Guest Post by Fred Reed
In America two narratives about Mexico dominate. First, chiefly emanating from anti-immigrant ideologues who usually have never been here, holds that Mexicans have low IQs and cannot function at other than a primitive level. Breitbart News and something called Vdare are chief among these. They don’t quite expect to find all Mexicans either robbing banks or sleeping at the foot of cactuses win big hats and a burro, but they come close.
A Mexican software-engineering firm as conceived by Breitbart News The donkey is the brains of the operation as Mexicans do not have brains. Sigh. Some people need to get out more.
In stark contrast is what one hears from companies involved in high-tech fields. They speak of a large pool of Mexican engineers of high quality in everything from software to robotics. They hire them in droves. These are not assembly-line workers or even manufacturing engineers in traditional industries, such as cars. They are either in tech start-ups like Wizeline, below, or in software-development for big outfits like IBM, Intel, and Oracle, which have a large presence in Guadalajara. More on these in a later column.
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The other day I want to Guadalajara to talk to Matt Pasarienski, of Wizeline, a software-services outfit based in San Francisco but with large and growing presence in Mexico. (Wizeline: “Intelligent Solutions, PPM Software, Services, and Chatbots”)
Pasarienski is a wiry, high-energy guy. One can imagine him as a kid in a garage in Silicon Valley, living on Cheetos and Jolt Cola and writing code for days without sleep. Undergrad at Berkeley, PhD in physics, University of Illinois.
Wizeline has two big buildings in the old Kodak facility on Mariana Otero, vast open rooms with rows of desks with screens, lots of young techy-looking people, cafeterias. The atmosphere reminded me of the SpaceX assembly floor in Hawthorne but without the rockets.
Some Wizeliners. The formal dress is characteristic of techies everywhere.
Pasarienski speaks fast and cogently. “We have 200 (software) engineers and want to hire 1000 more. We now hire about 15-20 a month. They are good, speak English, and learn fast. Definitely good for a world-class enterprise.”
He mentions that Mexico graduates 13,000 software engineers a year, and sees the country as fertile ground for IT start-ups, for which Guadalajara is becoming a hub.
(Interstitial tidbit: Tesla recruiting Mexican robotics engineers.)
Among many other things, Wizeline builds chatbots, roughly software that can intelligently answer questions, either by classic keyboard chat or voice, about products and services. These might, for example, replace the customer-service operators in Mumbai whose accent you cannot understand. This is definitely artificial intelligence, which means that you need real intelligence to figure out how to do it.
Wizeline is not close to unique in hiring local engineers. Bloomberg: “As global automakers pour billions of dollars into their Mexican factories, Marcos Perez is trying to make sure the nation’s future goes beyond assembly lines. The head of product development at Ford Motor’s Mexico unit, Perez has helped the company almost triple its local engineering staff, to nearly 1,000, since 2010. “
Says Pasarienski, “There is a fundamental difference between tech–what we are doing–and traditional manufacturing. To manufacture cars you need a billion-dollar factory, and engineers with a lot of experience. The factory belongs to a company outside of Mexico, which repatriates the profits.
“In what we are doing, AI, nobody has twenty years of experience because the field hasn’t existed that long. We can jump to the head of the line.”
Many tech-oriented people see things this way. I talked to Andreas Kraemer of MItaventures, a venture-capital firm looking to fund start-ups in Mexico. He too wants to tap into local talent. From the website: “Cross-border tech innovation: We see Mexico as the innovation bridge between Latin America and Silicon Valley. We believe there are emerging opportunities for tech startup successes between these regions”
The foregoing is corporate-speak, yes, but bear in mind that these men and countless others are hard-headed, very savvy tech-and-finance guys. They don’t do racial ideology. They do can-we-do-it and will-it-work. And what’s the bottom line.
Pasarienski gives an interesting rationale for Mexico as start-up territory. “It used to be that kids doing a startup lived in a house and built the start-up in the garage. Today things are so expensive in California that they would have to live in the garage. The cost of living eats up more capital than most people have. Mexico is much cheaper, both for rent and paying engineers,”
Actually, technical talent is visible to anyone who lives here in all manner of things. But the ideologues saying how stupid Mexicans are don’t live here. The leaders tend to be talking heads of the Manhattan-DC corridor and, to my certain knowledge, many have written for years of this country’s hopeless primitivism without bothering to visit. I think we call this “fake news.”
The Chiapas, Mexican Navy
Jane’s: “While designated as Oaxaca-class vessels, a type designed by the Mexican Navy, the new OPVs are actually improved derivatives of this class, featuring several modifications, including a bulbous bow and a BAE Systems Bofors Mk.3 57 mm main gun.” Jane is not a girl. Jane’s is probably the world’s leading military magazine.
