The Titanium Economy: How Industrial Technology Can Create a Better, Faster, Stronger America by Asutosh Padhi

Chapter 1
Underappreciated,
Undervalued, and
Misunderstood
A funny thing happened on the way to the collapse of
America’s manufacturing sector: it actually didn’t.
While innumerable headlines of the past three to four
decades have chronicled the decline of US manufacturing,
the coverage has almost entirely overlooked a resurgence
that’s well underway. Much of the industrial sector is
thriving, brimming with innovation, offering high-quality
jobs with good pay and benefits, and producing strong
financial returns. In fact, the returns boasted by some of
the companies at the heart of the most dynamic part of the
manufacturing sector, which we call the Titanium Economy,
have exceeded those of the vaunted Silicon Valley FAANG
tech stars—Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix, and Google.
We lovingly refer to this collection of high-tech
manufacturing firms as the “Titanium Economy” because
their namesake metal shares a great many characteristics
with the companies we identified. Titanium is extremely
durable and corrosion-resistant. It is incredibly strong
relative to its weight. Perhaps most importantly, many of us
likely wouldn’t recognize titanium by appearance—but it’s
around us everywhere we look—in our cars, our mobile
phones, our jewelry, sports equipment, surgical tools, and
more. These “Titanium Economy” companies are quite
similar to their namesake metal—many have persisted for
decades, weathering numerous economic storms yet
emerging stronger.
The Titanium Economy is composed of a robust
collection of firms you’ve probably never heard of,
innovating in ways you’ve likely not read about, making
groundbreaking products critical to trends as leading-edge
as e-commerce, electric vehicles, and autonomous driving.
What all these companies have in common is a relentless
drive for innovation and a zeal to embrace and deploy new
technology that rivals the appetites of the Apples and
Googles of the world. Some are phoenixes that have risen
from the ashes of the old industrial model, having adopted
leading-edge technology, while others have been steadily
achieving stellar growth for decades. Why haven’t they
received more coverage? It’s because most people, even in
investing circles, simply don’t know about them.
You Don’t Appreciate What You Cannot
See
Titanium Economy companies aren’t business-to-consumer
brands that take out Super Bowl ads, nor do many of them
make products that consumers can purchase. The products
they do make, however, enable the creation of products and
services that are critical to our daily lives, as well as to
finding solutions to the many pressing problems the United
States is facing, from battling climate change, to creating a
more sustainable and reliable food system, to restoring and
upgrading infrastructure. Their CEOs aren’t often featured
on CNBC or the front page of the Wall Street Journal, but
they’re an incredibly driven bunch who have helmed their
companies across decades of consistent innovations and
profits. And while these companies aren’t unicorns,

The Titanium Economy: How Industrial Technology Can Create a Better, Faster, Stronger America by Asutosh Padhi