Original 2021 statement: Most of the cost of equipment in every industry will be within the software and the chips - and not within the other hardware
What Jim has written about this
From “Headlines: What’s Really Going On With the Chip Shortage?” (October 2021)
EVERY industry is becoming a technology industry, and this might be you!
They were too slow to accept the reality that the future of the automotive industry doesn’t lay within the engine, but within the programming; they didn’t understand that connectivity is the new horsepower; they failed to appreciate that when everything becomes a technology story, the pace of change accelerates.
Here’s how you know they missed the boat - some of you will know I bought a Tesla Model 3 in August. Tesla has architected their car so that it receives a regular series of software updates to improve features, add capability, or align to the new infrastructure of the car. For months, I was wondering why I never received an update for the longest time from the purchase date. It turns out that my car was among several thousand that were using an entirely new set of chips that Tesla managed to source within the reality of the shortage - and so it was taking its time to reprogram the software for our vehicles to align to the new design.
From “Daily Inspiration: “It’s not a chip shortage - it’s a cautionary tale of what happens when you align to the future too slowly!”best” (October 2021)
They were too slow to accept the reality that the future of the automotive industry doesn’t lay within the engine, but within the programming; they didn’t understand that connectivity is the new horsepower; they failed to appreciate that when everything becomes a technology story, the pace of change accelerates.
Here’s how you know they missed the boat - some of you will know I bought a Tesla Model 3 in August. Tesla has architected their car so that it receives a regular series of software updates to improve features, add capability, or align to the new infrastructure of the car. For months, I was wondering why I never received an update for the longest time from the purchase date. It turns out that my car was among several thousand that were using an entirely new set of chips that Tesla managed to source within the reality of the shortage - and so it was taking its time to reprogram the software for our vehicles to align to the new design.
Every industry is becoming a tech industry, and most companies are ill-prepared to react. The result is the ‘chip shortage’ headlines that are seeing, in which these failures are trying to blame chip companies for their own strategic witness.
From “Decoding Tomorrow: 30 Megatrends - #29 The Arrival of the Humanoid Robot - “A decade of progress in a year; the humanoid robot era is here, and it’s accelerating with astonishing speed and breathtaking developments.”” (August 2025)
The humanoid robot industry is accelerating due to a convergence of advanced AI, collapsing hardware costs, and massive new investment. This is moving humanoids from science fiction to industrial reality, with deployments scaling in factories to address global labor shortages. The next wave will expand into healthcare and elder care, bringing the long-term vision of domestic assistance closer to reality.
So what’s up? We are clearly at the Humanoid Robot Inflection Point: We stand at a historic inflection point in humanoid robotics, driven by the powerful convergence of exponential AI advances, unprecedented capital investment, revolutionary training technologies, and rapidly falling hardware costs—all unfolding within a distinct geopolitical landscape that will shape the future of work.
More recently, this open-source spirit is extending to hardware. Projects like the Berkeley Humanoid Lite are making designs for capable, 3D-printable robots publicly available, while platforms like Pollen Robotics’ Reachy and ROBOTIS OP3 offer fully open-source hardware and software stacks. This democratizes access to humanoid robotics, lowering the traditionally high barrier to entry for researchers, students, and startups.
Read the full pieces on jimcarroll.com:
Headlines: What’s Really Going On With the Chip Shortage?
Daily Inspiration: “It’s not a chip shortage - it’s a cautionary tale of what happens when you align to the future too slowly!”best
Decoding Tomorrow: 30 Megatrends - #29 The Arrival of the Humanoid Robot - “A decade of progress in a year; the humanoid robot era is here, and it’s accelerating with astonishing speed and breathtaking developments.”