Noah Smith: Why AI Isn’t Replacing Jobs & Greenfield Investment’s Global Impact | Glasp Talk #58
This is the fifty-eighth session of Glasp Talk.
Glasp Talk delves into intimate interviews with luminaries from various fields, unraveling their genuine emotions, experiences, and the stories behind them.
Today’s guest is Noah Smith, one of the most influential voices in tech-driven economic commentary. A former assistant professor of economics with a background in physics, Noah is now a widely read writer and commentator, known for his sharp and data-driven insights shared through his newsletter, Noahpinion, and his social media presence. His work seamlessly bridges economic theory with real-world shifts in technology, policy, and global strategy.
In this conversation, Noah shares his journey from physics to economics, reflects on his time living in Japan, and discusses how emerging technologies are reshaping economies, societies, and power structures worldwide. He explores the limits of economic prediction, why optimism matters more than ever, and how the next global growth wave may come from unexpected places. He also delves into Japan’s economic potential, the "Weeb Economy" framework, and the cultural mindsets that drive national resilience.
From AI's impact on jobs and productivity to geopolitics and national identity, Noah offers a timely and forward-looking perspective for anyone navigating the complexities of the new economy. Whether you're a policymaker, builder, academic, or lifelong learner, this episode offers insights that will challenge your assumptions and broaden your thinking.
Transcripts
Glasp: Hi everyone, welcome back to another episode of Glasp Talk. Today, we are very excited to have Noah Smith with us. So Noah is a renowned economist, writer, and commentator known for his sharp insights into economics, technology, geopolitics, and culture. And he is the Founder and Writer of Noahpinion, a widely read newsletter with nearly 400,000 subscribers that distills complex topics into engaging, digestible reads. With a PhD in Economics from the University of Michigan and a background in physics from Stanford, Noah combines academic rigor with a unique ability to communicate big ideas clearly. Previously, Noah was a columnist for Bloomberg Opinion and an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University. And today we will dive into Noah's perspectives on the global economy, the role of AI in discovery, and the cultural forces shaping our future. Thank you for joining us, Noah, today.
Noah: Well, thank you so much for having me on.
Glasp: Thank you. So first of all, we are huge fans of your newsletter and your content and but we are curious about your background and career. So it seems like you studied physics at Stanford and then switched to economics uh so later but I see that there is three year gap and when you like you graduated bachelor finished uh from Stanford in 2003 and you started PhD program economics uh in 2006 you know what made you to switch from physics to economics and what happened to you at that time?
Noah: Oh, so uh, what happened was actually depression. So when I was in college, my mom died of a brain aneurysm. And uh, I forgot how to say that in Japanese, but it's like like a burst blood vessel in your brain. And I became uh clinically depressed after that during my, you know, middle or later years of college. And so because of that, I decided I had to have a life change. I didn't want to go back to physics. I was actually very good at physics, actually better at that than I am at economics. Um, and I really liked it. But then I decided that associations for me were very negative because I had been very depressed. And I, so I wanted to make a change and do something else in life. But I didn't know what I wanted to do. So um, I then decided to take some time, live in a foreign country uh, and then think about what I wanted to do with life. So I went to Japan because I had studied some Japanese in college and because it seemed like a great place, and so I lived in Osaka for those three years, and then, uh, during that time applied to grad school and then returned.
Glasp: I see. And you said you studied uh Japanese in college, but what made you study Japanese, and what made you interested in Japan?
Noah: Good question. So actually I was, um uh I didn't have to do a foreign language requirement because uh I had taken Latin in high school and I passed out of the foreign language requirement by being very good at Latin. However, I kind of always want to take a foreign language, uh, you know, so in my senior year, I took an intensive Japanese course for the whole year, uh, because I wanted to do that, and then, um, it was a little too late. I wish I had done it earlier, so I could have studied abroad, but I didn't. I came, but I did it too late to study abroad. So um so the reason I did it was because um I saw this movie uh "Battle Royale" and I thought that was the most beautiful movie. I really loved it. And so I um yeah, I I uh decided, oh, I'll take Japanese. And so I thought that was very fun to study a foreign language. And then I took a spring break trip to Japan in my senior year. And that was my first time I'd been overseas. And I thought, "Wow, this is incredible." um And so anyway, that's why I picked Japan.
Glasp: Were you interested in Japanese anime? Because Japan is famous for anime, animation, and manga.
Noah: No, not really. No, I mean I had seen some, like I occasionally enjoyed watching some uh anime with friends of mine. We watched like um "Berserk" or "Cowboy Bebop" or some other ones like that? Or, um, have you ever seen one called "The Vision of Escaflowne"? Old one from the 90s. I mean, we saw it in the 2000s, but then yeah. So, we saw that. Uh, but anyway, we saw a few of these, but then I didn't, um, I wasn't really that much into it. I thought, "Oh, this is cool, but I wasn't like, you know, otaku style." um The stuff I liked from Japan was more, um, kind of punk and underground stuff. Things like, um uh movies like underground movies or like indie movies, kind of like do you know Ishi Sogo, like the movie director, or Nakashima Tetsuya, or like some Miike Takashi or some guys like that. Um, or then some uh fashion. So like the street fashion in uh things like Fruits Magazine. I thought that was so cool. Or like uh maybe like underground like rock music or just like indie rock music or something I really liked. Um, and then yeah, there were some that were not indie, but stuff like uh Sheena Ringo, I really liked or uh the pillows or um uh some other bands. And so I just thought, well, I like all this underground culture stuff, so that's what I was excited about to see in in Japan.
Glasp: I see. But what was that that made you to but what made you to study economics and especially at the University of Michigan? You could have studied in a Japanese university like Tokyo University, Kyoto University if you could.
Noah: I maybe I could have, but then um in fact, I even thought about doing that. But then I uh I decided that um going to the US would be more uh like the US is definitely the center of like economics research and I wasn't confident enough in my Japanese ability to do like academia in Japanese. But maybe in retrospect, maybe I should have considered that. It might have been more fun. I don't know. Uh, but Michigan was great. You know, it was uh uh I really liked my adviser. One reason I picked Michigan was because, um, I got a really good adviser. I found him searching through a whole bunch of professors. His name is Miles Kimble. I really liked him um and so that was one reason I chose Michigan. Also, much of my family, like a lot of my family, goes to Michigan for undergrad. So my sister, my dad, and lots of others went to the University of Michigan. I went to Stanford, but I was unusual in my family. Oh, wow. Most go to Michigan. And so then I thought it would be cool to live in Michigan for a little while. But if I could do my life over again, I might go to like a university in Japan for graduate school.
Glasp: I see. Yeah, there are a lot of universities in Japan. So accepts only English. So language, not like Japanese a must, right? So, not sure if you know at that time. But how was it at the time?
Noah: It was a lot harder. There were a couple that I looked into it and there were a couple who did it, but I was not confident that you know it would really work, you know.
Glasp: I see. How was learning Japanese? Was it difficult for you?
Noah: No. Japanese is a very easy language, which is good for me because I'm lazy, and uh, so it was very easy to learn. The grammar of Japanese is very simple. Uh yeah. Well, well, the grammar of written Japanese, like if you read a novel or a book, something that's high class, I guess, uh, or advanced, the grammar is a little more difficult because they have many dependent clauses. Um, but then if you in the way people talk in Japanese, is just run-on sentences, it's just like, you know, " nantoka nantoka... " it's it's very easy. Uh, grammar, I think, and then, um this the the pronunciation of Japanese is very easy because there are no sounds that we don't have in English, and so there yeah.
