This is a short one (not Mini-Mike short), but I couldn't let it just pass. After the Iowa app fiasco last night, Andrew Yang asserted himself as someone who "understands technology". To be fair, he may not have been referencing President Trump and was speaking of the Democrat geniuses, but the point stands:
Why does Yang think he "understands" technology? From what I can tell in his bio, he's never written as much as line of code, or solderd a component to a circuit board. Being friends with execs in Palo Alto doesn't make you tech savvy.
— DC (@cpf_taxed) February 4, 2020
Browsing Yang's Wikipedia page, It's pretty lame. Wikipedia can never be trusted beyond MMA records and checking an actor's filmography (my primary uses), but they over-embellish for leftists. From his bio, I wouldn't hire him to carry computers from the truck to server room. He graduated law school, then left practicing law shortly after. Usually this happens when you're not very good.
I'll summarize the rest of his career: he hooked up with other people and raised money from others who had it, academia, and making profit from non-profits. Then presidential candidate. He has such incredible ideas, like universal basic income, that's been proven to fail in the real world.
He literally has no tech experience (that I can see). Fundraising, academia, and non-profits, and being Asian in proximity to Silicon Valley executives while knowing how to send SMS messages on a prototype iPhone doesn't make you a tech guy. I'm sure he's a nice guy, however.
I didn't intend to write a complete take-down of Yang. If you're looking for that, click here. I just caught his tweet above and felt like I stumbled upon some entrepreneurial and technological stolen-valor.
It doesn't seem like he's ever pushed all his chips into the middle of the table and rubbed two sticks together to start a business, or been up three days in a row trying to get his code working before his client who's business depends on it got into the office Monday morning. I'll stand corrected if I learn he's has such experiences, but I'm not holding my breath.
If he were indeed referencing the President in his tweet above, then we can compare. Yang seems to have grown up in a successful family who certainly understand technology, physics, and how things work.
Guess who else grew up in such a family? Identify this man:
Here's this man's bio (Wikipedia):
...was an American electrical engineer, inventor, and physicist. A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1936 to 1973, he was a recipient of U.S. President Ronald Reagan's National Medal of Science and a member of the National Academy of Engineering.[3][4][5] ... was noted for developing rotational radiation therapy.[3] Together with Robert J. Van de Graaff, he developed one of the first million-volt X-ray generators.
This was also the guy tasked with taking control of Nikola Tesla's work and documents after his death:
A few days after Tesla died on January 8th, 1943, his possessions were seized by officials from the amazingly-named government Office of Alien Property. About 3 weeks after that, all of Tesla's things and documents were given a thorough examination by a group of FBI agents that included none other than ...
... was, by all accounts, a very accomplished and intelligent man, an M.I.T. Professor of Engineering, who helped design X-ray machines for cancer patients and did radar research work for the army during World War 2.
Guess who this is yet? It's Donald Trump's "favorite uncle" John G. Trump. The snippet is from this Big Think article, and the story of John Trump is a subject that fascinates many of us.
Point being, if we're judging a non-technical person's technical knowledge by their upbringing and access to brain-power, President Trump wins that one too.