Further saith Jane’s: “Constructed at the Naval Shipyard (ASTIMAR) N°20 in Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, Chiapas is the first of four OPVs that were ordered as part of the SEMAR 2013-2018 plan. The second, ARM Hidalgo (PO 166), has already been launched and is expected to be commissioned in 2017, while construction of the third ship has already started in Salina Cruz.”
Finally–this has nothing to do with startups in Mexico, but I find it irresistible:
Wired. HOW 4 MEXICAN IMMIGRANT KIDS AND THEIR CHEAP ROBOT BEAT MIT
The robot. a tethered underwater manipulator. Built on a very low budget and a lot of spare parts. Ugly as refried sin. Worked.
Interesting story, this, from 2004with here a gee-whizzy slightly lengthy video. Interpret it as you will. In short, four illegals in a lousy high school in Phoenix entered a university-level contest to build an underwater robot. They won. I won’t recap it lengthily here, but follow the links if interested. This was not a softball contest. The judges were heavyweights in submersible design from the US Navy and the petroleum industry.
The team. I am often told buy the racialists that anything intelligent done by Mexicans is done only by the white ones. Well, I concede. These kids do look positively Nordic. Swedes is my guess. When they won, the MIT team had the grace to give them a standing ovation. (The book on the contest, Spare Parts, is a good read.)
The Mastretta MXT, designed and built entirely in Mexico. 0-60 mph, 4.9 sec, tops out at 150, sort of $60K. The company then died in some corporate dispute.
The British automotive show Top Gear, having made snotty remarks about the very idea of the Mexicans making a sports car, received a great deal of flack, and so a staffer to test drive it in Mexico. He noted that first cars in a country were usually cheap family boxes and that it was unusual to go straight to a sports car. He concluded that it was a decent enough car despite some fixable teething problems.
Aaagh. Enough. The point here for anyone interested in the United States and its neighbor is that a lot of growth in tech ffelds is going on here which businessmen have most assuredly noticed. This has not gotten through to the recorded messages who write for Breitbart and its metastases.
Provide links and evidence to your fake narrative about Breitbart and the beliefs of 10s of millions of Americans. Why not include some facts about the crime illegal mexicans perpetrate on Americans, many of who are mexican Americans which many Americans are worried about.
Stereotypicl slander!
Fact!
illegal Mexicans…who are Mexican Americans – factual
Wait, are you saying I’m illegal or just my buddies who are Mexican American also?
EC
Yawn! One of the daily murders and dismemberments!
Dismemberments in Poza Rica
Around 8:30 pm three corpses were left dismembered on the corner of the Las Garzas and Flamingos roads in Infonavit Gaviotas, which provoked an intense mobilization of the police in a question of minutes on the part of elements of the Fuerza Civil assigned to the metropolitan zone.
Various blocks were cordoned off and neighbours and were prohibited from moving within the zone to preserve any evidence, at the site of the discovery of the cadavers, there were the bodies of a woman and a man.The information circulating on social networks was that the persons were known as Carlos Hernandez “El Reptil” and his wife Esmeralda Zarate, who were kidnapped in Pozo de Agua Viva some days ago, which is in the Pozo Trece de la colonia of Poza Rica.
A narco message was left with the body parts on which the following could be read.
“Poza Rica free this happened to me x Extortioner and Kidnapper, the cleaning has started ATTE CJNG”
The second narco message said ” The cleaning continues with you PEPE PEPE: ( Pastor Zurdo (Tormenta), Cochiloco Panzas, Freddy, Francisco Serrano, La Zorra, that is pertinent to (35Z) and Los Z, were are coming for, the rest of the message was hidden under a body part.
But maybe it was a high tech dismemberment….
As always, when Fred writes his Mexico promotion pieces, he (intentionally?) presents the 15 – 20 % on the right side of the curve as representative for the whole country.
Sorry Fred, not falling for it.
Mexican engineer. Isn’t that an oxymoron?
Fred leaves out the three basic types of Mexicans.
1. Castillian/European stock. Primarily Spanish/German/Nordic blood. Why else are there true blondes there?
2. Castizo stock. Somewhere around 50% Euro stock. The ones that have some feature of both white and indian features.
3. Mestizo stock. Mostly amerindian/slice-the-still-beating-heart-out-with-an-obsidian-knife-looking people.
Generalizations, yes, as there is still black admixture and such to account for.
Guess which are coming here illegally, and which ones are staying and ruling over the others?
“there is still black admixture and such to account for”
Virtually none, actually. There were virtually no African slaves in Mexico as the primary serf vocation was mine work and Africans were found unsuitable for that task.
Their ongoing Civil War and legendary corruption will surely not hinder the blinding beacon to humanity that is Mexico’s achievements in the field of Artificial Intelligence.
