Quantum Chip and Trumps Means

Host: [00:00:00] Welcome to Discourse, where we cut through the noise and make sense of the chaos. I'm your host, Wayne Unger. I'm a law professor and former Silicon Valley nerd, and I've spent years breaking down complex topics into digestible takeaways. And on this podcast, we'll take a deep dive into the pressing issues shaping our world in law, politics, technology, business, and more.

No echo chambers, no corporate influence, just thoughtful analysis and respectful civic dialogue. Because understanding different perspectives isn't just important, it's necessary. Let's get started.  

On today's docket, we have two major stories. The first one is coming out of tech. It comes from Microsoft and a significant advancement in something called quantum computing, which I'll explain to the best of my ability. And then the second thing on the docket today, is probably not surprisingly the Trump administration and the federal government.

So, we are recording this on Friday, February 21st at 10. 23 p. m. and things may have [00:01:00]changed since then. Let's begin with Microsoft's pioneering quantum computing revolutionary Announcement that came earlier this week. So here and I'm going to borrow from some of my friends and some of the articles that I've read on this.

For example, I'm going to borrow from Meg Minolte, uh, in her substack called Cypher talk. I'm also going to borrow from some of the news agencies. Nature magazine and some other sources to try to explain this as best as I possibly can without having a physics background or a engineering background.

But here we go. So Microsoft has announced that it has created the first topological qubits, a way of storing quantum information that will. Undergird this kind of new generation, this emerging generation in quantum computing. Okay, so quantum computing, I would assume that [00:02:00] most of my listener listeners have never even heard of it, and so perhaps it is valuable to take one step back.

And talk through kind of what is quantum computing, how is it different from conventional computing and kind of what this means for the future of technology and really the future of the world. Because as one person put it in an article that I read earlier today, this could be as significant of an advancement in technology as the original transistor.

And if you understand computing. And, uh, printed circuit boards and the components that go into computing devices, right? A transistor at its core is very significant. This is truly revolutionary in that sense. Let me just quickly explain conventional computing and then I'll compare that to quantum computing for a second.

So today we are very much used to having all sorts of computing [00:03:00] devices floating around us. At any time. And in fact, we may even keep multiple computing devices on us, either through a cell phone or, a, um, uh wearable is the word I'm looking for. So these type of computing devices, and it may seem kind of hard to believe because at least in my generation, growing up with computing devices, I have seen leaps and bounds, the growth and kind of, Both the storage capability, the processing power, the technical ability that these computers have had and has have developed over the last 20, 30, 30 years now.

This is, we're kind of on the verge of the next generation of computing, so to speak. So, in a standard or classical computing model, well, things exist in [00:04:00] kind of this binary state. Ones or zeros and they can't exist simultaneously together. So when a computer is processing information, it's processing a bunch of ones and zeros.

If perhaps we break it down, classical software development, programming languages, machine code, kind of everything that goes through the printed circuit board and the thousands of transistors on any computing device. Well, again, it thinks in ones and zeros, so in binary states, now quantum computing is just fundamentally different because ones and zeros can exist simultaneously and execute an algorithm kind of on all options in a single step versus having, say, you know, maybe significant load time, I'm using air quotes, but you can't see that that [00:05:00] may come with it.

So, um, yeah. Classical computing. So, that's kind of the best way that I can strive it in, in such a short little, uh, podcast here, but the significance of quantum computing is that it is significantly more powerful by a magnitude, multiple magnitudes than classical computing. If we think about the potential applications in the future, potential applications are endless where it comes to new generations of encryption.

New leaps and bounds in, in scientific breakthrough and potentially medicine, also national security implications. And so from a geopolitical standpoint, we've had countries pursue and invest in quantum computing because let's say one country is significantly far more advanced and is able to roll out quantum computing.

Well, quantum computing, it is [00:06:00] speculated and probably very reasonably speculated that quantum computing can break any encryption system that we have today or model that we have today. In this way, once again, conventional computers process information in the form of digital bits, zeros, and ones, while quantum computers deploy quantum bits.

also known as qubits, to store quantum information and values between zero and one. So again, unlike conventional computing, where it's an on or off state, a zero or one state, quantum computers can have that exist in multiple states at once. So the challenge with quantum computing, however, is in its error rate.

