The archive

Every lesson we've published.

Newest first. Browse by room from the nav, or by company and problem from the database. Older pieces stay reachable forever — we don't archive away from URLs.

A photorealistic corporate photograph inside a vast, dimly lit semiconductor fabrication facility, rows of… Semiconductors 4 min read
Semiconductors

Intel Corporate Restructuring: Read the Business Units, Not the Headcount

Headcount is the least informative number in Intel's restructuring, and it is the number everyone watches.

C Christopher Weston
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A split-screen composition inside a modern semiconductor fabrication plant: on one side, a lone… Semiconductors 9 min read
Semiconductors

Tech Layoffs vs. a 67,000-Worker Shortage: The Semiconductor Industry's Split Screen

In July 2023, the Semiconductor Industry Association and Oxford Economics published a projection that stopped me mid-scroll: 67,000.

A Amelia Rutherford
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A meticulously arranged flat-lay of a dozen identical white sneakers on a seamless pure-white… Workflow 5 min read
Workflow

Background Removal at Scale: The Sixth Lesson About Why Your Product Photos Still Look Amateur

I once lost a weekend to 340 sneaker photos. The client sold them across Amazon and their own Shopify store, and the listings looked like they'd been shot by four different people over three years…

S Sophie Langford
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Extreme macro photograph of a high-bandwidth memory stack mounted beside a large silicon processor… Semiconductors 5 min read
Semiconductors

Memory Chips vs. Logic Chips: What AI Chip Demand Actually Rewards, and Why SK Hynix Matters

The number that stopped me was not Nvidia's. It was a memory company's stock roughly tripling while everyone stared at the chip that gets all the magazine covers.

I Isabel Carrington
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A contemplative young Black professional in their mid-thirties standing alone at the edge of… Job Search 6 min read
Job Search

The AI Degree Won't Save You. Here's What the Program Actually Buys.

The advice you have heard, probably from a career counselor or a headline, goes like this: the field is exploding, so get the degree. Get the credential that says "AI" on it and the door opens.

S Samuel Kenworth
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A close-up product-photography shot of a worn cardboard shipping box sitting on a neutral… Memorabilia 9 min read
Memorabilia

AI Company Culture and Memorabilia: What a $475 Swag Box, an OpenAI Hoodie, and a Google Tank Top Are Actually Worth

A used cardboard box sold for $475 last year. Not the contents — well, the contents too, but the box was the point.

O Olivia Hartwell
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A contemplative young woman in her mid-thirties sitting alone at a wooden desk near… Ai Education 5 min read
Ai Education

The AI Degree Won't Save You — But This Materials Science Angle Might: Lesson Six on Artificial Intelligence Education

A friend messaged me last spring with a screenshot of a program page. Morgan State had announced a new four-year AI degree, and she wanted to know if she should enroll.

E Emma Stanfield
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A close-up editorial desk scene shot from a slightly elevated angle: two printed paragraphs… Llm 6 min read
Llm

LLM Prompt Engineering for Editorial Judgment: What Actually Moved the Needle

I gave a model forty paragraphs from a newsletter draft and asked it to rate each one from 1 to 10 on "editorial quality." It returned thirty-one sevens, six eights, two sixes, and one nine.

R Rachel Dunmore
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A close-up photorealistic photograph of a modern developer's workspace at night, dominated by a… Web Standards 5 min read
Web Standards

Streaming HTML vs. Server-Side Includes: What the HTML Specification Still Won't Do For You

I have written the same include mechanism at least eleven times. Header, footer, nav, the cookie banner nobody wanted.

G George Wentworth
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Wide-angle photorealistic photograph inside a vast, dim data center corridor lined with towering server… Ai Policy 6 min read
Ai Policy

The Sixth Lesson of European AI Policy: You Can Regulate a Thing You Cannot Build

Start with a number that should have ended the debate: as of writing, Europe hosts somewhere around 3 to 5 percent of the world's installed frontier AI compute.

R Robert Halstead
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