continued study, seems to suggest that the more social route is the direction that we’re heading toward.