Glasp: That made us, you know, Japanese people speak English harder, right?
Noah: Right.
Glasp: We don't have so many more sounds
Noah: But like speaking like uh Hindi for example is diffic is more difficult because they have all these sounds we don't have uh even Korean has a few sounds we don't have but Japanese it's all just like very simple vowels that you know sounds that we have and so that was very easy and then I guess you know memorizing kanji is hard but it's not that hard uh but then that's the hardest part of Japanese as kanji but it's really not that hard it's not as hard as like Chinese cuz you have to do more kanji in Chinese.
Glasp: Interesting because yeah, we talked to many foreign people learning Japanese, all of them say that Japanese hardest language I learned something, so but you are the first one, it's easy?
Noah: Yeah. I don't have any basis for comparison. I've never learned another foreign language.
Glasp: But you learned physics. So you just dive into physics, uh, principle, then apply it. Maybe that's why it's easy for you. Maybe.
Noah: Yeah. You think Japanese has some uh physical principles.
Glasp: Yeah. Physical. You said that grammar is easy. Maybe. Yeah. Principle and application.
Noah: Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. Anyway, I just loved it. It was really fun. Yeah.
Glasp: So cool. And by the way, uh, back to the topic, but you finished your PhD in 2012, and then you became a writer, and I was always wondering what inspired you to transition from academia to writing full-time.
Noah: Oh, so actually, I started doing my blog in graduate school. I started doing my blog in um uh 2011.
Glasp: Uh, what was the platform? So is WordPress a blogger?
Noah: blogger. So you can see my blog. Uh, you just look for Noahpinion blogger. It was still called Noahpinion. And I just did it for free. It was fun. It was my hobby. And then I didn't really want to do academia, to be honest. My professor, my adviser, convinced me to try it for a couple of years, uh, because he said, "Oh, you might like it, but I didn't really like it." But I did it just because he is very convincing, and also, you know, I uh, to do something else for money. Um, you know, there was nothing that I was very excited about. I could be like a consultant or something. Really, what I loved doing was my hobby of blogging, but I didn't think I could ever get paid to do that. So, I just needed a job. But then academia is, you know, it's kind of interesting. I like, uh, it's okay, but it's not really my thing. So, I tried it a little bit like he recommended. And then, but then while I was there, Bloomberg came to me and offered to pay me to be a writer for them while I was working as a professor. So, I said, "Okay, I'll do it," because I can live anywhere I want and just do my hobby as a job because it's fun. And so that's how that happened.
Glasp: And then so you started writing on Substuck, right?
Noah: Not immediately. No. So I started I was writing for Bloomberg, uh, just on I and in my spare time, I would keep writing on my own blog. So I wrote many things every week. Uh, so I wrote on my own blog and Bloomberg at the same time. I wrote five things a week for Bloomberg and then maybe three things a week for my own blog.
Glasp: Oh wow.
Noah: And so I was writing a lot, and it was fun, though. I loved it and I still love it, you know. And so, um, I, uh, I did that for years, uh, excuse me, starting in, uh, 2015, um, and then moved to San Francisco in 2016. Kept doing that, and then I didn't get on Substack until the end of 2020.
Glasp: Oh, so yeah, I saw on your LinkedIn that you started lighting, Noahpinion, uh, in November 2020. Yeah, I see.
Noah: Yeah. Well, so my old blog was called Noahpinion also. I just moved it to Substack.
Glasp: I see.
Noah: And that's this is the first time I ever charged money for it. And actually, at first, I didn't charge money. I was just doing it for free. But then, when I decided to leave Bloomberg, I started charging money.
Glasp: I see. And you said you were writing like two to three articles for Bloomberg and then two to three for your own blog. How
Noah: five for Bloomberg, three to three for my own blog.
Glasp: Oh, sorry. So, so how did you choose? Oh, this is for Bloomberg, and this is for my blog. And do they compete with each other?
Noah: Not really, no. So, the way I chose was basically most things I would write for Bloomberg, but something that would be speaking to a narrower, more academic audience, or be unrelated to the topics that I wanted to write for Bloomberg, I would write on my blog. So there are many times I wanted to discuss some data problem or some paper, some very nerdy stuff, and then I would do that on my own blog and then or I wanted to respond in detail to someone's post that they made. So I do responses on my own blog because that's not how Bloomberg posts are written. But if I just wanted to give some opinion on some issue, then I would do Bloomberg.
Glasp: Yes. And I know you've been writing a lot of articles, uh, for a week, but I was always curious how you choose a topic to write because, do you do that based on the feedback from your readers or from the news you consume? I was curious how you come up with ideas to write?
Noah: Oh, so actually that's the easiest part. I come up with way too many ideas. I come up with more than twice as many ideas as I write. And the way I don't have any method of coming up with them. I just read things, and then ideas pop into my head.
Glasp: But how do you? Yeah. Keep the ideas then because you have a lot of ideas, and did you do you keep ideas in Google Docs or
Noah: Yes, Google Docs.
Glasp: Nice. But if you keep the ideas in Google Docs and it gets super long, and is it's hard.
Noah: Look at how long it is now. I have a document called a blog post to write. How many pages now? It's 22 pages long.
Glasp: 20 pages.
Noah: 22. Yeah. Just filled with topics to write. Oh, I could count the number of topics, but it will probably be about 100.
Glasp: And when you chose like what made you to like switch from blogger to Substack? Is that because of the payment payable system?
Noah: No email. So blogger. So a blogger is just a website. You publish it, and it appears on a website. Substack will send out emails to all your followers.
Glasp: I see. So I see.
Noah: So the distribution was just much, much better. And now you have around.
Glasp: Yeah. 400,000 subscribers. So how did it grow? So were there any like posts going? Yeah. Went viral, or is it kind of like linear growth?
Noah: Linear, very linear.
Glasp: Linear, I see. And I remember maybe you or someone told me that the first subscriber was Mark Zuckerberg. I don't know if you can share, but
Noah: He wasn't the first, but he did subscribe at some point. Yeah. Or at least someone in his team subscribed. I don't know if I don't know if he ever reads it, but someone at his office is, you know, reading it in his name. He probably uh, I've never met him. No. He probably just um you know, he probably has his office subscribed to a million newsletters, but I don't know how much he actually reads because I've never met him, so I don't know if he has ever read it himself.
Glasp: So you don't get any feedback from him?
Noah: Never. Never. Should I go meet him?
Glasp: Yeah. So in the newsletter you cover so many topics like economics, geopolitics, and culture, and so on, and one thing I'm curious about is AI, AIS, and and impact of AI, and yeah, you recently wrote about AI, and so how do you see AI truly impacting jobs and productivity in the coming years? Are we overestimating the robots will take all the jobs narrative?
