Thanks to Ezra for having me over again; it's good to be back.
So Andy Grove thinks Obama is being too ambitious. And Fred Hiatt thinks I should care, so Grove gets to express this view on the Washington Post op-ed page, pretentious Machiavelli quote and all.
Look, Grove is a smart guy. He's incredibly good at selling integrated circuits, and if he had written a piece on the chip industry, I'd be inclined to believe every word. But he's a hardware executive, not a political operative, regardless of his vague claims to "40 years' experience, much of it managing change." And the vacuity of the piece illustrates just how dissimilar the two tasks are, or at least how poorly an executive's skill-set translates to policy planning:
I have found that to succeed, an organization must travel through two phases: first, a period of chaotic experimentation in which intense discussion is allowed, even encouraged, by those in charge. In time, when the chaos becomes unbearable, the leadership reins in chaos with a firm hand.And, Grove argues, we're at the second phase. Which means no universal health care for you, because that would mean more chaotic experimentation! And chaotic experimentation is bad, because we need to rein in chaos - with a firm hand! And we need that firm hand because we're at the second phase. And we're at the the second phase because Grove says we are. And round and round we go.
There's actually a semi-interesting argument hidden under all the grand thematic jargon, namely that in trying to cushion the blow of the recession through initiatives like health care reform, the Obama administration could complicate its efforts to stabilize the financial system. I have an inkling that's bullshit, but I'd like to hear the case. But Grove doesn't make it. Instead, he relies on this half-baked teleology of organizational success and repeated appeals to authority, and just looks silly in the process.
