The Balcony: Microcosm

The Balcony takes Microcosm, by George Gilder, from 1989: ideas beat materials, told through the microchip. Vera: chapter one, sand, aluminium, air; materials under one percent. Augie: chapter eight, Intel's salesmen saw demand for ten thousand microprocessors; chapter twelve, a ball-bearing maker builds a chip plant in four months. Vera: forty workers a shift, forty thousand chips each, monthly; the experts had called it a white elephant. Verdict: keep chapter one, matter to mind; keep Tateyama, for anyone who thinks factories are the point.

Microcosm, by George Gilder, published in 1989, argues that the central event of the twentieth century is the overthrow of matter: wealth now comes from ideas rather than materials, and the proof is the microchip, made of sand, aluminium and air with materials under one percent of its cost; chapter eight shows Intel's own salesmen seeing a market of about ten thousand for the first microprocessor, and chapter twelve shows a Japanese ball-bearing maker raising an automated memory-chip plant in four months, where forty workers a shift make forty thousand chips each a month, after experts called it a white elephant.

On the book: Microcosm by George Gilder

Starring

DotVera LindqvistAugie Castellano