Noah: Well, I probably am because we, um, people are really fixated on this idea. They really are thinking about it a lot, and they can't stop thinking about it. Evidence to the contrary just bounces off people's heads, you know, like it doesn't go in. um So, for example, for many years, people said there would be no more trucking jobs. Trucks will be automated, and all the truckers will lose their jobs. And I had a Bloomberg, Bloomberg writer yell at me. He said, "These people aren't going to have a future." He, "How can you, how can you say we don't know what's going to happen? It's obvious what's going to happen." He yelled at me very strongly at lunch, and I was taken aback. Um, I said, "Well, we just don't know. Um, we don't know whether we'll still decide we need drivers, you know, human drivers." He just yelled at me and thought I was stupid, and I thought he was being intentionally stupid, intentionally ignorant. He thought I was pretending that he thought everybody knew the truckers would all be out of a job soon. Everybody knows it. It's an obvious fact. And he thought I was being dishonest by not admitting the obvious fact. That was in 2015. That was 10 years ago. It has been 10 years since then. The number of truck drivers employed is larger than ever. And there is a shortage of truck drivers now. They need so many truck drivers that they're having to raise wages a lot within the industry just to get humans. And all the self-driving truck companies have gone out of business. Including a company my friend was doing. So-called Embark. Uh, they went out of business or got acquired for their technology, or you know, just something. It's not going to work. Will it ever work? Maybe it will. Will we still have humans in the loop just in case of something of a problem? Maybe we will. And truck drivers will just sit there while the truck drives and just be a monitor. I don't know. But here's the point, there. What the truck driving apocalypse that this guy predicted that my colleague predicted never happened. It didn't happen in 10 years. But there's no learning. He doesn't learn. Nobody learns. Nobody's learned from that. Nobody apologizes. No, nobody says, "I was wrong. I didn't understand how technology affected the economy and jobs." And maybe I don't understand the next time either. Maybe this is more complicated than I can understand. Maybe I am fundamentally ignorant and my knowledge is limited, and I shouldn't I shouldn't be so confident about things that I don't know. I should understand why economics is so complicated, and I should look at the history and look at the you know theory and understand why these things are complicated, and I can't just use common sense to decide the answer. But I don't think that's what people should have taken from this failure of prediction. But, um uh here's another Geoffrey Hinton won the Nobel Prize for helping to invent AI. Um, he had declared that within 5 years, radiologists will be gone because AI will read scans. But it's been five years. There are more radiologists than ever, and there's a shortage of radiologists. He was totally wrong. And yet they never learn. They just keep making the same prediction again and again and again, and it keeps being wrong and wrong and wrong. Now, I'm not telling you that they'll never be right because I'm not so arrogant to assume that I know that they'll never be right. But what I do know is that they are overconfident. They don't know all the things they think that they know, and they keep making these confident predictions. Everybody's obsessed with this idea that AI will take away jobs. It keeps not happening. Does that mean it will never happen? No. I don't know. Maybe it will, maybe it won't. I don't actually understand enough to make a prediction. But I understand that they also don't understand. Okay. And so I keep saying we don't know. And then they keep being wrong, and they never learn. They never become less confident. They just keep making the same confident prediction again, ignoring the fact that they were wrong the last time. And it frustrates me.
Glasp: Yeah. But we don't know. Yeah. As you mentioned, we don't know the future. So it could happen, but it couldn't happen then.
Noah: Exactly. Exactly. It could happen, but it might not happen.
Glasp: Do you use any AI tools for lighting for Yeah. Whatever.
Noah: I use 03 to proofread my posts, and it catches most but not all errors, uh, typos. Um, when I use it uh then I'll I'll use it to do like background research. So I do my literature search, but then I have it do a literature search too. 03, and uh it's it catches a lot of papers I miss, but then I catch a lot of papers it misses. So, actually, I plus the AI is currently good. I do not use AI to create text for me.
Glasp: Okay. But have you tried it? Not yet.
Noah: Many times. Many times. Every time a new model comes out, I try it.
Glasp: I see. It didn't work.
Noah: Doesn't work. Well, the quality is okay. It's, you know, the quality that an undergraduate working for an online news site would write. Um It it has confident hallucinations. It makes hallucinations that it then never admits were wrong, and it just keeps running with them and keeps inventing new lies to cover up its old lies. Um, so it's like a liar who doesn't want to get caught. Just keeps making up new lies to cover the old ones. Never admit you're wrong. It does lots of other problems, too. Um, it's it's it's useful. It's good. You know, I would if I were writing a high school essay, I would certainly use that.
Glasp: Yeah, I know. Yeah. My friend is working on something like that. Yeah.
Noah: Yeah. But then it's not for what I do. It's not yet useful enough to just push a button and generate something. Maybe it will never be, maybe it will be. I don't know. But hallucinations seem like a problem that's not solved by scaling. So maybe we'll solve it with some other algorithmic uh innovation.
Glasp: Should be. Yeah. And I recently read an article that there are many AI-generated articles, and so AI learns from them then there is are many of garbage. So garbage in, garbage out. So not sure if it's, yeah, there are many harassments in the future again, but
Noah: Right, and very soon, we might see AI training become more difficult because the web is getting filled with the basic data sets that are all getting filled with LLM-generated content, and one thing that's a pretty consistent conclusion from research findings is that training LLMs on LLM-generated content makes them worse. It's called model collapse.
Glasp: I see.
Noah: But it used to be called modal collapse, and people just started changing the word and started calling it model collapse. But anyway, um, yeah. So, we could see that being a problem in the years to come, of AI not being able to train correctly because they're training on their output.
Glasp: Yeah, totally. And you mentioned that you are researching, with you know, chief video or three, and so you are writing many topics and covering many topics. What is your usual source of information? So what kind of article can you list so many things in?
Noah: So, um, news articles, uh, blog posts, especially now on Substack, um, papers, economics papers, a lot of them, sometimes other papers, but mostly in economics because those are the ones I understand. Um, sometimes Twitter, although it's getting much worse, so now I don't use it much. Um And then and then private research reports from like McKenzie or something.
Glasp: How much do you spend on researching or reading, usually a day?
Noah: Oh, it depends. You know, I um only occasionally will do a lot of research for a post that I'm writing. Usually I read stuff because interesting and then I write about it later when it's important. And so it's very difficult to tell my leisure research from my work research.
Glasp: And after you read something interesting, do you keep those newsletters or papers somewhere, like Notion, Google Docs, or how do you keep ideas?
Noah: Google Docs?
Glasp: Google Docs. Okay. Interesting.
Noah: So when I see an interesting article or paper or something, I copy the link and I put it under the correct heading in Google Docs corresponding to the post I want to write in the future.
Glasp: Interesting. And now it's like 22 page 22 pages, like
Noah: It's currently. Are you asking a question?
Glasp: Ah, yeah, yeah, asking a question. Yeah, 22, you know, do site pages.
Noah: What's the question?
Glasp: Oh yeah. Now you are like Google Docs has 22 pages, right?
Noah: That's correct.
Glasp: Okay. Yeah thanks. So and regarding the AI and the leadership, so seems like the US is leading in this space, like the AI space nowadays, but China is catching up and then and they release a lot of open source uh projects and products. Do you think the US can continue to maintain its top position in this field in the future?
Noah: I'm not sure. Um, I feel like uh I'm not I'm not 100% sure honestly. Um yeah. No, I'm I'm the wrong person to ask about this especially because I think that it's it's there are different areas of AI. So I think China's now number one in computer vision, but then the US is number one in large language models, and then there's a bunch of other AI things, and I'm not sure who's you know ahead.
