HP CEO: Dwindling tech talent hurt U.S.

The Daily
Wire has made it its business to inveigh against the steady decline in the
quality and scope of mathematics and science education in the United States. This decline will have - already
is having - deleterious effects on U.S. competitiveness. If not arrested
and reversed, this trend will hasten the U.S. decline as an economic and
military power, with all the attendant consequences for the nation’s security
and well-being.

We are
gratified to see that others agree, and that they share our sense of urgency. Mark Hurd,
CEO of Hewlett-Packard, says that the United
States is getting dumb, and that it is difficult to
attract top tech talent to the United States now.
Speaking at an event at Castilleja, a private girls school in Palo Alto, which his
daughter attends, Hurd lamented the sorry state of technical research in the United States. “In
this country, we have a problem,” Hurd says. “The source of this
country’s greatness has been its technical talent … But you have to go where
the tech talent is, and right now the tech talent is in Asia.” Hurd
says that only 40 percent of HP’s 40,000 engineers are now based in the United States, where it
had previously employed about two-thirds of its engineering force domestically.
“We often can’t keep [engineers] in the country even after they’ve
graduated from U.S. universities
like Stanford,” Hurd said.