Best Crony Capitalism Podcasts (2024)

At its peak, Indonesia's Salim Group was a $22 billion giant - the country’s biggest business group. Its founder and top boss Liem Sioe Liong - also called Sudono Salim - was Southeast Asia's richest man. Salim Group's incredible rise came on the back of the company’s personal connection to the authoritarian leader Suharto. A personal friend of Lie…

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TSMC's First Breakthrough: The Copper/Low-K Interconnect Transition 34:49

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3M ago34:49

34:49

Building a few houses isn’t enough to make a neighborhood. You also need to build the roads and sidewalks to connect them. Same with an integrated circuit. You can stick a billion transistors on an IC, but they are useless if you cannot also connect them. That is what interconnects are for. They are wires for transmitting the electrical signals bet…

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Scripture, Philosophy, and Embracing Ambiguity with Zohar Atkins 37:26

5M ago37:26

37:26

Scripture, Philosophy, and Embracing Ambiguity with Zohar AtkinsSummary: In this episode of Courage Over Convention, we dive into a fascinating conversation with Zohar Atkins, a renowned scholar and founder of Etz Hasadeh. Join us in exploring how Judaism illuminates guiding truths even in this age of disruption. We discuss the impact of technology…

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Juul Pods Ubiquitous While Psilocybin and Ketamine Therapy Are Broadly Illegal 33:56

5M ago33:56

33:56

One Juul pod contains as much nic as 20 cigs. “So yea you can sell em in a four pack right next to the gummy worms.”Psilocybin and ketamine therapy are the best treatment options for complex PTSD - predominantly suffered by victims of sexual assault. But bc these non-addictive substances can’t be effectively monetized, they are impossible for peopl…

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Free Will: Worth Contemplating 1:15:48

6M ago1:15:48

1:15:48

A fun though perhaps controversial collaboration with Stewart Alsop III (host of the Crazy Wisdom Podcast). Subscribe to his podcast (Crazy Wisdom) - you’ll be glad you did. You can find him on Twitter @StewartalsopIIIYou can find me on Twitter @WoodyWiegmann(1) Woody's general perspective on free will, determinism, and the views of thought leaders…

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The Rise and Reign of Japanese VCRs 31:08

10M ago31:08

31:08

Americans invented the video magnetic tape recorder. But it was the Japanese who brought it to the masses as the VCR. Throughout the 1980s, virtually every home VCR sold in America was made in Japan. Even the ones sold by American brands like RCA. How did Japan come to dominate a device they didn’t create? Today, we are going to look at the rise an…

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Complex is Complicated, but Complicated ain’t Complex 15:39

12M ago15:39

15:39

Examining the oft-overlooked features of complexity that lead us to mistakenly approach intractable problems with immense hubris.

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Brazil Tried to Protect Its Computer Industry 23:23

12M ago23:23

23:23

In the 1980s, Brazil had a large domestic computer industry. Dozens of Brazilian-owned companies - employing tens of thousands of Brazilians - producing tens of thousands of Brazilian PCs. In the 1970s, a small set of Brazilian government bureaucrats recognized the growing importance of the computer industry. And in a bold move, they reserved the m…

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The Death of Nuance and Productive Iteration with Stewart Alsop III 26:38

12M ago26:38

26:38

In revisiting a past episode with Stewart, I realized I did not do justice to his excellent prompts. This is an edited episode, meant to offer more direct thoughts on the topics Stewart brought to the table. I did not edit Stewart’s contributions (they needed no adjustments) - only my own. Thus, this episode is not a representation of Stewart’s opi…

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The Extreme Engineering of ASML’s EUV Light Source 17:19

1y ago17:19

17:19

After 20+ years of development, extreme ultraviolet lithography has become a commercial reality. As I write these words, multi-million dollar machines from ASML use EUV light to create impossibly small patterns in wafers. This technological magic requires a powerful heart inside of it. And indeed, there is an amazing system driving ASML's $150 mill…

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Running Neural Networks on Meshes of Light 13:42

1y ago13:42

13:42

I want to thank Alex Sludds of MIT for his help on this video: https://alexsludds.github.io/

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The Amazing, Humble Silicon Wafer 18:18

1y ago18:18

18:18

Silicon is probably the single most studied element on earth. Over the past seventy years, people have researched more ways to cut it, etch it, grind it, clean it, crystallize it, polish it than almost anything else. Engineers have done amazing things to turn this plentiful shiny rock into the century’s most impactful piece of technology. And the w…

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How Nvidia Won AI 18:07

1y ago18:07

18:07

When we last left Nvidia, the company had emerged victorious in the brutal graphics card Battle Royale throughout the 1990s. Very impressive. But as the company entered the 2000s, they embarked on a journey to do more. Moving towards an entirely new kind of microprocessor - and the multi-billion dollar market it would unlock. In this video, we are …

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Going Nuclear to Desalinate Seawater 14:56

1y ago14:56

14:56

Water, water, everywhere and not a drop to drink. Humans need freshwater and getting enough of it is an ever-present challenge. Yet the earth is covered in water! Over half of the planet is ocean! The problem of course is that you cannot drink it because it is too salty. Desalination is the process of removing salts from salty sea and brackish wate…

