In February 2022, when Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, panic swept through the semiconductor industry. Ukraine and Russia together supplied somewhere between 50% and 70% of the world's semiconductor-grade neon gas, an obscure but essential ingredient in chipmaking. Prices spiked 600% almost overnight. Headlines screamed about another supply
Why Waiting Is the Riskiest Strategy An Open Letter to German Mittelstand CEOs You've heard it a thousand times: Germany is falling behind in digitalization. The consultants arrive with alarming charts. The press writes about the "Mittelstand digital gap." Politicians demand transformation. And you, running a
The EU's new price undertakings address the wrong problem. The real constraint isn't Chinese pricing. It's a 40% capability gap that German OEMs cannot close before competitive pressure becomes existential. In January 2026, the European Union implemented price undertakings on Chinese electric vehicles: minimum
Why Industrial Policy Can't Buy Knowledge There’s a bet being placed right now using federal incentives to catalyze private capital. Since 2020, companies have announced more than $540B in private U.S. semiconductor projects on the assumption that capacity can be turned into capability on political timelines.
When to Trust the Techno-Prophet A Framework for Evaluating Accelerationist Predictions Introduction: The Musk Puzzle In January 2026, Elon Musk made a series of extraordinary predictions: AGI by year's end, robot surgeons better than humans within three years, free global healthcare within five, and "Universal High Income&
Acceleration without integration isn't progress. It's a trap. (By “integration” I mean: new power gets absorbed without tearing the social fabric through shared ownership, bargaining power, and access.) tl;dr * Past tech revolutions increased output, not leisure, until politics forced distribution. * AI increases “intelligence supply,” but