4/21/25-Cathie on US Factories 🤖, Prof. Jamie Dimon 🧑🏻🏫, ASML’s Data Security🔓
"Every audit report was how great🌹🌹 we were.🧐 I was like, WHAT? We suck! How is this possible?"
Welcome back. In a busy world we can be distracted with the trivial many things or we can focus on The Vital Few.
Something that I am thinking about
Why the US Might be Successful Re-shoring Some Manufacturing
I have long thought that manufacturing, currently dependent on human labor, will ultimately yield to automation and robotics. To put a sharper point on it, that means fewer humans and more robots in factories.🧍🏽♀️🧍🏽♂️<🤖🤖🤖
In a recent interview Cathie Wood CEO Ark Invest acknowledges the thesis and builds on the prediction for re-shoring in the USA.
Wood’s opening analogy is early telephones. The US was an early adopter of the telephone and consequently the US hung telephone Wires🧶 all across the country. Wires were the best and only option available at the time. Years later, Wireless📡🛜signal technology came along. Less developed countries could more easily adopt wireless technology as they had less wired infrastructure. Wireless was faster, cheaper and could reach many people all at once. The US had to overcome the inertia from wired infrastructure to incorporate the new wireless technology. This took longer in the USA than many developing countries.
Wood now takes this same logic and applies it to manufacturing. Many other countries have strong manufacturing ecosystems that are built around human labor (inertia.) As the US is currently being motivated😉 to re-shore more manufacturing, the US has more of a blank slate. The US can design new factories with automation and robotics at the beginning. Yes, there will be some humans, but far fewer than foreign factories. The key point in the thesis is that there will be far more robots. 🧍🏽♀️🧍🏽♂️<🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖🤖
[If you would like to see the Cathie Wood discussion, the link is here and it starts around minute 29.]
Investing, Companies, Market Past/Future
(I invest in Companies, not in stocks.)
Interesting companies that hosted earnings results or information sessions since my last edition that I reviewed-
Technology- ASML 0.00%↑ , TSM 0.00%↑
Housing / Banking - JPM 0.00%↑ , WFC 0.00%↑ , BAC 0.00%↑ , C 0.00%↑ , DHI 0.00%↑
Others- KMX 0.00%↑ , NFLX 0.00%↑
(With data and charts it is not what you look at, it is what you see that matters.) Click on any of the images below to see a larger view.
Source of revenue by geography for TSM 0.00%↑ vs. ASML 0.00%↑ .
Almost 50% of U.S. owner-occupied homes dates back to the 1980s and earlier.🤔
Podcast
Boz To The Future Podcast - The Future According to James Cameron
60 min, you can also find it on your favorite podcast platform. Cameron is not just a film-maker, he is also a technology expert/fan (hardware and software.)😲 META 0.00%↑
Meta CTO and Head of Reality Labs Andrew “Boz” Bosworth goes deep with legendary film-maker James Cameron! Critically acclaimed film-maker, explorer, and inventor James Cameron (“The Abyss,” “Avatar,” “Avatar: The Way of Water,” “Terminator,” “Terminator 2: Judgment Day,” “True Lies,” “Titanic,” “Aliens”) joins Boz to discuss a wide range of topics across technology, filmmaking, 3D cinema, ocean exploration, and the advent of Gen AI in moviemaking workflows, and more.
Video
35 Min, Management Learnings From Jamie Dimon
At a recent 2025 annual senior leadership conference, Jamie led a type of “master class” focused on management lessons for 400 of JPM top executives. JD- “I held this session because we cannot afford to be complacent if we want to continue as one of the great companies in the world.” JPM 0.00%↑
Audit whitewashing-- we don't do this here, never did. But at BankOne, every audit report was how great🌹🌹 we were.🧐 I was like, what? We suck! How is this possible?
And they said, 🤫 “well, we don't want to document anything for the regulators and lawyers.” And I said, NO! I want an honest assessment because you're better off being a great company, which will reduce your exposure, than hiding your weaknesses. 🙌🏽
And so the audit report should be tough and teach us all the time.
The best organizations and teams I have worked for do not hide their faults, failures and deficiencies. Pretending a problem doesn’t exist doesn’t make it go away. World-class teams continuously pursue their faults, they address them and they improve. Kaizen!
Books and Articles since my last edition
(Reading Great books is like a conversation with the finest minds of the past.- Descartes. If I get bored of a book I quit and move on.)
Focus: The ASML way - Inside the power struggle over the most complex machine on earth by Marc Hijink Nonfiction, Business Biography.
[While I was reading the ASML book I was thinking about the great master of semiconductor hardware/software, Jim Keller. He talked about the difference between working from a Recipe vs. REAL Understanding. Brilliant💡. 7/23 Link here.]
The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson Fiction, Environment. This was on the Bill Gates reading list.
Here is a link to many of the books I have read and my 1-5 star rating- Goodreads Books Read
Wild Card🃏
ASML’s Weak IP and Data Security History🔓🫳🏻
I finished the book “Focus: The ASML way”. It is a business biography and I enjoyed it. ASML is a well run company and I am a fan. ASML 0.00%↑
However, something that stands out in the book is ASML surprising history of weak intellectual property philosophy and data security controls.
Why did ASML not take IP security more seriously? I would summarize it as a beautiful philosophy from the top down of engineering meritocracy. The best ideas and engineering should win the day within ASML, and all employees are to be fully trusted. When “beautiful philosophies” are deployed into a ugly messy world they appear Naive in hindsight.
Some of the IP blunders documented in the book include- the CEO losing track of a phone in a rival country, losing a laptop in a rival country, rival countries hacking into unprotected systems🤦🏽♀️. ASML not wanted to do full rigorous background checks (TS/SCI) on prospective employees. Why didn’t they want to do the background checks? It seems to me that they approached their research like university professors and they thought the whole background check just kinda went against the spirit of trust, it was a soul crusher.🤦🏽♀️ Critical complicated technical plans left out in the open.🤦🏽♀️ These are just a few among others.
Needless to say, this all became too ridiculous and had to change. ASML management was finally brought, kicking and screaming, into modern reality. All the controls, data security, employee background investigation/monitoring, separation of system permissions, etc, were ultimately implemented. 🛡️🦅
I wonder how much data and intellectual property was easily stolen over the years.☹️ How much progress did rival countries make based on the Naive philosophies? How much value did ASML shareholders lose?
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Disclaimer: All of my posts are for informational purposes only. I might own some of the companies discussed in these posts. This is NOT a recommendation to buy or sell securities discussed. Please do your own work before investing your money.
I find it odd as well that ASML did not do very many security checks and or continual training for their employees to make sure their information was not being leaked/hacked. Really interesting!!