 I don't mean this in the error rate of, if you put two and two together, it equals four, or that's not what I mean. See quantum computing computers, excuse me, are, are finicky [00:07:00] and they have a tendency to lose information because the qubits themselves are unstable. So even if information loss can be avoided, it's, it's difficult to translate it into classical information, which is necessary to, to yield a useful computation.

Okay, let's get back to Microsoft and now that we've, to the best of my ability, explained the difference between classical computing and quantum computing. Talk about why Microsoft's invention is, notable here for us to recognize here and, and, and I think of all that I have read on quantum computing, Meg McNulty in her, sub stack cypher talk, perhaps has put it in the plainest terms, I think for, for us to understand here.

Microsoft this week announced the major Anna one chip, which is just fundamentally and totally different than what other tech companies have attempted to pursue [00:08:00] or have pursued over the last 20 years or so in the quantum space. The result is that the quantum chip released by Microsoft or announced by Microsoft could just fundamentally redefine the timeline for practical.

At scale quantum computing, and instead of it being, say, decades out, now it's perhaps one decade out, maybe even a couple of years less than a decade out, so Microsoft has invested heavily, according to their press release in quantum computing down to material science and material engineering, so at the heart of The major Anna chip is a completely new type of material.

And I'm quoting from their press release, as well as, the cipher talk sub stack here, the company has developed what it's called a topo conductor, a material engineered Adam by Adam [00:09:00] to host a unique kind of particle major and a particles that can store information. In a more robust way than any traditional quantum bits.

Okay, so why does this matter? Well, most computers, quantum computers, rely on qubits. As I mentioned, the basic building blocks of quantum computing. They rely on these qubits that are fragile and easily disrupted by the environment. So, something can Disrupt kind of what they've been tasked to do. If you want to think of it in, in those terms and even the best systems, even the best quantum computing systems have errors in how they're designed today.

So Microsoft's advancement here is significant because the topological qubits, which store the information in a way that's less vulnerable to outside interference and disruption. is, protecting those [00:10:00] qubits more robustly than they've ever been protected before. And so they are far more stable, which means less error rates, reducing the need for reprocessing and error correction.

 And it also leads to more reliable computations, allowing for, significant computation tasks and algorithmic tasks. Now, here, this is fundamentally different than, as I mentioned, other tech companies and what they've been pursuing. So, CypherTalk describes how IBM, for example, has tackled superconducting qubits, and they have heavily focused on error correction.

So, IBM has been a leader in superconducting quantum computing. Their approach requires a huge error correction because their qubits are prone to noise, prone to disruption. Now, Google, same thing. They are looking at superconducting qubits [00:11:00] and they made headlines. A lot of people have been working on this several years ago. In their quantum computing advancements, solving a problem. They actually modeled this out, solving a problem that would take classical computers billions of years. Now they continue this work, but word is that their quantum computing is still prone to high error rates. Now Microsoft, again topological qubits, if Assuming that what Microsoft has announced, of course, is actually what it is.

Not that I have any reason to believe that Microsoft is lying to the market, that's not what I'm saying. But assuming that it can do what Microsoft says it can do, and of course recognizing the advancements that will come from just this significant invention, Microsoft could just leapfrog all of the other competitors in the quantum computing [00:12:00] space who are attempting to do this, because, as I mentioned, everyone else is dealing with these very fragile, this prone to disruption qubits, and Microsoft here has pioneered something to keep them, really to build them more robustly to mitigate that fragility of the qubits.

Okay, so this changes the timeline because the biggest problem, at least today, faced in the quantum computing development is that error rate and that disruption that occurs. And so because Microsoft has solved for this, we can now move towards the applications of quantum computing and look at them at a, at scale.

So, what does this mean for certain industries? Let's give an example here. We have learned, over the last, say, two years about, generative AI and significant advancements in artificial [00:13:00]intelligence. And if we just look at the healthcare space, it is helping physicians and primary care physicians and specialists diagnose patients much more quickly or much earlier in, an illness that could be on set in machine learning and artificial intelligence.

