Field Notes

Russian Dynamism

It’s not sleek, it’s not Anduril, but it is battle-tested.

Oct 11 • Neil Hawke

Industry Clusters: How China Built the Machine

China’s industrial strategies, inter-province rivalries, and what cluster dissolution can look like.

Sep 24 • Neil Hawke

Industry Clusters: Optimization vs Adaptability

What happens when governments shift from merely benefiting from industry ecosystems, to actively building, extending, and defending them?

Aug 24 • Neil Hawke

The Unmoored Future: Computing in the Post-CMOS World

An exploration of three emerging branches of computing that challenge the semiconductor paradigm that has powered the modern world.

Jun 19 • Neil Hawke

Great Lakes Coastal: Reflections on a Semi-Failed Low-Tech Startup

When has a business truly failed, and should you pull the plug if the goal was never success by any financial metric?

Jun 7 • Neil Hawke

The Great Leap Forward… This Time With Robots

China leads the world in robotic factory automation. At a critical moment, they're pivoting from outcompeting on cost to outcompeting across the board.

Mar 14 • Neil Hawke

Myth and Mythos: The American Industrial Worker

How a nation built on industrial labor convinced itself that nobody wanted the job, and what the 2020s reshoring wave reveals about the future of U.S…

Feb 8 • Neil Hawke

From Sand to Smartphone: A Field Guide to the Electronics Stack

The essential guide to how electronic goods are made, layer by layer, for consumers, and industry newcomers.

Dec 22, 2025 • Neil Hawke

Christmas Special: Two Small Towns That Quietly Run the Holidays

How Oregon forests and a Chinese manufacturing hub shape Christmas across continents.

Dec 8, 2025 • Neil Hawke

Normal Computing’s Thermodynamic Chip

Noise, heat, and the next frontier in AI hardware.

Oct 30, 2025 • Neil Hawke

From Highways to High Tech: Vietnam’s Bid for Electronics Relevance

As global supply chains rewire around risk, Vietnam’s next leap won’t be built in factories, it’ll be paved on its roads.

Oct 16, 2025 • Neil Hawke

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