It’s not a civil war, it’s a narco-trafficker turf war; big difference, moran.
Unless you think the 1920’s gangland murders constitute a civil war also.
You all are missing Fred’s point. I understand.
I too would hate to hear somebody tell me my neighbors are not the dumb idiots I like to think they are and then have to suffer hearing about how wonderful they are and how prosperous they are and how their kids got Student of the Month while I am wondering how to pay for a new heating unit and many other home repairs I wish I could pay for but plumbers and roofers and painters and divorce lawyers are too expensive plus my kid just came home with a failing report card.
Yeppers, Fred’s article is grating.
EC
You have entire school buses full of children going missing. Political figures, police, media, and ordinary citizens yelling for their rights all getting targeted and murdered in ways that makes ISIS look cuddly.
Cartels own entire cities, districts, and much of entire territories. They outgun just about everybody.
Its a civil war.
By that definition and with Sandy Hook and Vegas in mind, we are in a civil war here, moran. While the wider war in Colombia is called the Colombian Conflict, in Mexico it is called the Mexican Drug War.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Drug_War
. Notice how the Wiseline starter was schooled in the US. My guess is an illegal dreamer on the taxpayers dime. That aside if Mexicans are loaded with “potential” why do they head for the boarder in droves? If such potential and such “genius” was able to create companies of this nature there would be jobs for them in their home country. Hell NAFTA was leaned so far in Mexico’s favor it may as well have just been titled the “Screw the US Trade and Manufacturing Industry”. If not idiots, with an inept and corrupt culture, how else is a country loaded with resources and tourism potential a 2nd world cesspool? If not idiots, why is it that every neighborhood that has an influx of Mexicans suddenly turns into Tijuana? Oh, yes…I am certain everyone is “missing the point” of Reed’s article.
Take your blinders off, digits, I told you before that NAFTA is like making a deal with your poor neighbor to pay him poco dinero in return for his doing mucho trabajo. According to the papers, this worked well for both countries until 2000 when China grabbed the lion’s share of manufacturing. That’s around the same time all this narco unrest started. Coincidence? I think not.
EC
I’d like to hear more stories about the American’s who set up their corporate shops down in Mexico so they can avoid hiring US workers so I know which companies to not do business with. Whatever Wizeline does exactly, I hope I don’t contribute to their bottom line.
On the other hand I watched the movie based on the Spare Parts and it was interesting.
What you do is what you are.
Mexicans created Mexico.
Mexicans are now trying everything can, even facing death to escape it and get somewhere else (here mostly).
What picture of Mexico and Mexicans does that best fit?
There are sub Saharan Africans with IQ’s >120. Fred needs study distribution of attributes, except that there’s no need for him to do so because he’s single-minded about presenting Mexico and Mexicans as The Best. WTF does an anecdote or two about some smart Mexicans have to do with our refusal to allow the US-Mexico border to be left wide open? The good news – which Fred unwittingly bolsters – is that if we ever shut down the ability of (mostly undereducated) Mexicans to sneak into the US, they’ll have ever-increasing opportunities within Mexico, given its smart and talented population. #MMGA!
Mexico second most violent country in the world:
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/10/527794495/mexico-is-called-worlds-second-most-violent-country
Fortunately they are trying hard to reach Number 1:
http://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2017/04/04/522621303/with-murders-on-the-rise-2017-on-track-to-be-one-of-mexicos-deadliest-years
I guess I am racist to point out that while there are a number of outstanding Mexicans there are a large number of violent and deadly Mexicans. While most are somewhere in the middle, and the ones that come over to the U.S. represents each of these groups. The violent criminals as well as the ones who use a disproportionate amount of of the U. S. services are enough to turn off many Americans from wanting any illegal immigration. Recent studies have clearly pointed out that the illegal immigration is a substantial drain on public services, just look at the school systems.
https://fairus.org/issue/publications-resources/fiscal-burden-illegal-immigration-united-states-taxpayers
I think people are getting tired of being told they are paying for future valedictorians and finding out they are getting something less.
Bob
We should be creating a trade and infrastructure zone in the Western Hemisphere, stretching from Alaska down to Tierra Del Fuego. This would compete with China’s “Silk Road”. We need to withdraw from Asia and Europe, and concentrate on establishing peace and order in the America’s using sane and rational laws, like, for example, legalizing and regulating the drug trade. We should be cooperating with Latin America and Canada in this, not fighting with them.
Of course, by the tone of the bullshit comments I read on here, this isn’t going to happen. America has no future, because Americans are fucking stupid assholes.
I agree that we should not be fighting with Latin America and Canada (I thought we only we at war with Canada on South Park, so that is a bit surprising to hear we have been fighting with them.), and I can even agree it would be nice if we left Asia and Europe alone and stopped meddling over there.
