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Barrett talks about politics, AMD and life after Intel

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Intel,
Barret

Mike Ricciuti CNET News.com

Published: 29 Oct 2004 16:39 BST

You have talked about the US not doing enough in jobs and education and infrastructure. Even if there was a concerted effort to boost education, how does that stem the offshoring of jobs?
Life is competitive. If you have the highest standard of living in the world, the only way you justify it is by having the most productive society in the world. The only way to be the most productive society in the world is to lead in new areas of technology, new areas of value-added. The only way to do that is to invest in R&D. It's no big secret. So there is going to be intense competition for new jobs. The only way to abate that in fact is you have an advantage in new fields. And the only way to do that is invest in R&D. I don't know any other answer. The numbers show you. The US graduates 50,000 engineers each year. China graduates 300,000, India graduates 200,000, Russia graduates 140,000. So where is the US going to be in [the] greater scheme of things if it is just a numbers game? You lose. The only way to win is if you have the best ideas, the most innovative products, and the only way to do that is with R&D investment, basic R&D investment.

If you have a better answer, tell me, and I'll go shout it from the rooftops. I don't know of another answer. We're not going to be successful by supporting the textile industry. Look at what [we've] done in the last few years. We've supported the textile industry, we protect the Florida tomato growers from competition, we protect ourselves from soft timber from Canada. And we have steel tariffs and agricultural subsidies. Which of those five areas is the industry of the 21st century?

I wouldn't trade places with AMD -- ever. They are a good competitor; they make us better; we make them better. Together, we make better profits for the world. That's competition, that's good. But the only way we are able to stay in that fray is because we invest a lot in R&D and so does AMD. The United States is not keeping track with that. Nearly 25 years of flat dollars in physical science in basic research. I'm not saying that the government ought to support Intel. I'm saying the government ought to support that basic R&D at a university level for the benefit of the United States.

My point is, even if they did, the Chinese and others are already ahead of us.
You can only catch up by running faster. The problem is, we're not having this debate [nationwide]. The government hasn't moved.

So who are you voting for?
I've already voted. I'm publicly listed as a Bush supporter. I contributed to his campaign. I've also contributed to Joe Lieberman's campaign, because Lieberman was the only one who was talking about these issues.

ZDNet UK sister site CNET News.com's Jai Singh and ZDNet's Dan Farber contributed to this report.