UNDERLYR

The layer beneath everything

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The thesis
Every system that shapes modern life was designed by someone, controlled by someone, optimized for someone's benefit.

The most consequential systems in the modern world are controlled by fewer entities than most people realize. Not through conspiracy — through the compounding logic of efficiency. Every actor does the rational thing, until the thing everyone depends on is controlled by one entity that nobody planned to make irreplaceable.

UNDERLYR names them.

90% Of advanced chips made by one company
95% Of internet traffic through undersea cables
1 Island. 160km from geopolitical conflict
Latest episode

TSMC: The Company That
Holds the World Together

Episode 01

TSMC: The Company That Holds the World Together

One company controls 90% of the world's most advanced chip manufacturing. It employs fewer than 75,000 people. It operates on one island — 60 miles from a government that considers that island its own territory.

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What we investigate

The underlayers of
the modern world

01
Infrastructure

The physical and digital systems everything else depends on — cables, satellites, power grids, data centers.

02
Power Concentration

How efficiency-driven markets produce dangerous monopolies without anyone being responsible for the outcome.

03
Hidden Systems

The protocols, institutions, and agreements that govern modern life — invisible until they fail or are weaponized.

New episodes
every Tuesday

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