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vgr's profile
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
Venkatesh Rao
@vgr

Tweets

Venkatesh Rao

@vgr

This is my conversational account. For my work follow @ribbonfarm, @breaking_smart, @artofgig. Tweets are 90% vacuous views, apathetically held. Mediocritopian.

Los Angeles, CA
venkateshrao.com
Joined August 2007

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    1. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 11
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      Kaiser building thousands of miles of roads in the west. Early adopter of innovations. Steve Ballmer type seems like. Hard driving and hard working but subtler than Ballmer... not a bull type. Seems like he elevated roadwork from mostly manual labor to mostly machine.

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    2. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 12
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      Now we have Kaiser orchestrating the Six Companies to build Hoover Dam. He spent most of the time in DC managing the political bosses.

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    3. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 12
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      Huh, Kaiser apparently pioneered the internal competition model with Grand Coulee dam, which he later used in WW2 work. I guess that’s where the X/Y flyoff model originated perhaps?

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    4. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 18
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      Okay. Chapter on 1939-40 world fairs as transition, and we’re finally into WW2. Knudsen meets FDR.

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    5. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 18
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      Interior secretary Harold Ickes skeptical of Knudsen; “I have heard that Knudsen even makes his own notes in handwriting” (presumably as opposed to a secretary transcribing shorthand into typewritten notes) Moron. If you aren’t taking your own notes you’re not thinking.

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    6. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 18
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      Knudsen pulls together a sort of fellowship of the ring from across industry. They have to figure out what the military needs and tell them, because the military if 1940 doesn’t know.

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    7. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 24
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      Finally into the war production story proper. We’re talking tanks, airplanes, engines. Building for US, British, and French needs all at once, 1939-41. Just a vast amount of action getting underway.

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    8. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 24
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      Lessons and anecdotes at every level from rivets vs welding through contract laws to amortization regulations, to foreign policy. “Reality has a surprising amount of detail” is a good side read here. This is that times a million. http://johnsalvatier.org/blog/2017/reality-has-a-surprising-amount-of-detail …

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    9. Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 24
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      Nice anecdote: a banker who has to transfer top secret Merlin engine plans meets the battleship bringing them from the UK with an empty suitcase. The captain laughs: the plans occupy a whole railroad-car sized crate of paper (would be a container today... or a largish USB stick)

      4 replies 1 retweet 11 likes
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      Venkatesh Rao‏ @vgr Apr 25
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      Replying to @mizminh

      Yeah that was a fun part

      2:42 PM - 25 Apr 2020
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