Looking Back at 2024

Can you imagine it? Another year is at an end and it is remarkable to think that time has gone by so quickly.

I have done a recap video for the past two years. Let's do it again.

In today's video, I want to reflect on 2024 and the state of the channel. I am still actually working, haha. But a few minutes to reflect.

Year Recap. My favorites.

I have personal favorites this year that I want to share with you. Let us begin with that.

My favorite video to make in 2024 was that of the Nisei interpreters during World War II. Their plight of navigating two different cultures strikes a chord with me. And their stories of heroism - particularly the story of Terry Doi at Iwo Jima - will always stick with me.

Second is the story of Texas Instruments. It has it all. The integrated circuit, silicon transistors, Morris Chang and a disastrous foray into retail. I find myself going back to a few stories and re-reading them for enjoyment. This one I come back to a lot.

Third is the story of Ei-Nis, the semiconductor maker in Serbia. Augmented with thoughts and image records from the son of a former worker there, I found it extraordinary insight into the Yugoslavian economy.

Fourth is my video about how a CVD diamond is made. I came across the company during a visit to a startup fair in Taipei. I asked if they’d be interested to letting me do a video about them and amazingly enough they were. And that is how I found myself in a small village outside Taichung, handling diamonds that might cost tens of thousands of dollars on the market. Lab diamonds are the future. Enough said.

Fifth is my video on RF filters. A miraculous piece of technology that helped create the AI giant now known as Avago/Broadcom. I want to thank the anonymous viewer in Denver who spent the time to walk me through it in a call.

Workflows

In recent videos, I have been augmenting the research with conversations with key people. These might be experts in a field, researchers talking about their life's work, or participants in a historical event.

Perhaps one small advantage of being more well known is that people recognize who you are, and thus are more willing to speak with you. I am appreciative of that. Many of these people have unique life experiences that should be shared. I worry about the knowledge of such experiences vanishing into the ether, and am glad to offer the channel as a way to get it out there.

If you got a fascinating idea, let me know about it. Some of my favorite videos to research and write about have come about at the suggestion of a viewer. For those who have recommended an idea to me but I have not been able to get to it, do not worry, it is on the list.

Someone once challenged me whether I really had a “list”. I sent them a screenshot of it. Yes the list exists. Here is merely a tiny portion of the list.

Milestones and Travel

In 2024, the channel gathered 26 million views, which is a lot.

The channel also passed over 100 million lifetime views. To me, it is stunning to think about how many people the videos must have reached around the world.

There are a lot of milestones around, and most of the time I just ignore them. Work continues on. But for some reason, 100 million sort of resonates with me. I know that is how much your average MrBeast video does, but to me it is worth celebrating.

I did a lot of traveling this year. This year I was in Japan, the United States, Korea, Singapore, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, France, and the UK.

My favorite of all the places we traveled? I really liked my trip to Europe for ITF 2024. It gave me a chance to explore many of the interesting technologies they are working on over there.

And of course, I got to visit the ASML campus, where it seems like I have a few fans.

Since then, more than a few people have asked me how I managed to get a visit. Honest truth? No clue it just happened. The trip also let me bring back like two bags of cheese to Taiwan. I have since eaten all that cheese so I will just have to go back.

Top Videos

The top three performing videos this year were:

"Why is Japan so Weak in Software?" This topic had been suggested to me by a friend in Japan during a visit. I thought it would be fun, but ended up struggling with it a great deal for several months thereafter.

Did I ever really answer the question? I am sure there are plenty of YouTube commenters who claim I did not, but I gave it the best try that I could. The resulting video was a fascinating exercise and I want to do more of these in the future.

"The Rise and the Fall of the Cray Supercomputer". The idea had been suggested to me in a few reader emails, but it was a trip to the Computer History Museum that convinced me that I had to do it.

I travel a lot around Taiwan for family reasons, so I remember many of these videos by where I was when I made them. I distinctly remember working on the Cray video in Kaohsiung, Taipei, and Taichung - a whole variety of places.

I wanted to do a video about the rise of Japanese supercomputers, and how they affected Cray in the marketplace. Still might do it, but after doing that video I was all supercomputer'ed out.

Third, "The Birth, Boom, and Bust of the Hard Disk Drive". I worked on this video throughout my travels in the United States and Japan. When I uploaded it, I clearly remember wondering if I had done the topic justice and whether it might be of interest to viewers. As a guy who bought bunches of these HDDs back in the day, learning about them was fascinating to me.

I did a follow-up video on that video discussing some new technologies in the industry's future. The tech behind what they are doing is amazing. But I remain unsure about the future of the hard disk drive industry in the face of the NAND onslaught.

Videos That I am Sad About

Every year, there are videos that did not perform as well.

First and foremost is the IBM PC video. The story of how Compaq, Intel and Microsoft wrenched the IBM PC away from its originator is absolutely fascinating. Yeah, I know I put an ad on it, but I still think it was a wonderful story.

Some of the profiles of semiconductor companies like LSI Logic and STMicroelectronics did not do as well as I would have liked. LSI Logic had been one of the major American semiconductor companies.

And STMicro in particular involved a retracing of the European semiconductor industry. The story of CEO Pasquale deftly managing two long-standing cultures and actually creating a profitable company out of it is remarkable.

I also was a bit disappointed about the performance about the quantum sensing video. Nitrogen Vacancy diamonds are some of the weirdest things I have thought about in a while, and I think y'all are sleeping on it.

Meetings

Yes, I still meet with people in Taipei! Some of the most enjoyable conversations I have had this year include:

The conversation with a systems engineer at Rocket Lab, who patiently took me through the business of launch systems and space-based services. I don't think much about space, but that was very enjoyable.

I enjoyed a conversation with the Nvidia engineer working in vision AI. A kind soul who was open about what it was like to work there.

And there was the chat with a few students from Yale, who asked a bunch of very detailed questions about Taiwan and the Taiwanese semiconductor ecosystem. I think we talked for four hours!

And the various members of the semiconductor industry who took time out of their busy days to talk to me about what they are doing in their part of the world. Every day, these guys work magic.

For at least 2025, I will be in Taiwan and the US for work - and will try to meet with people as I can. With the way things are now, and recent events, I think it is important that people come here and see what Taiwan is like for themselves.

The Future

So what does 2025 hold in store for the channel?

There remains a whole lot of interesting things to be talking about in chips and semiconductors. I think I will still cover those stories in the future.

But on the other hand, I feel like I am getting a bit too heavy into the semiconductors. And while there are plenty of comments out there saying that when I wander away from semiconductor topics it's not as good, it keeps me fresh and happy.

Personally, running the channel is still exhausting. More than a few times in 2024, I found myself uploading later than midnight, and then immediately prepping the next video. I wish I had more time.

But the YouTube game is such that if you are not consistently posting then people are watching someone else. I get it. That is the life we sign up for. I still love doing this. As always, working on this channel is the privilege of my life and I look forward to having more stuff for you guys in 2025.