Relentless The US vs. China Manufacturing Debate
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Feb 27, 2026 
Aaron Slodov, founder of Atomic Industries and former Waymo engineer focused on rebuilding U.S. manufacturing. Sam D'Amico, founder of Impulse Labs and ex-Google Glass/Oculus engineer with China manufacturing experience. They debate China’s deep factory-engineering model, U.S. deindustrialization, reshoring strategies, financing factories, AI/data-center demand as an onshoring lever, and lessons from Tesla, BYD, and Apple.
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How China Factories Became Full Engineering Partners
- Sam D'Amico started visiting China in 2013 after Google Glass and found factories that provided full engineering teams to co-design products.
- He describes the factory as a machine that not only assembles but R&Ds designs around supply chains and tooling, speeding product development.
Manufacturing Is Reinforcement Learning
- Aaron Slodov frames advanced manufacturing as a form of reinforcement learning where tacit process knowledge accrues only through high-volume production.
- He warns that China is snowballing tribal knowledge via mass production, making it hard to catch up once capabilities are lost.
Onshore The Electric Stack Near Engineers
- Sam D'Amico recommends onshoring a focused portfolio around an 'electric stack' (batteries, power electronics, embedded compute, electromagnetics, camera hardware) to rebuild core capabilities.
- He advises placing factories near engineers (Bay Area or rebuilt Midwestern towns) so design and production share context and speed iteration.