Back Home in Indiana

Once said Jim Nabors of the Indy 500. It was catchy and it stuck like Mary Jane’s Last Dance – Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers 1993. Jim was from Alabama, moved to LA and eventually retired in Hawaii but he enjoyed the 500 and attended regularly for at least 20 years.

Indy and the people that are part of it are a good metaphor for this month’s post – all about the history of immigration in the USA. Just kidding!!! Immigration history is part of the story but only in the beginning. It is not about the start of this race; it is all about the finish. It is about winning.

Suffice it to say that we are a nation of emigrants driven by Adventure, Exertion and the Desire to build a better future for ourselves and our families. The world we live in today is interconnected like never before. This blog is all about AI and the technology that increasingly underpins our daily lives here in the US and around the world, and how you, a business leader, industry insider or local hairdresser, can make sense of current developments and hopefully profit from it in the process.

So how did we get here? Really, beyond Columbus in 1492, the Puritans, the English, Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish and Africans who settled or were forced to settle in North America in the 16 and 1700’s, what are the critical moments in history that brought all these new people into the USA after 1850? If you grew up in an American city in the1960’s, chances are it looks nothing today like it did back then just looking at the restaurants, places of worship, and small shops that operate in the inner city. Duncan Clarke put together an interesting book, ‘A New World – This History of Immigration into the Unites States.’ Duncan puts forth the following dates as critical inflection points:

1846 Irish Potato Famine

1848 German Revolution

1849 California Gold Rush flood of prospectors assisted by Chinese labor

1855 Swedish Financial Crisis

1861 US Civil War – ended in 1865

1880 Russian and Eastern Europeans fleeing religious persecution

1890 Mexican workers flee to California for work

1914 Outbreak of World War I

1939 German invasion of Poland kickstarting World War II

What is the story of your family? Clarke gets off the bus quickly after the great wars. But if you see a pattern, war is a significant driver of immigration. Cambodia, Vietnam, Korea, Iran, Iraq, Somalia…the list goes on and on.

A heartwarming example takes us back to racing and the Indy dynasty of the Andretti brothers – Mario and Aldo. If you are looking for inspiration or perhaps feeling a little depressed and need motivation – check out The Story of Mario Andretti: A Refugee from Communism to the Heights of Auto Racing – Our American Stories. If you don’t have the time, here is a greatly truncated and less inspirational summary from Wikipedia:

• Aldo and Mario were born in Montona, Kingdom of Italy, now Motovun, Croatia, where their father, Gigi, managed a 2,300-acre (930 ha) farm. After World War II Istria became a part of Yugoslavia.[1] His family, like many other Istrian Italians, fled in 1948 during the Istrian–Dalmatian exodus. They lived in a refugee camp in Lucca from 1948 to 1955…In 1956, the family decided to move to the United States and settled in Nazareth, Pennsylvania, where the brothers were able to rekindle their interest in motorsports, when they discovered an oval track in their home town.[3]

Fast forward, in terms of modern times, we would remiss not to discuss a very popular controlled immigration system like the program in the US that we affectionately call the H-1B Program | U.S. Department of Labor. This program was put forward by (D) Senator Ted Kennedy and signed into law by (R) George H.W. Bush in 1990. The initial conception was to attract the best, brightest, and most ambitious people from around the world to participate in industries where skills were in short supply. Two of the biggest proponents from the technology industry were Microsoft and IBM. The author was an active participant in what was really an experiment at the time – where young brilliant minds from around the world were invited and happily volunteered to work as quasi slave labor, running impossible deadlines, and sleeping on couches and floors across the Microsoft campus in Redmond, Washington. Life was good – the parties were spectacular. The program was an unbelievable boon for Microsoft’s business, driving innovation, successful product launches, and high margins at scale. Some of my dearest friends from the industry were participants in this program.

Arguably and unfortunately, the system itself has driven impossibly off course and in our collective view needs to be reformed to once again attract aspiring professionals and leaders from around the world and not just one or two geographical areas attempting to hijack the tech industry for political and economic advantages. At Cloud 9 Data, our goal is to bring the best and brightest to you – we really do not care where they come from.

