The Historical Context of Bell Labs and the Development of the Transistor

Semiconductors power much of modern technology -- and thus, our lives and our politics. Pranay Kotasthane and Abhiram Manchi join Amit Varma in episode 358 of The Seen and the Unseen to shed light on how so much geopolitics today centres around chips -- and why its such a big deal.  (FOR FULL LINKED SHOW NOTES, GO TO SEENUNSEEN.IN.) Also check out 1. Pranay Kotasthane on Twitter, LinkedIn, Amazon and the Takshashila Institution. 2. Abhiram Manchi on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram and the Takshashila Institution. 3. When the Chips Are Down: A Deep Dive into a Global Crisis -- Pranay Kotasthane & Abhiram Manchi. 4. Puliyabaazi — Pranay Kotasthane’s podcast (co-hosted with Saurabh Chandra). 5. Missing In Action: Why You Should Care About Public Policy — Pranay Kotasthane and Raghu S Jaitley. 6. The Long Road From Neeyat to Neeti -- Episode 313 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pranay Kotasthane & Raghu S Jaitley). 7. Anticipating the Unintended — Pranay Kotasthane and Raghu Sanjaylal Jaitley’s newsletter. 8. Siliconpolitik -- The tech newsletter started by Pranay Kotasthane. 9. Pranay Kotasthane Talks Public Policy — Episode 233 of The Seen and the Unseen. 10. Foreign Policy is a Big Deal — Episode 170 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Pranay Kotasthane & Manoj Kewalramani). 11. Older episodes of The Seen and the Unseen w Pranay Kotasthane: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. 12. Ilya Sutskever on the dinner invite from Elon Musk, Sam Altman and Greg Brockman. 13. The BJP Before Modi — Episode 202 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Vinay Sitapati, with the quote about perfection being the enemy of production). 14. Luke Burgis Sees the Deer at His Window — Episode 337 of The Seen and the Unseen. 15. Chip War -- Chris Miller. 16. The New World Upon Us (2017) -- Amit Varma. 17. The Incredible Insights of Timur Kuran -- Episode 349 of The Seen and the Unseen. 18. The Beauty of Finance -- Episode 21 of Everything is Everything. 19. The Tamilian gentleman who took on the world -- Amit Varma. 20. Demystifying GDP — Episode 130 of The Seen and the Unseen (w Rajeswari Sengupta). 21. I, Pencil — Leonard Read. 22. The Three Globalizations -- Episode 17 of Everything is Everything. 23. The Great Redistribution (2015) -- Amit Varma. 24. A trade deficit with a babysitter (2005) -- Tim Harford. 25. Nuclear Power Can Save the World — Joshua S Goldstein, Staffan A Qvist and Steven Pinker. 26. Paper Tigers, Hidden Dragons -- Douglas B Fuller. 27. Why Talent Comes in Clusters -- Episode 8 of Everything is Everything. 28. Jawaan -- Atlee. 29. Terry Pratchett on Amazon. 30. Robert Sapolsky and Joseph Henrich on Amazon. This episode is sponsored by the Pune Public Policy Festival 2024, which takes place on January 19 & 20, 2024. The theme this year is Trade-offs! Amit Varma and Ajay Shah have launched a new video podcast. Check out Everything is Everything on YouTube. Check out Amit’s online course, The Art of Clear Writing. And subscribe to The India Uncut Newsletter. It’s free! Episode art: ‘Fighting for Chips’ by Simahina.