Specifically, quantum computing can train artificial intelligence much more quickly and uncover insights that classical computing cannot do because the processing power isn't there. Furthermore, it could really revolutionize global communication networks, making data transfers faster, more secure, more resilient.

And this is just what we can fathom today. If we rewind 30, 40, 50 years and we think through whether some of us, I wasn't alive at the time, but whether my parents, [00:14:00] as an example, could fathom what a conventional computer would look like today and what we would be doing with conventional computers today, perhaps was significantly far out of their minds was totally science fiction.

And perhaps that's the era in which we are in right now for quantum computing is we are pursuing a technology just as they were 50 years ago with, um, personal computing and the internet without understanding what it will become because it will take a life of its own. And innovation will fuel the development of quantum computing and, with Microsoft's advancement here, it is unknown what's, what's going to happen.

So it's really intriguing to follow this. So I may talk more on quantum computing on a future episode as I learn more about it. But that is probably the most [00:15:00] incredible technological news in, in at least recent memory for me, that isn't something that's bad. Tech news can be, not so good every now and then, tech news such as the latest data breach that affects, you know, 150 million people.

This is not that case. This is potentially. groundbreaking news, from Microsoft. And we will see what it will lead to here. So I want to switch gears to, the Trump administration, as I mentioned at the top of this recording and talk through kind of what I've been thinking about.

Before I begin, I'll say that as I convey my thoughts and my commentary here, I'm not excusing anything that is being done. I'm just trying to rationalize it. So that is a difference here. Trying to rationalize something versus excusing something. So with that said, we know that over the last four [00:16:00] weeks or so, the Trump administration has moved quite quickly and has disrupted the federal government and global geopolitics in ways that.

 Perhaps some of Trump's base did not even predict and, he has done some actions which have been held up in court due to their questionable legality and their questionable constitutionality. I've spoken about those in other episodes and of course I will continue to speak about those in future episodes as I try to make sense of those and, and help.

 You all, understand what the heck is going on, at least at the federal government, because it can seem scary. So I'm going to speak more in the general sense for this podcast, this episode, and less so in the specific context. I don't want to get too far into the weeds regarding any one particular thing that the Trump administration has done or perhaps has not done.

Um, just to give a couple of samples [00:17:00] of where I'm going with this. So just the other day, Donald Trump called, Ukraine's President Zelensky a dictator, accused him of starting the war in Ukraine when it is an objective fact that Putin, the president of Russia, invaded Ukraine. Unprovoked and so there's the geopolitical aspects there.

 Donald Trump has also, publicly said that the U. S. will take ownership of the Gaza Strip and will turn it into something that the Middle East could be proud of, I believe is the language that he used, but don't quote me exactly on that. And at least domestically here, he has moved in with, his help, from his Department of Government Efficiency, which in a previous episode I've mentioned is kind of a misleading term because it's not a department from the legal sense of the [00:18:00] word, but that said, Elon Musk is certainly helping the Trump administration just totally reshuffle and reduce the headcount in the federal government.

Now, this aligns with what Trump said during his campaigns, and I say campaigns because it goes back to 2016 and 2020, and of course the 2024 election as well, where his mantra of drain the swamp, right? But perhaps it has picked up even more so, uh, really ahead of the 2024 election, and then now that he's in office.

Where it's maybe more than just draining the swamp, even though that was, um, kind of a figure of speech that many, supporters and opponents couldn't grasp, you know, firmly because it wasn't concrete enough. But ahead of the 2024 election, Donald Trump made claims and he continues to make [00:19:00] claims now that he's in office.

Of wanting to purge the federal government of unloyal federal government employees, those who have opposed him, those who have spoken out against him. We've seen some acts that could be considered retaliatory, such as certain employees who have spoken out against some of the things that he has done, Trump has done over the last four weeks, being essentially walked out of the workplace, after that criticism became public criticism.

