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From a reader. Huge thanks.
Saturday, May 9, 2026
Flashback: Micron, ASML, Apple, Boise, Idaho, And All That Jazz -- December 30, 2024
Locator: 50766ASML.
Flashback: this was from December 20, 2024. Link here. In the "flashback" below, note the date Chip War was published. I honestly forget if I invested in Micron after reading that book or if there was some other reason that I first invested in Micron. Macht nichts.
Locator: 44572TECH.
At midnight tonight, if you have time for just one more article, this is it.
Note the byline.
Quick: name the chip company located in Idaho.
I first paid attention to all of this after reading Chip War, c. 2022.
The article begins:
BOISE, Idaho—Brienna Hall has the most valuable role that you’ll never see at the most vital company that you’ve never heard of.
Until she began working at ASML last year, she didn’t know the first thing about the company. She also didn’t know what she would be doing as a customer-support engineer—a “fancy mechanic,” as she calls herself.
And she had absolutely no idea that it would be essential to the global economy.
When she reports for her shift at a chip plant, Hall slips into a bunny suit. She enters a room where the pristine air is 100 times cleaner than a hospital operating room’s. Then she makes her way over to an unfathomably complex machine.
Her job is to know everything about it—so that she can fix it.
“I thought I had the coolest job ever,” Hall says. “I didn’t process the fact that this job is necessary for our entire world to exist as it does.”
The piece of equipment that the entire world has come to rely on—and she is specially trained to handle—is called an extreme ultraviolet lithography machine.
It’s the machine that produces the most advanced microchips on the planet. It was built with scientific technologies that sound more like science fiction—breakthroughs so improbable that they were once dismissed as impossible. And it has transformed wafers of silicon into the engines of modern life.
Even today, there are only a few hundred of these EUV machines in existence—and they are ludicrously expensive. The one that Hall maintains cost $170 million, while the latest models sell for roughly $370 million.
But maybe the most remarkable thing about these invaluable machines is that they’re all made by the same company: ASML.
ASML is the glue holding the chip business together. That’s because this one Dutch company is responsible for all of the EUV lithography systems that help make the chips in so many of your devices. Like your phone. And your computer. And your tablet. And your TV. Maybe even your car, too.
These machines have become indispensable. And they depend on the invisible work of Brienna Hall.
She’s one of the engineers assigned to the fabrication plants—or fabs—where ASML customers manufacture their semiconductors. Hall is based here in Boise, the headquarters of Micron Technology, where I hopped into a bunny suit of my own and followed her inside the chip fab.
Then I got a rare, behind-the-scenes peek at what might just be the most important machine ever made.
Brienna Hall?
Hall, 29, grew up in Seattle as a Girl Scout obsessed with tying the perfect knot. She was president of the Edmonds College rocketry club when she got her associate degree. At Washington State University, she majored in materials science and engineering—and transcribed notes for a professor writing a textbook on quantum mechanics. She loves planning camping trips even though she doesn’t actually like camping. In her spare time, she works with her hands, quilting and piecing together elaborate Ravensburger jigsaw puzzles.
All of which turned out to be excellent preparation for navigating a machine with more than 100,000 parts.
“You’re always problem-solving,” said Alex Jordan, another ASML engineer. “How can I be more efficient? Where can I optimize this? And what if we tried that?”
When the company recruits for customer-support positions, ASML looks for diligent, disciplined and detail-oriented engineers. Hall had the right kind of technical mind and temperament for the job. When one of her professors heard that a semiconductor company was hiring, Hall passed along her résumé and soon received emails from ASML asking her to apply.
Ukraine War Coming To An End — Putin — May 9, 2026
Locator: 50765UKRAINE.
Weather, Euless, Texas: 90°F; sunny, not a cloud in view! Still, not even a breeze.
Ukraine? Links everywhere.
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The Book Page
Joins the other in the series of annotated classics.
Investing -- What's Next -- May 9, 2026
Locator: 50764BK.
This is a preliminary note: over time, additional details, thoughts may be provided. See the blog's disclaimer; disclaimer briefly, see below.
For extended family members. Not intended for general readership.
For investors: chatbot recommendations -- on the coattails of AI --
- utilities: already overweight
- energy: already overweight
- banks, discount brokers: way underweight;
- minimal capital needs, #1 cost: personnel costs
- healthcare: too volatile; high capital expenses; poor history of cash return to investors;
Generational wealth transfer: $124 trillion. Trillion. Link here.
Banks, wealth management:
Reply:
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AI Investing
Like all biological phenomena and revolutions, this current AI revolution will also follow the standard "S" curve.
Point A, about 2023: it had become obvious that one should have began investing heavily in AI by now. Interestingly, the term "Magnificent Seven" (Mag 7) was coined in 2023 by Bank of America analyst Michael Hartnett. He created the nickname to describe a group of seven dominant, high-performing U.S. technology stocks—Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Tesla.
Point B, about 2028, will be the last opportunity to continue investing aggressively in AI. The Mag 7 will have greatly expanded by then. One might argue we'll see a resurgence of "a" Nifty Fifty.
Between points A and B aggressive investors need to continue aggressively invest in AI, but transition from the Mag7 to the Towering 20.
Many of these new twenty companies will be the results of IPOs between now (2026 and 2028).
Unless there are indications that the growth/excitement of the current AI revolution continues beyond 2030, the investor needs to pivot. And pivot quickly. The market -- certainly the AI market -- could plummet 20 to 25 percent once the average investor sees what is going on. One may already need to consider pivoting from the current Mag 7 to something new.
Between now and then, keep reading everything you can on societal and geo-political changes. The trick will be to anticipate the next Mag 7. My own hunch: pharmaceutical companies that focus on "healthspan expansion" and even, perhaps, "biological age reversal." Beware charlatans.
It's not too late to invest in the current AI revolution, but by next year this time -- maybe sooner -- investing in the current Mag 7 will be challenging -- the real winners (investors) will be those who correctly anticipate the Towering 20 in 2030. Maybe we will see thirty such tickers by 2030 ... "thirty for 2030" --- "30 for 30."
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Disclaimer
Briefly
Briefly:
I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken and I am often well out front of my headlights. I am often appropriately accused of hyperbole when it comes to the Bakken. I am inappropriately exuberant about the US economy and the US market. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. See disclaimer. This is not an investment site. Disclaimer: this is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, job, career, travel, or relationship decisions based on what you read here or think you may have read here. All my posts are done quickly: there will be content and typographical errors. If something appears wrong, it probably is. Feel free to fact check everything. If anything on any of my posts is important to you, go to the source. If/when I find typographical / content errors, I will correct them. Reminder: I am inappropriately exuberant about the Bakken, US economy, and the US market. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Apple. And now, Nvidia, also. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Nvidia. Nvidia is a metonym for AI and/or the sixth industrial revolution. I've now added Broadcom to the disclaimer. I am also inappropriately exuberant about all things Broadcom. Now, I've added Amazon. Longer version here.
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