Two Words I Love To See In The Same Sentence -- Especially If I'm Invested In the Company -- "Explosive" and "Growth" -- March 29, 2024

Locator: 46862TECH.

TSMC: hiring spree, link here.

Elon: say what you want about Elon, but he is absolutely incredible. This will be available to all on twitter next week.

This reminds me of "file sharing" days in 1994 and Moxilla, founded in 1998, and then universal browsers only a few years later. The browser story, HTML, URL universe moved at light-speed.

Now we're about to see the same in the chatbot universe. I marvel at the CNBC talking heads that still don't get it. 

These guys get it: link here.

Yes, I know this is "PR," and "marketing 101" but still ....

Due to insatiable demand for the world’s most advanced microchips, TSMC is on a hiring spree.

Successfully surfing wave after wave of tech industry trends, the contract chipmaker aims to swell its ranks from 77,000 to 100,000 over the next few years, according to the company’s SVP of human resources, Laura Ho (via CNN).

Ho says this explosive growth means not only a need to change hiring methods but also to adjust the work culture and find a new way of training the rapid inflow of new employees.

Finding and training talented employees TSMC was once well-known for its buddy system for new engineers. A new employee would shadow an experienced hand to move beyond book smart and become factory smart.

However, things have already been changing, as TSMC employees have already rapidly grown in number from 56,000 at the end of 2020 to 77,000, according to the latest figures.

To adapt, TSMC created a new dedicated training factory in Taichung, dubbed the Newcomer Training Center. The Center features 20 main machines and 12 measurement and ancillary machines for instructional purposes, delivering almost on-the-job training without risks to products.

This new training process takes around eight weeks to deliver “a solid foundation.”

Quick: name one industry, one sector, one company that will increase its workforce by the same percentage. For TSMC, 56,000 in 2000 to 100,000 by the end of the decade.  

(100 - 56)/56 = 80% growth.

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Back of the Proverbial Envelope

 

• Currently:
• revenue per employee: $606,791.
• market cap: $630 billion
• market cap per employee: $8.4 million
• P/E: 27
• Working backwards (or forward), 100,000 employees
• 100,000 * 8.4 million = $840 billion
• $630 billion / $135 = 4.667
• $840 billion / x = 4.667
• x = $180
• Disclaimer: 
• much simpler ways of doing this; many other ways to approach this; and, I often make simple arithmetic mistakes, but I get $180. What's the current price target by analysts?
• this is not an investment site; I was just curious 
• usual disclaimers apply

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The Movie Page

Side-by-side: Sunset Boulevard and Citizen Kane

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First Day of Spring

Wow, what a beautiful day. The door to the balcony is wide open. The early morning wind has died down.  The landscapers are trimming the hedges; lots of noise. But absolutely a great day -- truly the first day of spring. 

It reminds me of all those TV sitcoms I watched as a kid, like Dennis the Menace, although I only saw it when we visited Storm Lake, Iowa, to see our maternal grandparents. In Williston in 1960, when I was nine years old, we only got NBC and Storm Lake, got CBS. 

Reflecting on that, my elementary school years were framed by a) Hollywood, what I saw on television; and, b) the six-foot snow drifts in Williston during the winter (and sometimes autumn and spring; rarely summer). 

So, it was quite ironic / coincidental that after 20 years of imagining southern California, I ended up living there for four years followed by another three years in northern California.