Glasp: But in your like how I would regulate AI essay, you warn that you know heavyunded rules can backfire, it's hard to predict uh what rules will make tech safer but easy to inadver stifle stifle like progress right and what kind of like a degradation and and deduce the risk uh in your opinion without sming innovation smothering innovation sorry
Noah: So the thing about regulation is we should make rules for things we understand with AI regulation people are very eager to make rules for something that they don't understand yet that no one understands yet so I would say watch to see how the thing works in reality and then make your rules around that and be prepared to change the rules as the capabilities of the technologies change quickly. But trying to anticipate where the technology will go in 5 years and making a rule now that will apply in 5 years and keep us safe is stupid. Like that just doesn't make sense. You can't predict where it's going to be in 5 years. So you can't really make rules that will apply in 5 years. The only thing you can do is be nimble and adaptable. You have to be willing to change the rules quickly. Unfortunately, America is less like this than Japan. Japan has better adaptability in terms of rules because in Japan, rules are made by koumuin, you know, bureaucrats, whereas in America, they are made by laws and lawsuits. We do too many things in the courts. We should have a bureaucracy instead of some of those things.
Glasp: Do you occasionally check the regulations of each country, or how do you know you were catching up, you know what's happening in the world sometimes
Noah: oh that's something you can ask AI about AI will describe the regulations in each country and once in a while it'll get it wrong so if you write something that where you have to get this thing right you should check carefully first but um I think in terms of backgrounders on regulation, it gives very good backgrounds on regulatory environments in different countries. Excuse me.
Glasp: Oh no. Yeah. No worries. And I think some people Oh, sorry. another topic but some people are concerned about current tariffs and we've seen a lot of like major tariff announcements lately and including 35% tariff on Canada which is America's top tourism partner and 25% types on Japan and South Korea they are both US allies you know but the inflation hasn't really gone up right so and I I read your art uh blog post but why is that and should we be worried about it?
Noah: Yeah, I would be worried, but we don't really know what's going to happen. Um, America is being ruled by a crazy king. Imagine an old king who goes crazy. Maybe he started out a little crazy, but he's getting very, very old. He's older than Biden was at the same time in his presidency. Yes. Oh, he's the oldest president we've ever had. And he's going mentally downhill. And he, but he's so popular among the Republican base. They love him so much that no other Republican can stand up to him. Even Elon Musk tried and failed and was basically kicked out of the movement because even Elon Musk could not stand up to Trump, and so we have a mad king in America.
Glasp: Should we prepare for or brace for the impact of inflation for the future, or
Noah: Inflation? Yeah, maybe. Um, but I don't think I think Japan doesn't have to worry about inflation as much.
Glasp: Okay. Why is that?
Noah: Oh, yeah. Why is that? Oh, because first of all, Japan structurally has forces pushing you toward deflation. So it's harder to get as much inflation as in America, but also because if the US puts tariffs on Japan, that makes that raises prices for America. But for uh Japan, it doesn't really um it doesn't raise prices because Japanese exporters will then sell their domestic prices will match the after-tax price they're getting overseas, not the pre-tax price. So they will actually have an incentive to drop prices in Japan. So tariffs in America are deflationary for Japan.
Glasp: And how do you see the, you know, US future after 3.5 years, like after, you know, an incumbent president?
Noah: Even more stupid than now, man.
Glasp: How come?
Noah: Well, because the real problem with America isn't Trump. I mean, Trump is a problem, but the real problem is social media. America was always a country that depended on people with different ideas and different lifestyles being able to spread out and all coexist by not living next to each other. When the internet and social media came, it took all the different kinds of Americans and basically put them in one room together. And our country is not built for that. Japan is built for that because you guys you already knew what it was like to you know you knew what other Japanese people were like 15 years ago 20 years ago but Americans didn't know what other Americans were like it was so big and diverse then they found out all at once and so now the social conflict is just happening across every level of society because Americans are been forced together whereas Japanese people were already used to living together.
Glasp: I see.
Noah: Then that's my way.
Glasp: Yeah. But there shouldn't be any regulations. So for like social media companies, internet companies. So what kind of regulation should be do you think?
Noah: I don't know what kind of regulation can help this.
Glasp: Okay. Sorry. I mean, the question could be like the issue is an algorithm on social.
Noah: Sorry. I don't mean to interrupt you. I did I do know one regulation that can, uh, stop this, which is to ban phones in schools only, because it's the only time we're able to ban phones; other times, it's not legal.
Glasp: Okay.
Noah: We can't ban phones in companies. That's illegal.
Glasp: Oh yeah. Interesting. Yeah.
Noah: Ban phones in schools. Get kids off the internet for most of the day.
Glasp: So, do you do for your kids as well?
Noah: If I had kids, of course.
Glasp: Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. Got it.
Noah: Yeah. Ban all phones in schools.
Glasp: But is the issue more like the algorithm, like on social media, or the people who believe in the information, or both? Which
Noah: Both I and both are a problem. I wrote an interesting uh article about this a while ago, where I showed research papers showing that both of these effects are important.
Glasp: One more thing I'm curious about is the US-China decoupling and how far you think US-China decoupling will go, and how should founders prepare for that?
Noah: Well, US-China decoupling is mainly a Chinese initiative. Most of the decoupling has been China's goal. So, China has imported a lot less a lot fewer um imported components from the US because they want to be economically independent of the US. And this will also be Chinese decoupling from Japan. So Japanese companies are now not as able to sell things to Chinese companies because China has been working has been basically pushing its companies to make all the stuff at home and to basically separate themselves from a technological ecosystem, the global technological ecosystem. So most of the decoupling is that so far, but uh, what people talk about is America buying less stuff from China. But really, what's more important so far is China buying less stuff from America from Japan, Korea, and Europe and those places. This is hitting Germany hard right now. So, because Germany was selling a lot of machinery and components to China, now China is aggressively trying to push out German companies.
Glasp: I see. Can these relationships, like international relationships, get better in the future, or will they be worse?
