12 Comments
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Chris Hughes's avatar

This couldn't come at a better time. Glad you're explaining what worked and didn't work in your own voices!

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Andy DeMeo's avatar

Fantastic piece, well worth the read for anyone who wants to see us solve big problems faster. Will be sharing with a lot of my public sector friends across New England!

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Chase's avatar

Very much looking forward to reading!

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Bruce Raben's avatar

Outstanding true story. The good news is something like this had not be done in the US since probalby WW II. The bad news , the same. No modern road map so need to create and innovate, bob and weave through the thickets.

You made a difference.

Hats off.

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Detroitgearhead's avatar

Looking forward to the bagel discussion. Be good to see some discussion of the role of those demanding lots of bagel toppings in making it possible for the bagels to exist in the first place.

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Sathya Hari's avatar

Super interesting to hear about this.

The data looks a little different from the Peterson Institute. I think you clubbed CHIPS act-related growth with overall electronics growth in that first picture. https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2025/chips-act-already-puts-america-first-scrapping-it-would-poison-well

The CHIPS act share of total investment is about $50B in 2024 as per this graph, which is still significantly higher than the $1B. Did they get it wrong? Do you think that they've underestimated the investment impact of the CHIPS Act?

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Alex's avatar

In my gut I believe the CHIPS act was good policy and well implemented but I have no data to back that up. What's the metric for success here? How do we know it actually achieved a meaningful and efficient impact?

Like with snap we measure for every dollar spent we get about $1.54-$1.80 worth of economic activity. chips had $39 billion for incentives how do we know we got 39 billion worth of value from spending that?

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Suzanne Donohoe's avatar

Congrats on doing this team!!

I look forward to reading more and learning in the process.

(Having worked w Todd before, it is not surprising that he and his trusted colleagues would want to an “after action review” to improve the government,share wisdom and leave things in a stronger better place!!)

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Ally's avatar

Can’t wait to read this. Appreciate there may be limits on what you could publicly share but would be fascinating to see as much of the “guts” of the CHIPS project as possible in terms of actual documentation (the governance org chart, key terms of reference docs, your risk tools etc) and how some of that was arrived at, as I think this kind of stuff often gets overlooked on oral histories in favour of the more strategic discussion at senior levels (which is also super useful but often not how a project ‘feels’ day to day). Subscribed!

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Greg Costigan's avatar

Awesome work everyone

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Dave Deek's avatar

Love it! I am so crossposting this!

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Cathy Reisenwitz's avatar

I'd love to know more about how industrial policy aligns with employment. https://cathyreisenwitz.substack.com/p/to-win-young-men-talk-less-about

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