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America’s manufacturing crisis isn’t what you think

  • Stephen McBride
  • 5 days ago
  • 1 min read

Ask anyone what went wrong with American manufacturing, and they’ll tell you we have a worker shortage… that young people would rather be TikTok stars than pick up a welding torch. Fil Aronshtein says that misses the real problem.

 

Even if a million new workers showed up tomorrow, America still couldn’t build. Because the knowledge for how we build the hardest things was either shipped overseas or never written down in the first place.

 

Fil’s startup Dirac exists to close that gap.

 

I recently caught up with him to see how Dirac is turning old-school 2D drawings and tribal knowledge into the simple, step-by-step instructions factories actually need.

 

Click the image to watch my interview with Fil.
Click the image to watch my interview with Fil.

In our interview you’ll hear:

 

  • The terrifying flaw in American manufacturing (3:11)

  • What broke manufacturing, and how Dirac is fixing it. (9:17)

  • Why America can’t afford to offshore everything. (22:43)

  • The single most important part we can’t build enough of (46:20)

  • How Europe got caught between America and China, and can’t pick a side. (51:42)

 


—Stephen McBride

 

Stephen McBride is a co-founder of the Rational Optimist Society.

 

 
 
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