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The Rise and Peak of Japanese Semiconductors 17:48

1y ago17:48

17:48

Japan's semiconductor story is unique in modern technology and business. Coming out of World War II, the country rapidly gained competence in an emerging technology and became a global leader. In this video, we look at the 30-year rise and peak of the Japanese semiconductor industry starting from the 1950s into the 1980s.…

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The PUREST Water in the World 12:50

1y ago12:50

12:50

It is the purest water you will ever know. And every day, chip factories are sloshing their wafers with it.Ultrapure water or UPW is an industry term. A term that describes its product quite well. Water with purity requirements so strict, you're more likely to win the national lottery than to find a non-water molecule inside it. Companies have cont…

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GE’s Molten Salt Battery Failure 14:35

1y ago14:35

14:35

In 2011, then-President Barack Obama visited a General Electric or GE facility in the town of Schenectady, New York. There, he mostly discussed wind turbine exports. But he also briefly mentioned an "advanced battery" business with great promise. Obama was referring to a molten salt stationary battery technology branded as Durathon. GE CEO Jeff Imm…

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What Colonialism Did For Taiwan (& Japan) 18:23

1y ago18:23

18:23

In 1895, Japan acquired Taiwan island from the Qing Empire as their first colony. For the next fifty years, Japan occupied Taiwan - infusing it with their traditions, culture, and expertise. The colonial legacy of the Japanese occupation period was deep and long lasting for both colonized and colonizer. In this video, we are going to talk about wha…

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What Raiding the Rich Did For Malaysia 17:44

1+ y ago17:44

17:44

One morning in September 1981, Malaysia conducted a financial dawn raid that stunned the British business community and reclaimed hundreds of thousands of acres of Malaysian plantation land for Malaysia. In this video I want to talk about Malaysia’s strike against the remaining structures of the old colonial state.…

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Singapore’s Sand Problem 15:21

1+ y ago15:21

15:21

Sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and yet we just can’t get enough of it. In 2018, Singapore was the world's biggest importer of sand by value. Each year, the country consumes over 5 tons of sand per resident. Over the past twenty years, they have imported over 500 million tons of sand. And with these sand imports, Singapore has created ma…

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How China's CATL Makes a EV Lithium-Ion Battery 15:11

1+ y ago15:11

15:11

Contemporary Amperex Technologies or CATL is China's leading EV battery supplier. As of this writing, it is the only Chinese EV battery company that has begun to export its products abroad. It is interesting to consider that one of China's most valuable companies makes, of all things, batteries. When we think about high value add, technically compl…

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The 300mm Silicon Wafer Transition 14:59

1+ y ago14:59

14:59

At the turn of the century, the $200 billion semiconductor manufacturing industry across the globe joined hands and underwent a massive transition. Maybe the last of its kind. That transition? They made their wafers larger. Sounds simple right? But the 300 millimeter wafer transition started in 1994, took nearly a decade, and cost the industry bill…

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Why the Soviet Computer Failed 18:56

1+ y ago18:56

18:56

In 1986, the Soviet Union had slightly more than 10,000 computers. The Americans had 1.3 million. At the time of Stalin's death, the Soviet Union was the world's third most proficient computing power. But by the 1960s, the US-Soviet computing gap was already years long. Twenty years later, the gap was undeniable and basically permanent. Why did thi…

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The Shocking, Debt-Fueled Collapse of Daewoo 23:33

1+ y ago23:33

23:33

At its peak, Daewoo Group had been Korea's fourth largest business conglomerate along with Hyundai, Samsung, and LG. The sprawling company rocketed upwards on the back of a favorable political environment and heaps of debt. Then in a shocking two year span, the whole group broke apart under the weight of its liabilities, a crushing recession, and w…

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The Rise, Fall, and Rise of Japanese Whisky (& Suntory) 21:43

1+ y ago21:43

21:43

In this video, we are going to look at the rise, near-complete collapse, and recent comeback of Japanese whisky. Along the way, we will look at one of the world's largest distilled beverage companies - Suntory. Their histories are intertwined. Japanese whisky has a relatively short history. It has borrowed a lot from Scotland. Yet the industry has …

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Understanding the Federal Reserve Bank 20:24

1+ y ago20:24

20:24

00:00 - Intro 00:50 - Revisiting Chris's 2021 prediction about bonds and inflation 02:34 - What is the Federal Reserve? 04:21 - What has happened to the US economy since COVID? 06:20 - The monetary base 07:12 - Three ways the Government can throw money around 09:02 - Interest rates and inflation 10:35 - The Fed has grown massively 12:03 - How the F…

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The History of the FPGA - The Ultimate Flex 18:07

1+ y ago18:07

18:07

A Field Programmable Gate Array or FPGA is an integrated circuit that can be reprogrammed after manufacture to emulate a digital circuit. These are great for prototyping new functionalities before mass production. Or serving rare use cases that aren't economical for a custom chip. FPGAs aren’t the first with this capability, but they are by far the…

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How Oil Ate the Soviet Economy 18:04

