The Take Down
Issue #011 - Stealth chips and sleepovers
Hi, it’s Caroline.
Reader, this was the week the vault finally opened. For a week, we’d been sitting on footage we couldn’t show anyone, from a chip lab we could barely admit we’d been inside. This week it all went live. We were the only Canadian outlet that got in, and now you can see why that mattered so much to us.
It was also the last week of school. So we published a 60 Minutes-style deep dive on stealth AI hardware in between driving an hour each way to drop a daughter at camp counsellor training, and co-signing the girls up to babysit a neighbour’s cat. One minute you’re explaining custom silicon. The next you’re confirming the cat eats twice a day.
This week on Ticker Take
Monday we dropped the big one. Our 60 Minutes-style behind-the-scenes video from inside the stealth AI chip lab we visited in Austin. This is the one we couldn’t talk about for a week. The access was rare, the build was a beast, and watching it finally go out into the world after all that secrecy felt like exhaling.
Thursday brought the companion piece: our full Ticker Take episode on Amazon and what all of this actually means for the stock. The lab film is the story. The Thursday episode is the so-what for your portfolio. Two very different videos from the same trip, and I’m proud of both.
AI Under the Hood
Tuesday’s short went under the hood on Trainium, Amazon’s own AI chip and the entire reason we were standing in that lab in the first place. If the long-form is the dinner, this is the amuse-bouche. Sixty seconds on why a company best known for shipping you paper towels decided to go build its own silicon.
The week, more or less
The studio doubleheader. Monday we recorded two upcoming episodes back-to-back in the studio. Different setups, different scripts, one very patient teleprompter (operated, as always, by me).
The IonQ interview. Jon sat down with the team at IonQ for a piece on quantum computing that’s coming your way soon. I won’t spoil it. I’ll just say I now know far more about qubits than I ever planned to.
The big thing I can’t talk about yet. There’s a large project in the works behind the scenes that I’m not ready to share. Consider this a deliberate tease.
The commute. Camp counsellor training ran all week, an hour each way, every single day, with a history exam stacked on top.
The end of an era. Quinn closed out grade eight with a boat cruise and what I can only describe as a sleepover tour. Three nights at her friend’s place. I believe she came home for laundry and a wave.
The cat. The girls signed on to babysit a neighbour’s cat. We are now a cat household. On a contract basis.
Jon’s AM vs. Caroline’s PM
Jon’s AM: Interview prep for IonQ, the Amazon stock episode, and an event he hosted at a badminton club with university students for Barometer Capital.
Caroline’s PM: Editing, publishing, the daily camp run, cat onboarding, and one glorious hour at a moms-only pool party on the final day of school. One hour. Wedged between two work blocks. I have never in my life appreciated a pool more.
The Wins
The vault opened. The full Amazon package went live, lab film and all, after a week under wraps.
Only Canadian outlet. Still the only Canadian media that got inside that lab. I am never going to get tired of saying that.
One hour of pool. Sometimes the win is just sixty minutes of being a person and not a production company.
Kickboxing held. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, no exceptions. The one thing on my calendar that does not move for anybody.
The Losses
Sleep. The week’s first casualty. Between the camp commute, studio days, production edits, calls, and a daughter on a three-night sleepover circuit, I ran on fumes and reheated coffee.
My step count on studio days. You’d think a full day of filming would register as exercise. It does not.
Why I’m telling you this
Here’s what this week reminded me, Reader. The work that looks the most impressive from the outside, the stealth lab, the rare access, the 60 Minutes style film, lives in the exact same calendar as the camp drop-offs and the cat contract and the one stolen hour at a pool party. There is no separate track for the big stuff. It all happens in the same week, in the same house, by the same two people running on the same lack of sleep.
People ask how a husband and wife build a media company out of a home studio while raising two teenagers. The honest answer is that we don’t separate the lab from the laundry. We just keep both moving and try very hard not to drop either. This week we didn’t drop either.
Now we’re heading into a low-key weekend, which in this house means roughly four loads of laundry and pretending we won’t open the laptops. Thanks for being here. See you next week.
— Caroline
P.S. For the actual market takes, the numbers, the stock calls, subscribe to Jon’s Substack too. Two sides of the same overworked brain.