Asianometry

By Jon YTechnology

Asianometry episodes

October 16, 2025 America’s Semiconductor Boom is Real
Last week, I got on a plane and flew from Taipei to Phoenix, Arizona to visit SEMICON West. For the first time ever, the semiconductor industry's biggest show is in Phoenix. I spoke to a lot of people on the floor and attended as many presentations as I could. Everyone was amazing and I learned a lot. Five years after TSMC's fateful 2020 announcement, the Phoenix semiconductor industry has been on fire. Figuratively. In this video, a vibe check into America's semiconductor boom. Yes it's real.
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.
20 min
October 16, 2025 America’s Semiconductor Boom is Real
Last week, I got on a plane and flew from Taipei to Phoenix, Arizona to visit SEMICON West. For the first time ever, the semiconductor industry's biggest show is in Phoenix. I spoke to a lot of people on the floor and attended as many presentations as I could. Everyone was amazing and I learned a lot. Five years after TSMC's fateful 2020 announcement, the Phoenix semiconductor industry has been on fire. Figuratively. In this video, a vibe check into America's semiconductor boom. Yes it's real.
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.
20 min
October 12, 2025 PDAs: Ancestors of the Smartphones
In the beginning, people stored addresses, telephone numbers, and dates in little books. Sometimes called organizers. These paper books were popular and some became fashion statements. A particularly famous one was the luxurious, leather-bound Filofax. In the 1980s, new technologies enabled the rise of a new category of electronic tools to replace those books. Those devices' innovations take us right into the modern era of smartphones. In this sprawling, globe-spanning video, we look at the Personal Digital Assistant, the PDA.
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.
39 min
October 09, 2025 A Water Company Debt Crisis in the United Kingdom
As of this writing in summer 2025, parts of the United Kingdom are experiencing drought conditions. Which is strange to me because I figured that it is always raining in the British Isles. But here we are. Turns out that droughts do indeed happen in England. And they aren't too uncommon either. Which makes a strong water supply system essential. Over thirty years ago in 1989, England and Wales privatized its water industry, selling them into the public markets. Today, several of those companies - including the largest - teeter from excessive debt and huge infrastructure bills. How did this happen? In today's video, a brief history of the momentous 1989 water privatization and the debt crisis it created.
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.
26 min
October 05, 2025 How the Communists Took Afghanistan
In April 1978, a Marxist-Leninist party overthrew the government of Afghanistan. They then established a new country: the Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. The news shocked the world. Over history, conquerors from Alexander the Great to Genghis Khan to Babur of the Mughal Empire to Nadir Shah of Iran have all carved their ways through Afghanistan - inflicting untold damage. But in the 1950s and 1960s, the country - led by several strongmen - seemed to be on a modernizing path. So how did the Communists pull off such a shocking takeover? In this video, we look at how the Communists took Afghanistan.
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.
25 min
October 02, 2025 How AI Accelerates Materials Discovery
Can AI help find the next breakthrough material? One of my side quests on this long world trip has been chasing the answer to this question. AI-accelerated materials discovery is fascinating to me because the right material at the right time can revolutionize economy and society. Yet the process of material discovery has little changed from the 20th century: Sweaty, repetitive trial-and-error or dumb serendipity. In a prior video, I mentioned Periodic Labs, which raised $200 million from A16Z at a billion dollar valuation. But they are not alone in the space. In the United States, we have Orbital Materials and Radical AI. As well as Dunia Innovations and RARA Factory in Europe. I know there might be two or so more I haven't heard of. Not to mention DeepMind and Google doing work here as well. Are all of these guys chasing ghosts? Over the past few months, I have read some things and spoke to some people. In today’s video, some scattered thoughts on AI-accelerated material discovery. Is it real?
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.
0 min
September 28, 2025 Drone Delivery Is Taking Off
My first thought when I heard about Manna was that drone delivery didn't work. Just look at the tech giants Amazon and Google. In 2013, then-CEO Jeff Bezos announced on the CBS TV show 60 Minutes that Amazon was testing deliveries with drones. A year later, Google/Alphabet subsidiary Wing started up their drone work too. Yet after a decade, delivery especially in the US is still done by a guy in a truck. And nothing about that seemed to be changing anytime soon. But then I listened to Ben Thompson's interview with Manna's CEO and founder Bobby Healy. Bobby sounded like he knew the business rather well. And so, I decided to make some time to come to Dublin to do a visit. After five long years in Europe, the drone delivery industry is starting to take off. In today’s video, I flew to Ireland to visit a drone delivery startup, and they answered every question I had.
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.
0 min
September 21, 2025 The Sushi Robots
It is 1982. And word in the United States is that the Japanese have made a sushi robot. The newspaper headlines had a blast. "You can have sushi robot for a mere $1.6 million yen", or "Japanese shops resist tide of automation" or "Sushi shop owners at sea over robot in Japan". And when the machine first obtained export clearance to the US, we got the gem "Sushi Robot invasion slices into West Coast". My initial impression of the first Sushi Robot was that it did something with the fish. Cutting it or something. I was wrong. The first Sushi Robot was a rice machine. In today's video, we go back yet again to my favorite carb. And discuss the machine that industrialized the art of sushi.
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.
21 min
September 14, 2025 The Most Scalable Semiconductor
In the beginning, 2D NAND had only one way to scale. Making the cells smaller. That eventually hit a technical wall. Now what? It is all over, right? WRONG! We go UP, baby! The results are astonishing. 3D NAND is perhaps the most scalable semiconductor product ever mass produced. In today's video, we talk 3D NAND.
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.
0 min
September 11, 2025 Silicon Valley’s Doing Hard Things Again
I visited the Bay Area again after a year for another round of talks and visits. The AI boom is entering its third year. In some ways, that is young. To compare, the mobile boom at three years had yet to see the iPhone 4. The App Store was just taking off. Year three for the AI Boom feels different. It feels like things are becoming for sure. Certain assumptions and feelings are locking in. At the same time, the OpenAI dream has fired up a new generation of builders. And for that reason, I think Silicon Valley is more exciting than it has been for many years. As always, this write-up is all about vibes. No data. But the thing to realize is that we must embrace the vibes. Since that’s how things seem to operate nowadays.
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.
0 min

About Asianometry

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Newsletter for the Asianometry channel. Studies on Asia - Financials, semiconductors, history, demography, development and other stuff.

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