Noah: By worse, they will be better in at some point in the future, but as long as Xi Jinping is in power in China, it will be difficult to get better. Xi Jinping is, honestly, he's kind of stupid if I'm being perfectly frank, because he's not a smart guy. He was not good at his education, and he grew up during a time of poverty when his worldview was very limited and narrow, and he, but at the same time, is extremely overconfident. He's self-confident. He believes he should control everything. He should rule everything. If you know, if you look at the people so now sometimes he delegates. He sometimes assigns uh some other people to work uh to be the head of some of these party commissions and groups that he's officially the head of. So, uh, guys like Kai Chi or whoever. um The problem is that those guys are all old, not very smart, and they're just 100% loyal to Xi Jinping. He prizes loyalty above all else. And so he surrounds himself with all these people who just say, "Yes, sir. You're right, sir. You're so brilliant, sir. Everything you say is right, sir. You're winning." And this is why he's dumb, because he can't he doesn't get the perspective to understand when he makes mistakes. And so he made a big mistake with zero COVID. He made a big mistake with the IT crackdown, a crackdown on tech companies that they later worked very hard to try to reverse. Um, He did the real estate bubble in a bad way. He hasn't done stimulus. He hasn't done enough bailouts. He's not fixing property taxes. He's not fixing the local governments. Belt and Road has been a disaster. Chinese diplomacy has been bad. I mean, he's not as bad as Trump because he's not just this insane old guy who's trying to wreck his country for fun, right? But then, um, but he's not as bad as Trump, but he's not great. And so I think that, but he's also 72 years old. And leaders usually start going downhill around 75 to 78. That's usually when they really go downhill. And, um, when leaders get older, they start getting paranoid. They start thinking, "Oh, the younger people are going to push me out. I have to fight hard against the younger people to push me out who who want to push me out. I got to stay in power." And so once they get into that mode, they focus fully inward and not outward. And so I think Xi Jinping may be starting to get in this mode. We've seen a little bit of evidence. We don't know what's happening inside China, I think. But we've seen he's taking many fewer meetings and doing less travel. He's firing a lot of people in the military whom he hired. He's firing his own guys that he hired earlier. That's kind of crazy, right? He's uh, he's disappearing from view, making fewer public appearances, doing very short meetings instead of long meetings. His health could be bad, but he's increasing his purges and attacks on other people. You know, the Japanese government has many problems, but you haven't ever had this problem. Because in Japan, no one person ever gets very strong. Yes. Yeah. But then um in when one person gets very strong, you get this kind of thing. I think Deng Xiaoping was a great master of politics in China. The system he created was supposed to prevent people from getting too strong so that they wouldn't be like Mao Zedong, right? Um, he didn't want them to be like Mao. So he made a system that he thought would prevent power from being centralized under one guy. So if you look at Jiang Zemin, you know these guys, right? It's not the Japanese name, but you know who I'm talking about, right? Yep. Okay. So Jiang Zemin was less powerful than Deng Xiaoping. Hu Jintao was even less powerful than Jiang Zemin. Those guys were picked by Dong Xiaoping. He picked them in advance to be his successors. But after that, he didn't pick anyone. So Xi Jinping was picked, and he became the kind of dictator that Dung was afraid of, centralizing all power within his own individual person. And so, because of that, China now has the classic problems of dictatorship. And as Xi Jinping gets older and older and gets less and less secure, he may worry about fighting other people. Also, they have realized that he's not competent. But he's so good at internal politics that they can't do anything about it. This is also true in the Republican Party in America. All the Republicans know Trump is stupid and crazy. The conservative writers, even the right-wing guys, even the most like uyoku guys, they know Trump is a complete idiot and just old, you know, he's like he's going mentally downhill and he's kind of crazy. But there's nothing they can do about it. They can't challenge him in public. Elon Musk tried, and he failed. So this is the problem when you have these leaders who seem very, very strong and are very, very good at crushing internal enemies, but then are not effective leaders for the outside. So this is a big problem.
Glasp: I see. And I was wondering if you were or you could become the president of the United States, or I don't know if you want to be, how would you handle this situation?
Noah: Never.
Glasp: If you were, um, if I uh could be the president of the United States. I mean, there are lots of different things I would do, but um, yeah. What would I mean I would do? You mean if I could just control policy myself?
Glasp: Yes. Yes.
Noah: Oh, I would try to make it easy to build things in America. That would be my most important policy. Housing, factories, infrastructure, things like that. And I would make close alliances with, you know, of course, Japan, uh, Korea, India, Europe, and all these countries so that we can all have complete free trade between us. So that, and then I would coordinate our industrial policy so that we make sure that every industry doesn't depend on China. Every important industry doesn't depend on China. It is that we can do it somewhere within our system of alliances, and I would make that system as big as I could, even include countries like Indonesia, Philippines, uh, you know, Vietnam, if I can, you know, Turkey obviously um include all these countries, and then Latin America if I can. Maybe they wouldn't do it, but then maybe they will. But then and I would try to make this system as big as possible and make sure that together we make sure we're not dependent on China. And I would have it be so within this alliance system, nobody fights anybody else. We don't have any trade arguments. We're all friends. We all cooperate. And that would be what I would do.
Glasp: Interest. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. And I was this is a random question but I was of course since I was wondering like there are some people who won the Nobel Prize in economics right and I was wondering because politics is a not all about economics but economics is a it's a large part of politics and can like a Nobel winner prize winners in economics become the president so that can handle situation better or sorry this is a dumb question.
Noah: Yeah, I don't know that Nobel Prize winners in economics are right to be the president. I like Paul Krugman. He's amazing, but I don't think he'd be good as a president. Um, or any Nobel Prize winner that I know of. I can't think who would be a good president. Nobel Prize winners do research. They're not, you know, that doesn't mean they're good at administering. Now, a Fed chair maybe could be a good president because they're used to running stuff. So in uh in Canada, you now see a former uh central bank head becoming president or prime minister of Canada. And so um Mark Carney, he's a really good, smart economist. So a smart economist can do it, but they have to have experience in managing a large organization. Only an academic researcher will believe in theories too much.
Glasp: I see. I see. So switching the topic to your book and "Weeb economy" and we've read your book "Weeb economy" and we enjoyed it and but I was curious uh why did you write the we economy and also you published it in only in Japanese right could you tell us our audience that about the book and also why did you write it?
Noah: The book is about, uh so so a dream of mine was always to write a book that could give some economic ideas for Japan, and so I've finally achieved my dream, although there will be a second book and maybe a third, but definitely a second book. Uh, probably next year I'll write it, but um, I'm going to write an English language book in the meantime. Uh, but anyway, the reason I wrote it was because I sensed that in Japanese economic policy and in the Japanese economy, there was a gap, and that gap I thought that gap should be closed. And that gap was a greenfield investment. Um, there's almost none in Japan, but it would be a great place for greenfield investment. And you know, I met with the head of the economic development board of Singapore. Singapore is a very rich country, much richer than Japan or America, although it's just a small city, but you know, they are still extremely rich. And so I asked this woman, you know, who's the she's head of the EDB, head of the economic development board in Singapore, how do you do industrial policy? She said, "All we do is FDI. That's our only thing." She said, "You can't name a Singaporean company, except Temasek, but that just does domestic stuff. They're not a real high-tech company. Um, you can't name a Singaporean company because Singapore is an extension of the economy of the United States of America. Um, we just invest there and do things there, and then that's how they get rich. But Japan can't be that, and it shouldn't be that. It's too big to be that. But you can add that as one piece. You know, the economy should have many pieces, right? You can have domestic investment for export. You can have domestic investment for selling domestically. You can have all kinds of pieces. You can have government, you can have private sector, you can have universities doing research, you can have all of these these sectors of the economy, but foreign companies using your country to make things for to export to the rest of the world is an important piece of the economy that Japan doesn't have, but you'd be so good at it, right? America does have a good amount of this. The US has this, but Japan doesn't have that much of this. And, um, Japan is a great place to make things. You've got great planning. You know, you can build stuff quickly, not as quickly as China, but much more safely and much more quickly than America or Europe. You can, uh, and for low cost, Japanese costs are low, but productivity is high. You have a good supply chain. There's good talent in Japan. And it's a, you know, it's a liberal country where you don't have to be afraid that your c your company will be seized by the government. Property rights are protected, and uh, it's safe. It's a great place to live. Everybody loves living in Japan. It's the perfect place for a greenfield investment. And yet there's almost none. We could fix this. This can be fixed. I'm sure it can be fixed.