The problem is that we, as a country do not know how to treat a country with respect. If I were any South or Central American country the last thing I would do is trust the good ole’ US of A. We’ve spent a lot of years destabilizing and overthrowing governments down there. Seems like China at least can offer us cheap goods, but what could we get from Paraguay?
Why? What does South America have that anyone wants? The center of power, according to the leading geopolitical theorists, is, has, and always will be Asia. Most people, most resources, most opportunities. Control of Asia is the goal of the game. That’s why we meddle in so many shitcanistans. The Chinese finally got the idea and came up with a game-changing idea that will put us in the backseat forever. Linking their resource-hungry population with Russia and Asia’s resources and their factories with Europe’s consumers is brilliant. Power, fuel, commodities, food, and people will flow like never before, creating wealth for China and everyone who gets on board. The US is fucked. Everyone who tries to resist, stay out, or somehow condemns this plan is fucked. The future will be the world united with China or backwards despotism. Unless China collapses under the weight of their own contradictions.
PC,
How do you negotiate with multiple corrupt, many of them bankrupt nations. Several of whom are full blown communist and socialist countries. Many of their governments of these nation get into power excoriating the United States. I am all for free trade, but it is usually anything but free.
Bob.
BB, exactly how are the countries you describe any different from the USA?
Corrupt
Bankrupt
Communist/Socialist
Get into power excoriating the US – see 2016 election
EC
120 years ago the Irish were lazy, drunk and stupid…. just sayin
We still are.
I’ll drink to that!
Before there was an income tax, the government was funded by liquor sales. The drunken Irish inspired the temperance movement that led to prohibition. The government now had to pick everybody’s pocket because – the Irish. Thanks a lot, Iska.
EC
If it is so fucking great there? Why are so many of them breaking the law to enter this country? I suggest they return home and take all those great IT jobs in that shithole of a country.
I’m Mexican, aged 34, working as a SW engineer in the automotive industry since 2008…
Mexico, outside of the main 3 big “cities” (Ciudad de Mexico, Guadalajara and Monterrey) is a shithole. It’s like traveling back in time 90 years. No sewer system in 80% of the mexican territory, meaning that people will throw garbage and sewage water into the rivers (if one is close enough) or just a few meters away from where they live. Trash everywere, filthy streets and sidewalks.
Even in the big “cities”, only a few parts of them could be called “safe”, most of them are riddled with gangs, armed robbery, theft (of all kinds) and decaying structures… Overshadowing Detroit.
Most people are incredibly superstitious and morally corrupt, even though more than 80% are Catholic/Christian.
Our government (all branches and agencies) is a cesspool of corruption and psychopaths.
At the airports outside of Mexico, you can’t miss the gates for flights to Mexico… All the mexican stereotypes are there, always ignoring the written and verbal rules.
Most of the “Mexican” technology comes from foreign companies; I can’t recall a single 100% Mexican technology industry. There’s no heavy industries here either, only a handful of pitiful steel mills.
The Mastretta Mexican car is a sad joke. I’ve seen better sand buggies built with less money. Military or commercial vessels, forget about it… The Mexican Navy is full of hand me downs from other countries from 60 years ago. Not even worth talking about our “aerospace industry”
We’re lucky to have the USA so close, being convenient for them to hire us as cheap labor. Without the USA and Germany bringing jobs with their industries, we’ll look like South Africa or worse.
I don’t deny I’m a mexican, but I’m not proud either. Just telling it like it is.
“In what we are doing, AI, nobody has twenty years of experience because the field hasn’t existed that long.”
Terminal Man, a novel by Michael Crichton which features 2 AI characters, was published in 1972. Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach, the standard textbook used in universities around the world, was first published in 1995.
I guess this is Fred’s first exposure to a bullshit VC startup. These kids don’t even have a wiki entry. They’ll burn through the money after a year of reinventing the wheel when the investors finally realize everything they’re selling is already available for free from google.
Whatever, Fred.
None of those fascinating individuals you cited are the ones in the torn-up minivans with mis-matched body panels who work illegally here, bring crime, dog fighting, rape, drunk driving, drugs, and disease, while collecting welfare and sending their ignorant, frequently uncivilized, kids to public schools, creating an atmosphere where learning is almost impossible, driving real Americans into homeschooling where I live.
None of the dudes in the ghetto down the street are building robots and artificial intelligence. Instead, they’re stealing stuff, shooting each other, and dumping their trash everywhere, generally making it an unpleasant place to live. Actually, the dude who stole an entire wheel off one of my neighbor’s cars might be building something, but I doubt it’s Mexico’s next armored personnel carrier or self-driving white work van.