We have seen, the secretaries of his department, so his cabinet, at least those that have been confirmed, mention things that have thrown, a lot of chaos into the world, and the news is trying to keep up, and we're all trying to keep up. So that is kind of what's happening at a general level.

Again, my intention with this episode was not to get into any one situation specifically, but really talk at that general level. [00:20:00] And I think through what happened during Trump's first term, his, his 2017 to 2021, those first four years in office. And I think through what has happened over the first four weeks of his second term now.

 I can't help but think that perhaps what is happening here, perhaps Trump's M. O., is giving zero F's, I'll just put it that way, zero F's, about how he goes about something. I think regardless of whoever you've supported over the last ten years in federal politics, we all can agree That Trump is a fundamental disruptor.

Now, certainly those who lean left, will argue that he is detrimentally disrupting. And then of course, those on [00:21:00] the right I think would argue for the most part that he is, benefiting or is beneficially, disrupting, the kind of status quo.

Perhaps some of the shock and surprise that we are seeing, maybe more particularly from the left here is more so rooted in his unconventional methods, right? His unconventional means. For example, let's look at his tariffs policy. We know that over the last four weeks in his second term, he has yielded this tariff power.

That's what I'll call it here. And, to the best of my knowledge, there's nothing unlawful about what he is attempting to do. With the exception of maybe the trade agreements that we have with our North American counterparts, Canada and Mexico. There could be a legal aspect there, but I'm not an expert in international trade, so I'm not going to comment on kind of more specifics there.[00:22:00]

As a general matter, as a constitutional law scholar, recognizing that the executive, so the President of the United States, does have authority to levy tariffs, and implement tariffs and control, of course, of foreign relations. Being the head of the United States, the one single individual that is.

 Leading the federal government and leading the United States of America. Less so on commentary on kind of the ins and outs of these tariffs and more so, like, why, speculating, of course, why is he using tariff policy and what is he using it for? Because I don't necessarily think It is all about trade, while that, of course, is an aspect to it, right?

Yes, tariffs impact trade, we know that. Tariffs impact the global economy, we know that. Perhaps he is using tariffs to achieve other policy goals out of economic, out of the [00:23:00] economic sense, not in the economic sense, right? So perhaps the use of tariffs, as we've seen against, or at least the threat of tariffs against Canada and Mexico.

Perhaps they are being levied as really a threat, yielding the economic power of the United States, being one of the, excuse me, the strongest economy in the world, yielding our economic power as leverage to drive other policy goals or to achieve other policy goals that the Trump administration has stated and, is trying to achieve.

So Canada, Mexico, for example, the threat of a tariff on them was put on pause for 30 days, for both countries after, according to what we heard out of the Trump administration. After the leaders of both countries of Canada and Mexico agreed to send more of their, military members to the, their borders, specifically, [00:24:00] of course, the U.

S. Mexico border for Mexico and the U. S. Canada border for Canada to, in a way, police the border, and there were some reports, from, numerous news agencies that, Canada and Mexico were already sending these military men and women to the border, or there were already X number, like 10, 000 military members already on the border.

And now Trump can claim the win, of getting more international support to the border to drive his immigration policy. My point here is, Again, not excusing the behavior, just trying to rationalize it, that perhaps what is happening is something that we haven't seen any conventional president of the United States do.

 There are reasons for why [00:25:00] presidents act conventionally and traditionally. There are legal reasons. There are constitutional reasons. There are geopolitical reasons. There are, optics, of course, being a major component of it. And perhaps because Trump has not grown up in a system, in the political system, if we compare him to, say, Joe Biden, his predecessor, where Joe Biden spent, 50 years , in the United States Senate.

 Joe Biden, of course, being a very conventional president as far as following norms and what is expected, now, don't get me wrong, there were certainly some pros and cons to the Biden administration, and just how there are pros and cons to a Trump administration, and everyone's going to view those potentially differently.

Now, with Donald Trump perhaps breaking from convention, In recognizing, hey, I can yield economic power to drive other policy [00:26:00] goals. Like immigration, and, the Trump administration showing a willingness to break that conventional norm to achieve that. Perhaps that's what is happening here, or if they're not doing it intentionally, maybe they're doing it unintentionally, right?

