BusinessToday Previous Editions

20.4.2023 11 WORLD WHEN Gordon E. Moore passed away on March 24, 2023, the New York Times' obituary summarized well the conventional wisdom about his lega- cy: "Moore's Law is bound to reach its end, as engineers encounter some basic physical limits, as well as the extreme cost of building factories to achieve the next level of miniaturization. And in re- cent years, the pace of miniaturization has slowed." On April 19, 1965, Moore published "Cramming more components onto integrated circuits" in Electronics, pre- dicting a doubling every year in the number of components per integrated circuit. is constant rate of increase became to be known as "Moore's Law." Over the last two or three decades, many commentators have raised the question, again and again, of whether the steady advance of computing power and the reduction in its cost are finally going to be stopped by the laws of phys- ics and the insurmountable limits of miniaturization. One can argue that Moore's Law is not about physics, not even about eco- nomics. Moore's Law is the most widely known example we have of the ability of successful entrepreneurs to articulate a compelling vision that motivates inves- tors, employees, and customers to join forces with them. Another illustration of the power of a great tag line that looks and sounds like a law of nature, is what has been popu- larized (by George Gilder) in the 1990s as "Metcalfe's Law." Moore's Law promotes a set of spe- cific innovations. But this promotion is grounded in a specific set of social norms guiding an economic activity. Moore's Law is the call-to-arms of an American entrepreneur, selling — to potential customers, investors and em- ployees — his ambition and unshaken belief in himself, his colleagues, and the unlimited opportunities offered by his country. All entrepreneurs are defined by their absolute self-confidence and by being completely risk-averse. But the Amer- ican variety had always displayed one more important driving characteristic. When everybody is equal to everybody else—and when this is the ideal that a society aspires to—people with a cer- tain type of personality find it unaccept- able not to be on top, not to "succeed," not to "do better" than their friends and relations, and especially, better than their competitors. More often than not, they find it unacceptable to "work for somebody else." Gordon Moore and Robert Noyce left Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory with six other employees to co-found Fairchild Semiconductor because they were unhappy with their boss, William Shockley. More important, the deci- sion (by Noyce) to leave Fairchild and co-found Intel with Moore came when Noyce was passed over for the top job. ey didn't need to convince them- selves that they were not going to fail because failure was not an option. And besides, as Moore said later, "we be- longed to the culture of the Valley that failure is something that, if it happens to occur, you can start all over again." But they needed to convince others. Moore's prediction was couched in quantitative, "scientific" terms, with the authoritative appearance of a law of na- ture. ere was no better way to sell a new industry to a bunch of fellows with money who were themselves creating a new industry, the venture capital indus- try. More important than the VCs, how- ever, were the potential customers for Moore's and Noyce's (and a few other tinkerers') innovations, at Fairchild and Intel. Moore's 1965 article was written earlier as an internal document titled "e Future of Integrated Electronics," aimed to convince Fairchild's customers to adopt a new and cutting-edge tech- nology. It so happened that Moore's 1965 ar- ticle was published on the 190th anni- versary of the battle of Lexington and Concord, the start of the American Revolution. e rebels fought for re- spect from their "bosses" overseas and were already driven in their economic pursuits by the desire to outrank their neighbors. "e speculative use of capi- tal was the prevailing feature of colonial life," wrote historians Oscar and Mary Handlin. Unlike the transistors following Moore's Law, the economic effects of the spirit of American enterprise don't predictably double every year or two. e American economy goes up and down, it enjoys a bubble and then suf- fers a crash. In a society that believes that "anybody can make it," everybody participates. Missouri farmer John An- derson Truman, father of frugal Harry Truman, was a prime example. "America was a land of democra- cy, individualism, and opportunity in 1846 when Anderson Shipped Truman [President Truman' grandfather] and his bride settled near Westport Land- ing, Missouri," wrote Alonzo Hamby in Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman. "Everyone was, in theory, equal; everyone had a chance in life. A vast, sparsely settled land offered re- sources apparently without end to those who had the initiative and hardihood to claim them." Around 1900, Anderson's son John Truman was worth $40,000 and "looked to a future without limit." But after making "large—and disastrous—com- mitments to grain-futures contracts," the family's losses by midsummer 1902 were massive and irreversible. "He got the notion he could get rich. Instead, he lost everything at one fell swoop and went completely broke," President Tru- man (quoted in David McCullough's biography) later summed up his father's American dream experience. is entrepreneurial American spirit, with its upsides and downsides, has en- dured for a long time. e "delirium of speculation" of early America was called "irrational exuberance" by Alan Green- span more than 200 years later in the midst of yet another spurt of growth, this one driven by the economic sector Moore and his colleagues and competi- tors helped establish, adding to the size of the largest economy in the world. In 2015, I predicted that Moore's Law will endure as long as the American en- trepreneurial spirit will endure. As the failed predictions about the imminent demise of Moore's Law have demon- strated, again and again, predictions are difficult to make, especially about the future. But present facts and historical data can help us come up with more educated, and possibly more accurate, guesses. In his 1965 article, Gordon More based his 10-year forecast on the fact that since "the days of the original pla- nar transistor," in 1959, "we had about doubled every year the amount of com- ponents we could put on a chip." What are the present facts and recent historical data that could help us pre- dict whether the American entrepre- neurial spirit will endure? Consider, for example, a recent Wall Street Journal-NORC survey which found that "priorities that helped define the national character for generations are receding in importance to Ameri- cans." 38% of respondents said patriot- ism was very important to them, down from 70% in 1998. "Younger Americans in particular place low importance on these values, many of which were cen- tral to the lives of their parents," con- cluded the report summarizing the sur- vey's findings. What's important to younger Ameri- cans today? Here's data from July 2019 surveys of children in the US, UK, and China. When asked "what do you want to be when you grow up?" American and British kids' top choice was "Vlog- ger/YouTuber." Chinese kids' top choice was "Astronaut." Will the spirit of Moore's Law endure? Gordon E. Moore

• Cover