Glasp: Yes. And we see in your book, as you wrote in the book, you know, we see some examples like a TSMI created in TSMC. Yeah. Created a plant in Kumamoto. Yeah. I think, Oh yes, yes. But how should we push that forward and more like invite more uh bing on uh companies to build?
Noah: Well, you need it first. You need the people in the government to agree that this is good. And the way to get them to agree that it's good is to stress that the purpose of this is for exports. Inviting foreign investment. The purpose of foreign investment should be exports. Once they understand that, they will encourage foreign investment. They h the people in the government, need to stop thinking about FDI as being about selling things in about imports, selling things into Japan. They have to stop that. They have to think about greenfield investment for exports. The purpose of foreign companies investing in Japan should be so that Japan can make things for the rest of the world. And doing so you get foreign technology and you learn all the foreign technology learn how to do all the things and so that's the purpose of FDI and so Japan Japanese government people should understand that once they understand that the motivation will be there next we need a marketing campaign we need the Japanese government to tell everybody Japan is the place to make things for the rest of the Japan is the best platform for manufacturing, for research, for you know whatever you want to do. In the future, you can even do software. Right now, Japan is very weak in software, but I have a plan for this, too. I have a plan for everything.
Glasp: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Noah: Oh, do you want to talk about software?
Glasp: Yes. Yeah, I would love to learn that. Yeah.
Noah: The reason Japan has bad software is that Japan doesn't have software engineers. Software is not well so so AI is capital intensive because of data centers but software itself is not capital intensive it's labor intensive it's human capital intensive you need software engineers everything engineers are like the the oil of software they're the raw material they are the material you use to make software is software engineers that's still true in the age of AI So, Japan doesn't have many software engineers because most Japanese people don't go into software. And if you hire software from overseas, there are no good software people within the Japanese companies to lead them and to use them. So, it doesn't help much. It only helps a little bit. It's not about hiring coders. You need software people in the organizations who go up and up and up and know how to incorporate software into the product and into the production process and into the business models and into the business processes. You need software people. Japan doesn't have software people. So it's time to train them. Train software people in Japan. Create elite coding schools at every good university in Japan. Toadai, Kyodai, you know, Keio, Waseda, everywhere. All right. Every should have an elite coding school as part of the school. Elite software engineering school. This will make the software prestigious. But you need jobs for these people. I have an idea for the initial job. The initial job should be in national security. Japan should create an elite cybersecurity unit to block North Korea and China, and Russia. And Japan should create an elite AI unit to make sure Japan has the best AI. The government should do these things, and it should hire people from the top coding schools to do it. This will create demand, and even more importantly, it will create prestige. In the old days, why did toai become prestigious? Because if you graduated from Toadai as a law major, you could go you could become a komuin and you could be in charge of the whole country of Japan, and then after you were done with your career, you could go work at some big company and make a lot of money. That was prestigious. The government created the demand for these schools, and so it became very prestigious. Why did engineering become prestigious in Japan? Because these big engineering companies would hire the engineers from the top schools. Software companies can hire in Japan. So you could get Google or Facebook or Amazon, or these software companies to hire people from these schools. But foreign-invested companies are not quite as prestigious in Japan as local companies. And local companies aren't as prestigious as the government. Government is probably still less prestigious than before, but still elite government unit would be the most prestigious thing you could do. Honestly, America did this already. We did this. We have Sandia National Laboratories. Do you know Sandia?
Glasp: No.
Noah: It's a national laboratory run by the government for cryptography. Um, actually, our national cryptography labs came from World War II. um You know, they were trying to break the codes, and then eventually, that became in the Cold War, it scaled up, uh, to become a lot of cybersecurity, cryptography, all kinds of things like that. And they hired the best applied math people, the best software people. And then those people became really, really good software engineers. And then some of them went into like finance, hedge funds, and high finance. Some of them went into private industry, but they became the base of a really amazing generation of software engineers in America. Japan can do the same thing.
Glasp: Yeah, thank you. Thank you for
Noah: That's my idea. What do you think?
Glasp: Yeah, I think that makes sense. And I know some business leaders in Japan and they their background is from business side and they don't know much about software technologies and so that sometimes they it depends on the situation but they sometimes they underestimate oh you you know this is and and of especially like now thanks to AI you know anyone can build anything in five minutes and and business leaders who don't have any engineering background could build something in five minutes they they assume oh maybe engineers could do the same or do we need engineers so it means like it could reduce the the software engineering skill set and and also understandings I think so yeah we should change the situation I think.
Noah: Right, you need software talent. Japan lacks software talent, but you could get it with prestige. Prestige is the key; it's how to motivate people, it's true in America, too. Although in America, people are more motivated by money. In Japan, people are less motivated by money. People would like to be rich, but they don't need to be super rich.
Glasp: I see.
Noah: Like, no one in Japan cares about being a billionaire because why would you? Life doesn't get better in Japan past being a millionaire. Like, if you're a millionaire in Japan, that's it. That's the best life you can have. A billionaire doesn't actually get you extra. But in America, pardon?
Glasp: Yeah. Sometimes there are some anti-funds of billions. So if you have more money and power, some people like to criticize and hate you, so that you get more attention from those people. And yeah, billionaire is, I think, the right place. Yeah. For some people. Yeah.
Noah: Right.
Glasp: But anyway, so would you recommend this like idea, like a software engineer talent, and also like a green field investment, to other countries, not only Japan? Other countries should follow the same thing.
Noah: Yes. Yes. Uh, Poland is a great example of a country that Poland I think, this year has becoming is becoming richer than Japan.
Glasp: Oh, I see. Yeah.
Noah: They went from a poor communist country to richer than Japan in just a few decades. 30 years.
Glasp: Oh, what happened to them?
Noah: Greenfield investment.
Glasp: Oh. Oh, wow. Yeah.
Noah: Basically, everyone in the EU builds all their factories in Poland, and so then Poland learned all these technologies and now people do their research in Poland, too. So, everyone just invested in Poland and now it's rich. I mean, Poland is smaller than Japan. Poland has about 40 million people, so maybe one-third the size of Japan. That's not. That's a lot smaller, but it's not as small as Singapore. And yet using mostly FDI, I mean, there are some Polish com Polish companies or Polish brands, but could you name any, could you tell me a Polish brand of something?
Glasp: No, I can't think of any.
Noah: Me neither. I can't think of a single one. I looked up a large list, and I immediately forgot it because you don't buy anything from them. Poland doesn't even have brands, but with only greenfield investment, basically from other countries, it managed to become richer than Japan.
Glasp: Wow.
Noah: Pretty amazing. Yeah. So, I don't think Japan should copy that and only try to do a greenfield investment. But I think if you take that, it's a missing piece. If you take that and add it to your economy, I think Japan's GDP could increase by 25% or more.
Glasp: Wow. It's huge.
Noah: Maybe, maybe one/third increase by one/3. It's a huge opportunity. It could just be enormous. Look, everyone wants to get out of China, not because of tariffs or any policy, but just because they know that China is going to push them out anyway. They know China is a bad place to do business. Japan's a great place to do business. I know Japan is much smaller than China, but if you could get only 10% of the people leaving China, you could increase Japan's income by a huge amount. And not just income, but technology. Japan could be at the center of the global technology ecosystem again, like it was in 1994, 30 years ago, right?