That's just their approach, and that's how they act, and again, their M. O. So that's one way to, to think about it. Now, as, we look at some of the recent actions, say, over the last two weeks to reduce the federal workforce, shuttering agencies like the USAID, and other agencies laying off FEMA workers, laying off IRS workers, or Elon Musk's, Doge getting access to databases to try to figure out where, this is what he says, where there's fraud and waste.

If we look at those actions, so the managerial actions in the federal, executive [00:27:00] branch here and try to make sense of those, the first thing I'll say is it is not unheard of for an employer to reassess. It's organization, like how it's organized, how many people they have, where that's a very common practice.

I think back to my days in Silicon Valley where I was privy to some information and we called it from an HR perspective, maintaining the health of the organization are, do we have the right people in the right places at the right time, and are we making the right investments?

And while it hurts, of course, to do a layoff, or to do a reduction in force, part of that is. More so a realignment strategy, we've seen tech companies, for example, , conducted these layoffs and they've moved resources. So they were able to take all of that salary money that [00:28:00] of the jobs that they eliminated and reinvested in another area, perhaps another technological area that was developing.

 We've seen this a lot over the last couple of years as companies have made shifts towards artificial intelligence and investments that, there too. As an employer, the federal government, is acting normally in the sense that, again, not trying to excuse it, but normally in the sense that it's going through a reorganization and that is not unheard of for an employer.

No. Of course, we can argue about, and have reasonable civic dialogue about the way in which the Trump administration is going about this compared to the way in which, say, private sector companies go about reductions in force and mass layoffs. One thing that particularly is disturbing to me is how those mass layoffs are being conducted.

 There are countless [00:29:00] stories now coming out through various media organizations, from all sides, about how federal employees have received an email. Saying you are hereby terminated, and some of those emails say that you're terminated for cause for poor performance. When at least according to those employees in these interviews, they have no record of poor performance.

 A significant portion of the layoffs have been probationary employees. So these are the employees that were in their roles for less than a year. So the disheartening part, as I hear these stories is really around how they're being let go via email communication. And perhaps suddenly they get a call from their boss and their boss.

 Their manager is also being let go and it just blindsides everybody and it's also like effective immediately, so this causes a significant amount of disruption in people's lives You [00:30:00] are pulling that safety net that safety blanket out from under them And so much is tied in our country to employment.

So for example retirement Benefits, health insurance, life insurance, dental insurance, eye insurance, like so much is tied to employment in our country. That's how our system has been created and developed over the decades. That, that suddenly just pulling out that rug. By sending an email is just not right?

 I've been on the unfortunate end of kind of employment decisions, either where I had a role terminated or. Maybe I wasn't performing up to the expectations and, those conversations are never fun. I've been there. I've had that rug pulled out from under me and, but what's different here is my experience was always face [00:31:00] to face.

My manager, whoever I reported to, had the. Respect for me and I have the respect for them, for us to have a face to face conversation and, to tell me that either the role's being eliminated, perhaps because the work is finished or, the company is moving in a different direction. And I'm not part of that new direction, which is fine.

 Keeping this in mind, I just think that it's wrong to just send an email and then shut everybody out of their computer systems within a couple of hours after sending that email. Now, granted, the counter argument here is that the federal government is so large that you can't have sit downs, so to speak, with everybody who you want to, terminate.

And I get that. I understand that. But there has to be a more respectful and humanistic way of approaching, essentially [00:32:00] pulling out the rug from somebody, and it doesn't necessarily have to be one on one because, again, perhaps it, that one on one can't happen at an employer the scale of the federal government.

There's just too many employees, but at the very least. Having some sort of face to face conversation when perhaps the secretary of a particular department, let's say the secretary of commerce, who is terminating IRS employees or the director of the internal revenue service, at least calling a meeting, 

and having a face to face conversation or perhaps a face to face virtually conversation with the organization about what is happening. And, What we often see in the private sector, and again, I come from Silicon Valley here, so what we often see in the private sector is these reductions in force, these layoffs or realignments, they don't [00:33:00] happen at like the flip of a switch.