1+ y ago18:04

18:04

In 1979, the Soviet Union was the world's leading producer of oil, pumping 11.5 million barrels of oil each day. At the end of our last video on this, the Soviet Union finished the 1960s as the second biggest oil producing nation in the world. Even so, the country's most plentiful bounties of oil and natural gas were still yet to come, hiding benea…

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Australia's Natural Gas Dilemma 16:29

1+ y ago16:29

16:29

Australia is the world's leading exporter of liquefied natural gas or LNG. In 2020, the country exported $25 billion worth of natural gas to markets in Asia. Interestingly enough, the country also occasionally suffers from natural gas shortages in their own markets at home. It is a demonstration of the country's sprawling size, bountiful natural re…

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The Rise and Peak of Japanese Watches 20:49

1+ y ago20:49

20:49

At the time of Japan's opening up, almost all of the world’s watches came from either the United States or Switzerland. The Swiss sought to keep their secrets from leaking out to other countries. But those secrets still got out, and with them Japan became one of the biggest makers of watches in the world.…

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The Sad Fall of a Philippine Steel Giant 16:41

1+ y ago16:41

16:41

National Steel Corporation or NSC had once been the pride of Philippine industry. One of the biggest companies in the country, and a rare example of a well-run government owned company. Over a span of twenty years, the company employed over 4,000 workers at Iligan City. The Philippines had a head start on almost every other Asian country in buildin…

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The Soviet Oil Juggernaut: How It All Began 18:47

1+ y ago18:47

18:47

At the start of the 1960s, the Soviet Union was the world's second largest oil producer - trailing only the United States. By itself, the Soviet Union nearly matched oil production from the entire Middle East. Many European countries depended on Soviet oil, and the Communist Party used that to their own advantage. In this video, we will look at the…

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How the Integrated Circuit Took Us to the Moon 19:52

1+ y ago19:52

19:52

The NASA space project advanced the technological progress of the human race by leaps and bounds. Examples of these revolutionary developments abound. But one extra-special item was in its computer. The Apollo Guidance Computer or AGC was one of the first to use silicon-based integrated circuits. Their adoption heralded a revolutionary technology a…

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Secular Faith Structures: Part I 15:43

2y ago15:43

15:43

What do you do in a high-stakes game when the future is, by definition, entirely unpredictable?Shoutouts in this episode: Dr. Ben Hunt, Dunn Capital, Chesapeake Capital (Jerry Parker), Corey Hoffstein, Meb Faber, Rob Arnott, and Jess Bost!

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The Big Automotive Semiconductor Problem 15:02

2y ago15:02

15:02

Let me ask you something. You probably have heard all the news about this or that car factory shutting down because of the global chip shortage. That nobody can get the car they want because of a tiny little chip. And you might be wondering. When did semiconductors matter so much to today's vehicles? Why do we need to turn our cars into computers? …

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How New Zealand’s Fonterra Won Dairy 15:20

2y ago15:20

15:20

New Zealand's biggest company, by far, is a dairy co-operative. With $14 billion USD ($20.6 billion NZD) total revenue in 2021, Fonterra Group is the country's juggernaut. A dairy company does way more than milk. And over the years, Fonterra has evolved and grown along with the New Zealand dairy industry to become a globe-spanning food giant. In th…

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Eliminating Large Portfolio Losses: Lessons from an Ancient Sage 17:32

2y ago17:32

17:32

Sun Tzu's teachings apply broadly - and they certainly apply to portfolio construction.

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The Fed and Their Transi-Story 29:26

2y ago29:26

29:26

I promise not to try not to fuck with your mindPromise not to mind if you go your way and I go minePromise not to lie if I'm looking you straight in the eyePromise not to try not to let you down

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A Crash is Coming - Will it be Merely Economic or Social (and then Economic)? 13:58

2y ago13:58

13:58

This is the first episode of a three or four-part series discussing the futility of seeking a balance between two powerful yet diametrically opposed American ideals. Without a miracle (which I discuss in the third episode), the strain on our societal fabric will continue to increase exponentially, until things are no longer tenable.…

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How Armed Drones Disrupt Modern Warfare 14:52

2y ago14:52

14:52

One of the bigger things that happened in 2020 was that two countries - Azerbaijan and Armenia - fought a war. The war lasted for about 6 weeks, and it has set the air defense world ablaze. For the first time, the world got to see a national army bring a fleet of armed drones to the battlefield. And the impact those drones have made was huge. Using…

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The Economics of TSMC’s Giga-Fabs 17:21

2y ago17:21

17:21

In 2018, TSMC broke ground on Fab 18 near Tainan City in the south of Taiwan. Fab 18 is a monster. It sits on 103 acres and has a total floor space of 950,000 square meters (10.2 million square feet). That is about 3 times the size of AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Texas - home of the Dallas Cowboys. In total, across all of its phases, Fab 18 will cost TS…

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Floorplanning a Better Chip with AI 13:17

2y ago13:17

13:17

Machine learning has been in the news a lot lately. Some of the early hype has died down, but the trend still lives on. And now it has really started to make waves in the chip design world. Machine learning and AI in chip design is such a sprawling field that I started to lose myself in all the research. So I figured to just go into a recent breakt…

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