Glasp: Yeah. 30 years ago.
Noah: You could go back to that level of technological importance. But you need that green field investment because you need to absorb the technology from the foreigners and then build on that, so you know, make things for the whole world. And then everybody has to use the technological standards that Japan makes.
Glasp: I see. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, that's the way to do it. Yeah. Thanks for sharing the ideas, and anyway,
Noah: I love this idea. I think it's really.
Glasp: Did you give those ideas to politicians in Japan?
Noah: Uh, I have said these ideas to some politicians in Japan.
Glasp: Was it changing? So, is it changing or
Noah: It'll take a long time to change. Politicians are important, but um uh but um um uh, bureaucrats are also important. So I'm talking to people in Keisansho and maybe Zaimusho as well. Um, and then Jetro, of course, whose actual job is this. So I'm talking to those people. Hopefully, we'll change some things. I'm meeting a bunch of people in the startup world. Uh, hopefully going to meet people in the big company world to tell them, but politicians are important, and um, I met uh Tamaki san?
Glasp: Kokumin minsyutou?
Noah: Yeah, I see, and uh, and he liked the idea, and then uh, I met some Jimintou guys, and then they, I don't know if they liked the idea or not, but they agreed to read it, so I need to just meet more people. I don't think they are going to like my idea.
Glasp: Yeah. So exclusive. So anyway, so your latest post was about like Sanseitou, right? Yeah. Oh yeah. And so do Japanese politicians understand that you know green field investment in Japan is for export, not for entering the Japanese market. And what is an important thing or key to convince those politicians that green field investment is for export?
Noah: Well, I don't think they understand it yet. And as for how to convince them, I think.
Glasp: Because, yeah, Japan has, you know, a huge market, then after they entered as a green field investment, they can enter the Japanese market later, right? Not exporting. Yeah. As well as exporting, right?
Noah: Sure. But you can um you can give incentives for exports. So you can give tax breaks if they export. China did that. Okay, you can say if you do a greenfield investment, if you have a certain percent of your products sold overseas, you get no taxes, or maybe low taxes. Low taxes.
Glasp: I see.
Noah: So then, and then you also get not just low taxes, you get expedited permitting. You get to build things faster. You get access to certain services. You can do so many things for countries. Say if you export this much, you get low taxes.
Glasp: I see. And there are many fields for greenfield investment. So, like semiconductor or AI software, whatever, but what kind of field or industry should match Japan the best with Japan?
Noah: Oh, well, so semiconductors are a big one, right? That's huge. Um, and there are many other industries connected with semiconductors in the electronic components industry. Uh, robotics, Japan should have robotics companies, but they don't. They need better robots. Um, industry, you know, machine tools, industrial machinery, kind of things. That's an important one. Um, because it connects pretty closely. Uh, AI, obviously, AI is important. Japan can build data centers and get, you know, get energy for data centers, and um, you'll need to turn on all the nuclear power plants, but I think they'll they'll do that. But then um then um in terms of other industries th those industries, Oh, uh, drones. Yeah, we have no drone. Yeah, we have Yeah, drone drone industry should be a big target for Japan. Um uh, of course, EVs should be big, but then you know the legacy companies are for that. Like, Toyota needs to make EVs, and I don't know how to get them to do that. But then, um, well, I do, but it's another topic of conversation, so it's not related to this. But in terms of FDI, I would say semiconductors, uh, electronic components, machinery, robotics, AI, and drones. Those all go together. And then once you get software talent, then you can start doing software industry as well; this is beyond only AI. But then that's for the farther future. Right now, Japan has lots of strength in manufacturing-type industries, but these talents and the capital and these things are not being used effectively by existing companies um Japan's exports are not very good. It's higher than it was actually. It's 22% maybe 21% of GDP, which is higher than before. Before, it was only 15% of GDP. But Japan can do better. Export more. You could raise that. I believe you can raise that to 30% at least 30%. GDP. And that would make Japan 10 times richer. Not 10 times sorry, 10% richer. And then there was the multiplier effect, where other things happen when people sell more to the world, then they can do more stuff at home. So then the rest of the GDP goes up too. So I think overall this could make Japan 25% richer. That's my guess.
Glasp: I see. Yeah. And we will see the results in the future. In 10 years, 20 years, I think we may change. I think. Yeah.
Noah: So get started now. You know, it took the tourism campaign 10 years to make everybody start visiting Japan. An investment campaign would take 10 years, but it would start working within two years, and it would only reach its maximum level within 10 years.
Glasp: I see. And regarding the future innovation and which upcoming technologies, uh, do you think are the most underrated for the next couple of decades? So if you have any ideas.
Noah: Um, well, I think that whether it's underrated depends on which country we're talking about. So, for example America in America, I would say that batteries and electric like anything powered by electricity, like robots, you know highly underrated, but in China, these things are correctly rated. China understands that these are important. So, it's overrated in it's underrated in America, but it's underrated in China.
Glasp: Why is it underrated in the US? Is it because um
Noah: That's a really good question, and I'm not 100% sure of the answer, but I think one reason is that those new technologies threaten to be disruptive to many people's old way of life, and people are scared of change. In China, people see opportunity. In America, they see a threat. That's the main reason I think it's like you know, we're now in the position that China was in in the uh 1800s. In the 1800s, the European countries had all this industrial technology steam steamships, and manufacturing and mining. And in China, everyone was afraid of this technology. They didn't use it because they said that if we use this technology, our powerful, rich families will be less rich because there'll be a disruption. New people will get rich. The old people will fail. Also, people might use the new technology to challenge the government, and the government would be in trouble. So, everyone who had power in China in the 1800s they were afraid of change because they were afraid that it would lead to different people having power. So they ignored the industrial technology for so long that the European powers were able to take advantage of them, you know, and you know, even invade them in the opium wars. And so then this was a big mistake for China. But in America now, we're we are in that position. People who are in the fossil fuel industry are afraid that electric technology could displace fossil fuels. People who are in the utility industry are afraid that new kinds of power could displace utilities. People who are in the um, you know, who make old types of machine tools, are afraid that robots could displace those. People who are workers are afraid that robots could change their jobs or displace their jobs. They don't see opportunities; they see threats. And because they see threats, they resist new things. And because they resist new things, China is beating us. In the old days, we always embraced the new, new, new, new. And we still do it in software. We do it with AI. We're embracing new things. But we're not embracing new things in physical technology. Before we embraced like the semiconductors. We tried very hard to get semiconductor industry. Um, and we did all these things. And um, hold on one second. Sorry. And then sorry. So we tried very hard to be on top of semiconductor manufacturing, and then, um, a lot of other things too. Um, we embraced novelty. Uh, aerospace manufacturing, we tried very hard to be number one in aerospace, but we've lost that in America. We no longer see opportunities in new technologies. We see only threats. Even AI, you know, we're doing it, but then people in America are the most negative in the world about AI. Everyone's terrified of AI. In Japan, I think people are not terrified. No one's terrified of AI that I ever talked to.
Glasp: Seems like we're repeating the same history. It's a lime, you know, there's a lime in history always. But do but if so, why can't people change their mindset? Oh, oh, this happened, you know, 200 years ago. We are learning from history in class. Oh, we shouldn't be worried about the, you know, change in physical. So, why doesn't that happen?