 They're strategically planned. There are requirements for reporting massive reductions in force. There are also federal laws, like the Warrant Act, that require notice, if the layoff or if the reduction in force meets certain thresholds that are outlined by statute.

 There's process and policy here at play, but again, at least in the private sector, I haven't seen something happen so quickly with emails and then, just shutting everything off. With the exception of, say, a number of startups who just ran out of cash, and that is a different situation, of course, than what we're dealing here with such a massive organization as the federal government is, or as I previously mentioned on this episode, Microsoft, of course, is a massive organization as well.

So the thoughtful, deliberate planning that goes into these mass layoffs [00:34:00] into, one, because there are legal requirements and we think through why do we have those legal requirements? Well, number one. For example, the WARN Act, which requires notice be given to the employees who will be impacted.

 That is for protection. It's for the employee's protection, it's so that the employees have adequate notice to make plans, accordingly. When the first time in my professional career, when I had that rug pulled out from under me just because the work had finished, so the role was being eliminated, it wasn't a, a run the business.

role. It was helped change the business role. At least my manager at the time had the respect for me to give me as much notice as possible. Continue to keep me on payroll. Now, granted, I kept working. It's not like I just stopped working [00:35:00] as I search for a new role in that organization. That is a humanistic way.

That is a respectful way about going, in doing this type of, organizational management here, I understand. That the federal government needs to do some reorganization, some reductions in force. I don't think that's a bad thing.

 I don't think that reassessing, how our workforce, our federal workforce is structured, where we're spending the money, I don't think that those are bad goals. And I think the way in which the Trump administration is going about it, Is poor. And, so perhaps, one, I would like to see, of course, more respectful and humanistic approaches to how they go about this and deliberate and thoughtful planning.

 Some reports, for example, is some employees like with [00:36:00] the Nuclear Commission in the Department of Energy. terminated and then they were called back because somebody realized that, perhaps we shouldn't be terminating these folks, right? We need them. That those type of errors are preventable.

They're preventable if we all sit down. and have these conversations, we have the strategic planning in place, we think through, instead of just blanket firing people left and right without any plan, without any strategy. Without any deliberation whatsoever. That is what is on the top of my mind tonight, as I record this episode, and with that said, I think we're coming to an end, and so just to recap today, Microsoft has announced a pretty significant advancement towards quantum computing [00:37:00]that could bring quantum computing, which is a much, much more advanced form of computing to us, within a couple of years versus a couple of decades.

And then second, with the Trump administration, looking at, Perhaps his means are unconventional, and those means in wielding, for example, the economic power of the United States to achieve other policy goals. And then we look at, say, the layoffs that are happening at the federal government. I think when we think through what is happening in the world around us and what our leaders are doing, it's important to look at it from two lenses.

And the first lens is looking at what the end goal is, what that objective is, what is the end? That they're trying to achieve and then looking at the means as well. How are they going about it? And as we have respectful dialogue about what is happening in the world, we can [00:38:00] find common ground.

We can find common ground on the means. And, or the end, right? We can all agree, for example, that there needs to be some strategy with respect to the federal government as an employer in aligning the federal government as an organization for what the next 5, 10, 15 years, 20 years will need from it, and what the American people will need.

We can agree on that end. We can agree on that objective, but we can also disagree on the way in which it's being carried out. We can disagree on the means that are being deployed. As we think through what is happening in a world, I just want to call out that in respectful dialogue, in that respectful discourse that I hope to promote here with this podcast and just in everything that I do, Recognizing that [00:39:00] there are multiple ways in which we can discuss the chaos and multiple ways in which we can find middle ground. and then also multiple ways in which we will not be able to find middle ground that we will disagree on and respect those disagreements. So, that's it for tonight. I wish you all well, and this has been Discourse.

That's it for today's episode of Discourse. Thank you for tuning in and being part of the conversation. You can catch future episodes of Discourse wherever you get your podcasts. If you found this discussion insightful, be sure to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with others who value thoughtful analysis over the noise.

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