Semiconductors take center stage
The three-day weekend edition of what i'm reading, listening to, and excited about from this month.
For this week’s post, we’re changing things up. For the three day weekend, I’m sharing a day early some of what I’m reading, listening to, and excited about. We’ll be back to the data science next week, but if you like this edition, let me know and perhaps it’ll come back at the end of every month. I’ve got a few longer pieces in the works (including my first piece coming from a reader request! shoutout JB!) that I’m excited to share later this summer that weren’t quite ready to hit the presses yet, so you’ll have to come back later for more.
not for eating: the chip war evolves
“We rarely think about chips, yet they’ve created the modern world” — Chris Miller
This month I started reading Chip War, Chris Miller’s book about semiconductors and how they are the foundation of our modern world, resulting in incredible innovation, political strife, and more. As the chips get smaller (doubling the number of circuits every two years as we look to Moore’s Law), their importance grows more than ever with the rise of artificial intelligence, especially large language models that require lots of memory to train their models.
This week, Nvidia took center stage as they almost broke the single-day record for the biggest rise in stock price, jumping 24% after a promising earnings report. They are closing in on a $1T evaluation as their stock jumped from the success they expect from their position a major chip supplier for AI projects.
listening: how spotify took over audio
The Acquired duo recently sat down in Sweden with Spotify CEO Daniel Ek to talk about how they went from virtually zero market share to become the hub of podcasts and now audio more holistically. Ek also shares the behind the scenes on bringing Taylor Swift back to streaming.
on my phone: hungry to find new restaurants
Watch out Yelp, Beli is here to take over. Though still in beta, this application is growing quickly, with 3k reviews in the app store and a 4.9 rating overall. Started by two HBS grads, Beli is picking up what Yelp failed to tackle - socialization of restaurant curation and reviewing. Yelp made the news this week after stock price jumped after an investor pushed for the sale of the company, but otherwise has been laying low. Beli may be the topic of a Day to Data in the future once I unpack the secrets to their awesome tech!
reading: the internet safe haven
Will Peischel’s piece on Google Maps as a “refuge” from the inundation of internet algorithms we have in our world is a fun and insightful read on the diminishing parts of the internet that aren’t overrun by influencers and taste-driven profiles.
nerd out: turning your thoughts to video
In a paper released May 19 on Arxiv, researches have shared their progress in turning brain activity into “high-quality” videos. The researchers are using a stable diffusion model, which reportedly results in higher quality results than other models like generative adversarial networks (GANs). Turns out reading my mind is a lot easier than my friends would say!
who takes the throne: succession finale
What type of fan would I be if I didn’t include a section on Succession as we head into the Super Bowl aka the finale of the whole series? No major spoiler here, but was beyond thrilled to see cousin Greg’s Manhattan Citi bike journey finally featured last week - resonated personally as I’ve had my fair share of running-late bike rides trekking across the city. I’ve loved listening to the Prestige TV podcast episodes, with the pre-cap out for the finale which lands on Sunday. This season has kept me on my toes and made me want to plan a trip to Lucas Mattson’s Norwegian retreat — The Juvet Landskaphotell if you’re looking to book a trip.
Thanks for tuning in for this week’s Day to Data. Next week’s article will be back to regularly scheduled programming talking data science and how the things we use everyday work. As always, if you’ve got thoughts, ideas, or topics you’re looking for help understanding, let me know!