Articles
June 23, 2020
The Silicon Switch: Apple Leaves Intel
There is a switch that is happening in the Mac this week, and the switch is the silicon: the processors that Apple will design itself, the ARM chips that follow the iPhone, the end of the Intel partnership that lasted fifteen years, the transition that Tim Cook announced at the Worldwide Developers Conference on June 22, 2020. The keynote came as a video, and the video was the statement: the first Macs with Apple Silicon by the end of 2020, the full lineup that follows in about two years, the Rosetta 2 that will translate the old apps, the Big Sur that will carry the change. The silicon switch is the June 2020 story, and the story is the lesson: the company that owns the stack.
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June 11, 2020
GPT-3: The API That Learned to Write
There is a model that is learning to write this week, and the model is GPT-3: the language system from OpenAI, the successor to GPT-2, the neural network with 175 billion parameters that writes the paragraphs and the code and the answers, the API that opened to a private beta on June 11, 2020. The announcement came as a blog post and a waitlist: the developers who signed up, the researchers who studied the samples, the industry that took notice. GPT-3 is the June 2020 story, and the story is the lesson: the machines that write like us, and the businesses that will build on them.
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May 29, 2020
The Dragon Returns: Crewed Flight From US Soil
The return is set for tomorrow, and the return is the launch: the Crew Dragon that is scheduled to lift off on Saturday at 15:22 EDT from pad 39A at the Kennedy Space Center, the astronauts Bob Behnken and Doug Hurley, the first crewed orbital flight from American soil since the shuttle stopped flying, the nine years that end with the liftoff. The return is the attempt: the first try on Wednesday that was scrubbed by the weather, the thunderstorms that rolled in, the rocket that waited, the countdown that stopped at sixteen minutes. The Dragon is the May 2020 story, and the story is the lesson: the commercial crew that will fly, the partnership that built it, the gap that closes tomorrow.
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April 24, 2020
Negative Oil: The Day the Barrel Cost Nothing
The number is in the books this week, and the number is the shock: the West Texas Intermediate contract that settled at minus $37.63 a barrel on April 20, the first negative price in the history of the market, the day the seller paid the buyer. The number is the mechanics: the storage that was nearly full at Cushing, the contract that was about to expire, the traders who had to sell, the barrels that nobody would take. The negative oil is the April 2020 story, and the story is the lesson: the paper that left the physical behind, the storage that became the price.
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March 19, 2020
The Oil Price War Nobody Won: When the Cartel Broke
The war is spreading this week, and the war is the price: the oil that crashed on March 9, the Brent that fell thirty percent in a day, the biggest one-day drop since 1991, the WTI that slid toward thirty-one dollars. The war is the politics: the OPEC meeting that collapsed on March 6, the Russia that refused the cuts, the Saudi Arabia that slashed the prices, the output that was raised, the flood that followed. The oil price war is the March 2020 story, and the story is the lesson: the cartel that broke, the demand that vanished, the producers who will pay.
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February 27, 2020
The China Pause: When the Supply Chain Stuttered
The pause is spreading this week, and the pause is the warning: the Apple announcement on February 17, the statement that the company would not meet its revenue guidance for the March quarter, the first cut driven by the coronavirus, the second warning in fourteen months. The pause is the virus: the outbreak that began in Wuhan, the factories that closed, the stores that shuttered, the iPhones that could not be made, the supply that stuttered. The China pause is the February 2020 story, and the story is the lesson: the supply chain that is concentrated in one country, the risk that was priced at zero.
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January 22, 2020
The 737 MAX Line Goes Silent: When Boeing Stopped Building
The line is going silent this week, and the silence is the halt: the Boeing factory in Renton, Washington that stopped building the 737 MAX, the suspension that the company confirmed on January 21, the first halt of the program in more than twenty years, the jets that wait in the lots, the industry that watches. The halt came after the grounding, the grounding that began in March, the crashes that killed the 346 people, the investigation that found the fault, the trust that broke. The 737 MAX line is the January 2020 story, and the story is the lesson: the production that stops when the confidence dies.
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December 12, 2019
The European Green Deal: When Brussels Bet on the Climate
The deal is the announcement, and the announcement is the week: the European Commission that presented the Green Deal on the eleventh of December, the von der Leyen team that had been in office for ten days, the plan that touches every sector of the economy, the climate that became the first priority of the mandate. The deal is the December 2019 story: the Commission that promised the first 100 days and delivered in the first two weeks, the mandate that had begun on the first of December, the strategy that will shape the decade, the regulation that will move the markets, the businesses that will have to change. The Green Deal is the news, and the news is the beginning.
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November 13, 2019
Singles Day: The $38 Billion Day
There is a day that broke the records this week, and the day is the Singles Day: the shopping festival that Alibaba ran on the eleventh of November, the twenty-four hours that produced thirty-eight point four billion dollars in sales, the 268.4 billion yuan that moved through the platform, the twenty-six percent growth over the year before. The festival is the Monday event: the flash sales and the live streams, the two hundred thousand brands and the seventy-eight countries, the hundreds of millions of orders that poured in. The Singles Day is the November 2019 story, and the story is the lesson: the operations that make the biggest shopping day on earth possible.
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October 23, 2019
Quantum Supremacy: The 200-Second Claim
There is a claim that was published this week, and the claim is the supremacy: the paper that Google placed in Nature on Wednesday, the twenty-third of October, the experiment that the Sycamore processor ran in two hundred seconds, the calculation that the company says would take the fastest supercomputer ten thousand years. The claim is the milestone: the first time that a quantum machine has beaten the classical machines at their own game, the result that the field has chased for decades, the moment that was published after months of rumors. The claim is the October 2019 story, and the story is the lesson: the breakthrough that is real and the hype that must be sorted.
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