Curiously Optimistic

The Real Economy Is Rebuilding. Chemicals Are Paying for It.

The build is real. So is the squeeze. The gap between them is where the next chemicals deals come from.

Nov 5 • Bob Girton

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October 2026

Custom Chemistry Makers: What a Buyer Pays For

Nine kinds of hard chemistry, three buyers, ten years of deals. A US plant is worth more than its reactors when it holds a permitted capability, the…

Oct 27 • Bob Girton

1

We Reshored the Buildings

Ten years of factory construction, and about a third less chemistry.

Oct 14 • Bob Girton

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What It Takes to Make a Raptor Move Like That

A thousand little shops, and the coatings that keep it flying

Oct 7 • Bob Girton

1

September 2026

M&A Still Finds a Way

Contrary to what I thought earlier this year, capital didn't pause; it got a bigger filter.

Sep 11 • Bob Girton

2

SBN Article Scorecard

I shared some thoughts in March in Smart Business Magazine: chemicals and materials in the supply shock environment. ~180 days later thought it fun to…

Sep 7 • Bob Girton

1

August 2026

The Hybrid Operating Era

Most organizations just bolt AI onto the old org chart; what redesign might “actually” look like

Aug 31 • Bob Girton

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$271,850 for 4,500 Patents: The Bargain America Keeps Rewriting

Who carries the risk? Washington has answered that question four different ways since 1915. This one is missing a piece.

Aug 21 • Bob Girton

1

Electronic Chemicals: The $73B Market That Makes Every Chip

A ~$73B market read the way an investor should read it: eight segments, one dashboard, and a clear map of where a buyer can build and where the moat is…

Aug 13 • Bob Girton

How Much Money Did We Make Today, Dad?

My daughter runs pipeline oversight from the top bunk. Her chore-chart arbitrage taught me more about "AI is cheating" than anything I've read in media.

Aug 7 • Bob Girton

1

July 2026

The last inch of copper: why AI's next decade is a power problem, not a transistor problem

Two thousand amps at 0.85 volts is the actual engineering problem the industry is spending hundreds of billions to solve. Here's the plain-English map…

Jul 31 • Bob Girton

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