Noah: Um, because an individual human can understand history. An individual human is smart. A group of humans is not so smart. When humans get in a group, political pressures and competition, and kind of power dynamics and poor communication and rivalries, and all kinds of things come into play, and groups of people are not as good at making decisions. Individuals can make good decisions or they can make bad ones. They're very high variance, right? You can get someone like Xi Jinping, or you know, Donald Trump, who makes stupid decisions, or you can get a very good leader who makes really good decisions, but it's risky. But when you have groups of people make decisions, it's very hard for them to change who takes responsibility, who exercises power who can get things done. If I want Japan to get a lot of greenfield investment tomorrow, who can I talk to? Who should I talk to?
Glasp: I don't know.
Noah: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, before I would talk to the advisers of Abesan 10 years ago. Um, but now the Abesan is gone and his advisers are gone and the leaders are back to the sort of party insider type of guys, like who, who don't have a strong, you know, ability to get things done. So, who can I talk to? I'll talk to everyone. I'll give this idea to everyone. But even if I give the idea to everyone, it doesn't mean that someone will do anything because someone has to take responsibility. Someone has to exercise power and take responsibility and say, You know what, this Noah Smith guy, he's right about this. Let's do it. You know, maybe if I can meet the um like vice ministers of like Keisansho and Zaimusho and the head of Jetro also, maybe together those guys could do something. Traditionally, in Japan, a strong bureaucracy helped to compensate for weak political leadership. But I don't know if that's still true. So anyway, when you figure out who I should talk to, please let me know.
Glasp: Yeah. Yeah. I talked to many. Yeah. People from Yeah. Ministry of Economy and Industry. So we'll let you know. Yeah. Yeah. That Yeah. So yeah, thanks for sharing a lot. But I think you share a lot already, but if you have any, since you know our audience is founders, writers, and content creators, if you have any advice for those people in this situation, you know economics. If you could share some advice, we would love to
Noah: Advice to writers or to founders.
Glasp: Uh, both, if you could share some
Noah: Well, to writers I think um don't be afraid to say what you think but be friends with all the other writers and talk to them a lot interact with them in a community of writers too many writers fall into there's two big traps I see the first trap is to only write your things and don't listen to what other people Right? Don't do that. You should engage with the community. The second trap is almost the opposite trap. It's to fight fight fight with everybody. Don't do that. Yes, if you disagree, you can argue, but then usually you should be building on other people's ideas. Be constructive. So that's my advice to writers. Also, of course, write more. Just please write more.
Glasp: Would you write more because you said you have hundreds of ideas? Would you write more? You could technically ship like one to two posts per day, right? Technically.
Noah: When AI helps me more, I'll write more. No. Um, I uh I've I've been focusing on fewer but longer pieces. When I write shorter things, I can'll I can write 10 a week if I write, you know, 1,200 words. But if I'm writing 2500 or 4,000 words, I can't write as many per week. So, it depends on what I think people want to read. But lately, I've been enjoying writing longer pieces, but then I might go back to shorter ones soon. Remember, it's my hobby. I'm doing my hobby as a job for the founders in Japan. I have this is my advice.
Glasp: Oh, you know it's not only in Japan, but you know US or any country, I think. Yeah. Yeah. If you have any advice. um
Noah: Well to I have very different advice for people who place people in the two countries, to the founders in America. Um To founders in America, my advice is don't go through the standard procedure of being a founder. America has standardized entrepreneurship too much. Seed round, series A, series B, go through Y Combinator, here's your comparables, here's how much traction you should have at series A, blah blah blah. Incubators, accelerators, you know, all these things. In the old days, entrepreneurs would just venture into the wilderness. Bill Gates didn't know how likely it was to succeed. Maybe he'd just totally fail. He had no idea. He didn't know about Series B or, you know, he didn't go through Y Combinator. He just went into the wilderness. Max Zakob, too. Um, or a lot of these people, the Google people, uh, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk didn't have any, you know, he was just, um, trailblazing, you know, he just hacked into the woods, just ventured off into the woods. Now, too many entrepreneurs, too many entrepreneurs just do a standard procedure. You have to explore.
Glasp: I know. Yeah, I know some founders whose goal is to get into YC. So that once they get into YC, then okay, we're done then. So they forgot what to do next. They shouldn't be like that. Yeah.
Noah: The Yes. Go into the wilderness. Be a true entrepreneur, not just a founder. Um to Japanese founders, my advice is to dream very big. Not so you can be a billionaire, but so you can build up society. Um, like Matsushita, you know, like he was a guy a long time ago, like the 1910s. Was it Konosuke Matsushita?
Glasp: Yes. Yeah.
Noah: Yeah. He didn't want he didn't care about be super rich. He cared about Japan. So, you know, he cared about his country, but I think he wanted society to have a lot more stuff. And he just wanted to build this big organization that could give society what it needed. That is a good reason to build a big organization. And I think honestly, even if you look at the people who get very rich like Yanai-san, right? Or or or you know Mikitani-san or these Japanese guys who get rich, they didn't do it to get rich. I mean, maybe they wanted to be rich, but they didn't want to be that rich. That was an accident. That was an accident. What they wanted was to build a big organization, you know, to give everybody good food, good stores, you know, or something like that. They wanted people to have stuff that so they wanted to build a big organization to give stuff to the world. And I feel like Japanese entrepreneurs or founders have lost this dream to some degree. Instead, they just want to get rich, but they only want to get rich enough to live a good life in Japan. You know you IPO for um you know $100 million on Mothers or something and then you're rich enough to afford like a good house in Yoyogi or Uehara you want and then you can you know go to some nice bars and get like you know whiskey with ball ice for like you know Niman yen per glass and then you're done. That's all the money you need in Japan. They because they want money, but they're satisfied with only a little amount of money. Like the amount of money they make, I can make just by writing a blog. But yeah, but they're but what they should be motivated by is to build something bigger, build organizations. That's what I think Japanese founders have forgotten is to build something big to help the world. Anyway, that's my advice.
Glasp: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you so much.
Noah: All right. Last question because I gotta go.
Glasp: Yeah. Yeah. Last question is, since Glasp is a platform where people share what they are reading, learning theistic legacy, we want to ask this question. So, what legacy or impact do you want to leave behind for future generations?
Noah: Um, I would like people to be a little more reasonable. I want people to, you know, think about ideas instead of just taking, you know, doing what their own political side says they should do or just repeating what other people say, or just I want people to think about ideas instead of trying to sound smart or trying to sound politically correct. I want people not to be extreme in their thinking and to understand the limits of their own knowledge. I just want people to be reasonable because the purpose of society is not to be reasonable. The purpose of society is for everyone to be happy. But if you are reason is a good tool. It's the most powerful tool that we have as humans. And that will continue to be true in the age of AI. People just need to be reasonable. And I hope I leave the world a more reasonable place than I found it.
Glasp: So yeah, we should read more about your content. I think newsletter, maybe. Yeah.
Noah: Well, thanks if you do. I thank you in advance, but you don't have to; if you enjoy it, please do.
Glasp: Thank you. Yeah. And thank you so much for joining today. Yeah, we really learned a lot. Yeah.
Noah: Thank you.
Glasp: All right. Until next time.
Noah: Yes.
Glasp: Yeah. Thanks.