Back to the 500, this year’s race was spectacular – ending with an incredible high-speed shootout passing on the outside, giving the victory to the Swedish born Felix Rosenqvist. It was not so long ago that Europeans and particularly Formula 1 (F1) fans were exceedingly negative about Indy Car racing. The complaints from drivers were legitimate in most cases though – the cars were too fast, the courses too rough (if you think the old brickyard is rough just take a stroll through the streets of Detroit), and if you had the unfortunate luck of getting into a high speed crash, you might be dead or maimed or worse. My view is that everything started to turn around for Indy in a way that nobody was expecting when in 2013, Michael Schumacher, arguably one of the greatest drivers in the history of F1, Ferrari, or any racing for that matter, was involved in a skiing accident that left him debilitated and drove him down a completely different course than the one he was on before. The European press put Michael and Corrina and their young children – Gina-Maria and Mick – through hell at the time. The fans and press wanted Michael back, the old version, the perfect race personality, attractive, confident, and strong, but the truth was he was gone forever.

It is Mick though that gives us an important perspective as to why Indy is surging in popularity when in 2022 he commented:

‘I think Dad and me, we would understand each other now in a different way. Simply because we speak a similar language, the language of motorsport. And that we would have so much more to talk about.’

And that’s it – the game is its own reward. Whatever the game is, the people that live it, breathe it, and adore it will gravitate towards the action. This is also why drivers like Kyle Busch and Greg Biffle, both recently deceased, and not even part of the Indy Car family – their lives and their skills are celebrated by everyone in the industry. Don’t get me wrong; I personally lOVE F1 and have watched a NASCAR race or two but consider this. Guess who drives Indy Cars now – the 27-year-old Mick Schumacher was voted ‘Rookie’ of the year at the 2026 Indianapolis 500.

So, the current Indy Car series has come a long way, with modernized cars, a cadre of international teams and drivers, all supercharged by the deep-seated and shared desire to win the fastest race on earth (well, perhaps that is an exaggeration). Speaking of cars, billions of data points are collected and analyzed during an Indy Race. This deluge of real time information is of course used for actionable strategy during the race. The data also makes the role of spectator a lot more interesting. According to Indy Car Fans website:

• Penske Entertainment and NTT DATA are deploying AI to transform how fans experience INDYCAR – starting with “Up To Speed,” a new AI‑powered feature delivering smarter, more dynamic race insights to fans, alongside expanded real‑time data, content and digital experiences coming online throughout this season. The new “Up To Speed” feature is available now on the INDYCAR App powered by NTT DATA (NTT, NTT DATA, INDYCAR Extend Entitlement Partnership).

Feels good to interact with and engage as fans. But we should play the Devil’s advocate for the sake of argument. What if the Penske team somehow started collecting and analyzing the Ganassi team’s actual performance data in real time? Would that be fair, just or ethical. What about just a little peek? Of course that would be wrong. Thankfully, information theft of the car’s critical data stream (temperatures, load factors, speeds, etc) does not appear to be in play, at least not yet at this point in the evolution of the sport. It is a question that the racing teams have considered however, and one that you should consider too.

Think of the actual Indy car itself as a metaphor for business. Maybe we’re talking to a business owner, perhaps a technology strategist or a student about to enter the workforce. Listen, at Cloud 9 Data, we help companies protect their most important assets by building AI software and infrastructure that is made for you. Control is critical in modern environments where AI is often a shared resource. Give your customer data, supplier networks, pricing, order management, billing, and client care the respect it deserves. Make AI your way or no way. 

This summer, optimism is on the agenda. Expect big IPO activity – SpaceX, OpenAI, and perhaps Anthropic will get their business game on track. There is a misconception that you need to buy into an IPO on day one. That is not true and, in many cases, not even possible. You can wait several weeks, months, and even years for a good entry point. Don’t buy into hype – data centers in space for terrestrial workloads, altruistic AI as a public service, and CEOs picking preventable fights with the Federal Government are all hype and can divert you off course. The Important thing is to participate in markets that have genuine momentum at price points reflective of business results. Keep some ‘powder dry’ as traders say, so you can invest when the opportunity presents itself.

Drivers start your engines; investors place your bets – the momentum is with team USA!

Hope to see you at Indy next year. In the meantime, please pass the milk.