Is it really true? Has another year

passed? I cannot believe it. That song

is right. The years keep coming and they

don't stop coming. I guess we have a bit

of a tradition. With 2026 looming ahead,

I want to take a little time and reflect

on the past year. I posted 87 videos in

2025, including this one. Some of them

did very well views-wise. The obvious

winner launched back in March 2025.

What happened to the capacitors in 2002.

I knew that I always wanted to do that

one. Lots of people had written in to

ask me about it. I just was not sure

whether or not that I had enough for a

video. Anyway, is there another

capacitor type situation out there? I

don't know. But if there if you have

one, let me know. Next, after that, we

have the Indomi video and how it got to

be so popular in Nigeria. Let me confess

a bit. I've never actually tried Indomi,

mostly because I am on a long running

and suffering diet. I did hear that it

has a lot of MSG in it. The third

highest performer is the video about

Compact. That one was actually released

in November 2024 and just happened to

get very popular throughout 2025.

When I started on the video, I knew just

a few things about Compact. It surprises

me to think that so many people remember

this company today.

After that is the end of Nissan video.

That one went a bit weird because by the

time the video came out, the Nissan

Honda deal was already on the verge of

collapse. And it indeed collapsed.

Nissan is still shuffling around, but

again, so do zombies.

To round out the top five, we have the

Japanese rice price crisis video. This

caught my eye during my last trip to

Japan, and I was fortunate to find that

other people cared for Japanese rice

policies as much as I did. I do think

food prices and food systems are things

that I will spend more time on in 2026.

It's just something that I've been

thinking a lot about recently. Things

just feel so pricey now in the US and

Europe. But cutting prices on food is

nowhere near as easy as I generally have

expected it to be. And as the Singapore

30 by30 video seems to imply, policy

goals like food self-sufficiency may

lead to higher prices, which can be

politically unpopular.

Let me shout out a bit of my personal

favorites that I worked on during the

year. There's the mini video, disrupting

big steel. This one dove into the rise

of the mini business model that

disrupted the old integrated steel

plants. A friend of mine reached out to

me to say that it was the quintessential

aenometry video. And for some reason,

that makes me feel really proud. The

funny thing about that video was how

much it blew out of scope. The original

plan had been to just profile Nepon

Steel's acquisition of US Steel. But

while doing research for that, I went

down the rabbit hole and realized that I

had done too much. Deciding that the

viewers would hate me if I produce an

hour plus long video, I split it in

half. I've been doing that a lot

recently.

And then while working on part one,

which would cover the fall of US Steel,

I decided midway to switch it into being

a video about minis because that was

what called out to me more.

Another video series, quote unquote,

that was kind of like this was the one

about Power PC. As soon as I started on

it, I knew that it was going to be fun.

So, I spent an extended period of time

on it going through all the risk stuff.

As the video got longer and longer, I

decided again that this was way too

much. And so I split it up into two

episodes. The Power PC video and another

on the Risk Wars. And then funnily

enough, this new second part got so long

that I decided to split off the story

about the company Power Computing, the

Mac OS Clone King, and make it into its

own video. So this single work session

turned into three videos. Wow. Another

personal favorite of mine was the one

about Pic OS. I recall it being

suggested to me by multiple viewers and

then wondering who on earth is going to

watch this. I do this sometimes as I'm

working on the video and getting really

deep on it. I just kept thinking to

myself, nobody's going to watch this

random video about a freaking operating

system. And yet somehow it became quite

popular. Maybe in 2026 I'll do a few

more operating system profiles.

And of course, I want to give a thumb to

one of the top winners of the year,

Toshiba's nuclear annihilation. It was

one of the longest videos that I ever

did up until then. The story wasn't just

amazing. The whole thing was also super

educational.

The weirdest thing about YouTube is that

you can never predict what might or

might not get popular. There were plenty

of videos that I worked on during 20125

that I thought were going to be surefire

hits, but ended up flopping. Two in

particular stood out to me. The top

disappointment for me was the Chinese

hamster video which discussed a line of

CHO cells. Such chose cells help

manufacture the antibbody drugs that

today are some of the hottest things in

medicine. And the story of how Dr.

Robert Briggs Watson brought 20 Chinese

hamsters and drove his way across

mainland China through banditinfested

territory and huge storms in the waning

days of the civil war was amazing. I

even left a lawn on the cutting room

floor as I managed to get a hold of the

oral histories of Dr. Robert Briggs

Watson and read his experiences in the

flesh. A maybe disappointment was the 45

nanmter node video. As I was working on

it, I got the sense that maybe this one

might be a little too niche for the

general public. But just in terms of

sheer educational value for me

personally, it was great. I have no

regrets.

Travel-wise, 2025 was an interesting

year. I was honored to have the

opportunity to spend so much time on the

road. Some of this was tied to work. I

went to Semiccon West, did my vibe

checks in the Silicon Valley, went to

Semicon Korea and other places. A

particularly fun trip was the one to

visit various data centers in Malaysia

and Singapore along with the firm Semi

analysis. The experience of traveling

with friends and good people was huge,

especially for this YouTuber who spends

most of his time alone.

I do want to spend more of 2026

traveling to various museums and

interesting exhibitions. Some of these

turn into ideas for videos or become

usable stock footage. A big thing for me

in 2025 was trying to build up my own

private image library.

But a lot of the travel was just

enjoying time off with family and

friends. I got to travel to Alash in

France, drink egg coffee in the city of

Saigon and experience Fuket for the

first time. The travel will continue

next year and I hope to attend ITF World

2026 and do another trip to the

Netherlands. If you live there, please

let me know. I would love to say hello.

As always, I want to thank you guys for

watching the channel. Can you believe

that I've been posting since 2017?

We're coming up on 10 years, meaning

that for 10 years of my life, I've been

researching, writing, and recording

videos. Something that began as a way to

kill time during the lonely weekend

mornings has turned into a full-time

gig. How much longer is this going to

last? I I don't know. I'm getting older.

I have back pain. My eyes hurt when I

work too long. I don't have as much

energy as I used to. and my voice has

definitely changed over the years.

There's that quote from The Office, I

wish there was a way to know you're in

the good old days before you've actually

left them. That's so true in so many

ways. How long can the channel keep on

in its good old days like it has like it

is? I don't know. Sometimes I feel like

the world is passing me by. The new

things arising every day around the

world. Every day new creators, new

formats, new hits. And throughout all of

that, AI is constantly getting better.

On one hand, on one level, I love it.

The world is so rich, yet at the same

time, where does this leave me? I don't

know. All I can do is to try to keep

doing this for as long as I can. In the

year ahead, I have a bunch of

interesting videos waiting to be made or

released. There's so many exciting ideas

out there that I want to do. Next year,

expect to see videos on tandem non-stop,

Westinghouse, antibiotics again, space

fabs, diamond transistors, and sassel.

And of course, I'm still planning on

making that Australia cocklear implant

video. To all of you out there, I care

for you and wish you the best. Life is

short. Be good, everyone. All right,

that's it for tonight. Thanks for

watching. Subscribe to the channel, sign

up for the Patreon, and I see you guys

next year.