Asianometry

In the 1940s, penicillin was so hard to get, that scientists studied how to recycle it from patients' pee. It demonstrates how the human body does a poor job of metabolizing the antibiotics and other pharmaceuticals we ingest. It depends on the drug, but roughly speaking, 25-75% of the antibiotics we consume are excreted. Mostly as urine, due to the drugs' solubility. The average rate is 70%. So considering the thousands of tons of antibiotics we all consume each year, it makes me wonder. What are all those antibiotics in our wastewater doing? And what can we do about it? Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year. Listen to Stratechery. Listen to Dithering. Listen to Sharp China. Listen to Sharp Tech. Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.

The story of how Bell became AT&T has it all. Two fundamental patents filed by Alexander Graham Bell, giving one company an airtight monopoly on the next big thing. A historic, miraculously timed deal, taking out that company's only possible competitor. Then a brilliant, high-risk series of consolidations to put together a nationwide long-distance network. It came together to make the biggest company in modern history. In this video, we look back at how AT&T forged a monopoly. Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year. Listen to Stratechery. Listen to Dithering. Listen to Sharp China. Listen to Sharp Tech. Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.

There is a Buddhist phrase that goes: 苦海無邊，回頭是岸 It means, “The sea of bitterness is boundless; turning back is the shore.” Almost forty years ago in 1985, the folks at Intel found themselves on their own sea of bitterness. Millions of dollars in losses. Horrible manufacturing yields. An entire product category under siege. And then somehow, they turned back and found the shore. How? In this video, we look back at how Intel once saved its Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year. Listen to Stratechery. Listen to Dithering. Listen to Sharp China. Listen to Sharp Tech. Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.

5G marks yet another next wireless technology transition. One part of the transition promised immense bandwidth and super-fast speeds: Millimeter-Wave. It is a fascinating technology. But a few years into the 5G rollout, difficult technical and economic challenges remain. If semiconductors are black magic, then Radio Frequency Integrated Circuits, or RFICs, are the darkest of the dark arts. Let us take our first Defense Against the Dark Arts class. No cursing allowed. In this video, we dip our toes into RFICs and the 5G mmWave deployment. Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year. Listen to Stratechery. Listen to Dithering. Listen to Sharp China. Listen to Sharp Tech. Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.

The Compaq Computer Company's early years of absolutely insane growth remain the stuff of legends. Founded in 1982. First year revenue? $111 million. 0 to $111 million. One year. IPO, December 1983. And year 2, 1984? $329 million revenue, 200% growth. Year 3, $504 million, 53% growth and the Fortune 500. Later, Compaq hit $1.2 billion in revenue for 1987, the fastest ever in history. Along the way, Compaq led an insurgency of IBM PC clone-makers against Big Blue, overwhelming the old lion and unlocking the PC standard for a new generation of PC-makers. That is when the problems began. The tragedy of Compaq is that they led the revolution. And then as it so often happens, the revolution turned on them. In this video, we take a look at the fall of Compaq. Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year. Listen to Stratechery. Listen to Dithering. Listen to Sharp China. Listen to Sharp Tech. Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.

Advanced Packaging has been the talk of the town. Ever since people have identified it as a roadblock in Nvidia's AI chip production, and thus its stock price. TSMC has accelerated construction on several Advanced Packaging fabs across Taiwan to unblock this plug. At the same time, they and the rest of the industry are moving forward on an interesting technology that not only cuts costs but also sounds cool. The most intriguing theme of the 2024 SEMICON show in Taipei? Panels. Chips on panels. In this video, we are going to talk about this thing on the semiconductor horizon. Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year. Listen to Stratechery. Listen to Dithering. Listen to Sharp China. Listen to Sharp Tech. Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.

In a telegram sent January 15th, 1918, Vladimir Lenin wrote: For God’s sake, take the most energetic and revolutionary measures to send grain, grain and more grain!!! The Bolsheviks came to power chanting the slogan, "Peace, Land, and Bread". But there was little of the latter available. Believing that the greedy peasants were hoarding all the grain, the Bolsheviks went to the countryside and forcibly seized it. The results were tragic. In this video, let us take a look at Soviet Russia's desperate, merciless campaign for grain. Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year. Listen to Stratechery. Listen to Dithering. Listen to Sharp China. Listen to Sharp Tech. Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.

We like to throw around the word "revolution". But the birth and rise of the microcomputer really was a revolution. In 1981, IBM joined that revolution with the IBM PC, and it immediately took over the market. But the giant, for all of its vaunted power and resources, saw its leading place in the revolution slowly be taken away by the hoard. We all know how the story ends. But how did it unfold? And what can we learn from it? In this video, how IBM lost its grip on the PC revolution. Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year. Listen to Stratechery. Listen to Dithering. Listen to Sharp China. Listen to Sharp Tech. Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.

I think we are in an AI startup bubble. And that is okay. New startups are raising money at unusual valuations, which do not quite make sense. The products they want to build are in highly competitive areas. And the economics are daunting. Many of these guys are going to fail. And that is okay. This is the time to get messy. In this video, some unstructured thoughts about the bubble forming in AI startups. It is going to be okay in the end, but make no mistake, there is a bust ahead. Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year. Listen to Stratechery. Listen to Dithering. Listen to Sharp China. Listen to Sharp Tech. Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.

A mirror inside ASML's EUV lithography machine reflects just 70% of the EUV light it receives. With 10-12 reflections in the machine, this can get inefficient. Just 1% of the photons hit the wafer. Electrical power efficiency is said to be less than 0.2%. It also contributes to troublesome stochastic defects, since not enough EUV photons hit the resist to overcome quantum effects. So a recent paper from Professor Tsumoru Shintake at the Okinawa Institute of Science & Technology caught my eye. It proposes a simplified setup with radically fewer mirrors. But Shintake makes it clear to me that his system no way challenges ASML's. In fact, it should complement it. I think this thing can work. In today’s video, I want to walk you through this interesting new thing cooking up in beautiful Okinawa. Get all episodes of Asianometry, Sharp Tech, Sharp China, Stratechery Updates and Interviews, Greatest of All Talk, and Dithering as part of Stratechery Plus for $15/month or $150/year. Listen to Stratechery. Listen to Dithering. Listen to Sharp China. Listen to Sharp Tech. Listen to Greatest Of All Talk.