Repositioning for the Future: Reindustrialize aka Back to the Future for America

It’s 2025 and the world has changed a lot. No Sh-t you would say. We have been bracketed by historical levels of change on the political level, technology level, economic level and social level. We’re deglobalizing as we split into regional blocks and geopolitics have heated up into a new Cold War between the Global West and the Global East. 

I’ve been in Silicon Valley for over 26 years and I’ve had to reinvent myself at least 4 times. Startup guy, big tech executive, Venture Capitalist, Holding Co Operator, then back to VC & Investing. 

I realized in 2024, it’s time to rethink everything and reinvent myself again. In the midst of personal & family issues, as well as just plain dissatisfaction with startup investing. I was just plain tired & worn out. 

I wasn’t as excited about venture investing in the next SaaS, Developer tool, marketplace or whatever startup as I used to. I love my portfolio cos and am proud of what they are trying to do. The world has changed and you have to change with it. But sometimes you also just want to take a break. This is exactly what we did for the 2nd half of 2024 and basically stopped investing for almost a year. 

I spent more time exercising, fight training and spent more time with my aging parents. I went into austerity mode as well, cutting my personal budget in preparation for future opportunities and challenges. 

I also took the time to retool like I did in 2012-2013 by reading & writing a lot. Deep learning mode. I also attended conferences like IMTS (International Manufacturing Technology Summit) & Re-industrialize and Deeptech Weeks in various cities. I took random classes like how to get good at Twitter aka X. All in the search for something that piqued my curiosity. 

What I discovered during this time and in the prior years terrified me. Our reliance on enemies like China for so much of our supply chain. Our wrecked and hollowed out Industrial base. That our previous “Freedom’s Forge” of industrial power that saved civilization in World War 2 doesn’t exist anymore. We outsourced most of this to China and Asia in general. 

China for example has 240X the shipbuilding capacity than we do. China has become the automotive manufacturing king in the world. Why is this an issue: automotive manufacturing is dual use, if you can make a car or truck, you can easily retool to make a plane, gun or tank.

As we found, the EU & USA can’t even produce enough artillery shells for Ukraine. In fact, South Korea produces over 20% of the shells being supplied. Russia & North Korea are outproducing the West just in artillery shells. China has 97% of market share in drones, what is widely acknowledged is critical in the new face of war. 

But we have finally woken up to the threat of the CCP in China and Russia (as well as the rest of the axis of North Korea and Iran). And the costs of potential failure and weakness in the West are incredibly high. It should be frightening to everyone and a threat to our way of life. These are not nice people. 

In this lies America’s biggest opportunity to rejuvenate itself. We’re still the world’s biggest consumer market, with plenty of land, lots of food and cheap energy supplies + lots of talented people. Friend-shoring industry to places like Japan, South Korea or Vietnam is one key step as key production is leaving China. 

But frankly, we need to at least 2x our industrial base in America over the next decade. We have cheap natural gas that will enable cheap production. Taking a blank slate approach, tapping the manufacturing expertise that still exists in the various clusters and combining this with growing AI/ Robotics capabilities, we can spin up more new factories and bring back good jobs as well. The American Midwest aka Rust Belt, Texas and South are well positioned for the future. 

This is what I am going to focus my energy and money on for the rest of the decade of the roaring 2020s. Investing in Defensetech (Defense is ESG), Aerospace, Manufacturing tech, Robotics, Supply Chain-tech and anything related to re-industrializing America and our allies. And doing this not just through the mechanisms of venture capital but also through private equity and credit/debt facilities aka Production Capital. Consequently, I will be spending less time in Europe (outside of Ukraine & Italy/Albania personally), and more in America and Asia. 

This re-industrialization of America is mission critical for the West (which includes Europe, Canada, AUSNZ, South Korea, Taiwan and Japan) and it’s become mission critical for me. Let the new chapter begin.