The Wall Street Journal
WSJ:
Tech News Briefing
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 2026
2/24/2026 3:01:00 AMShare This Episode
Inside the New American Tech Factories
Chip makers and other suppliers are building plants on American soil, spurred on by the promises of Big Tech’s investment in U.S. industry. WSJ reporter Rolfe Winkler takes us behind the scenes of the effort to manufacture technology onshore. Plus, how low can you go when it comes to headcount? Enterprise reporter Belle Lin explains why that’s the question all AI startups are asking in their bid to prove efficiency. Katie Deighton hosts.
- chip maker /ˈtʃɪp ˌmeɪkər/ 半導体メーカー
- supplier /səˈplaɪər/ 供給業者
- plant /plænt/ 工場
- on American soil /ɑːn əˈmɛrɪkən sɔɪl/ アメリカ国内で
- spurred on by /spɝːrd ɑːn baɪ/ ～によって促される
- Big Tech /bɪɡ tɛk/ 大手テック企業
- investment in ~ /ɪnˈvɛstmənt ɪn/ ～への投資
- behind the scenes /bɪˈhaɪnd ðə siːnz/ 舞台裏
- manufacture /ˌmænjuˈfæktʃər/ 製造する
- onshore /ˈɑːnˌʃɔːr/ 国内で（海外ではなく）
- headcount /ˈhɛdˌkaʊnt/ 人員数、社員数
- in their bid to ~ /ɪn ðɛr bɪd tə/ ～するための試み・努力
- prove efficiency /pruːv ɪˈfɪʃənsi/ 効率性を証明する
Katie Deighton: Welcome to Tech News Briefing. It's Tuesday, February 24th. I'm Katie Deighton for The Wall Street Journal.
The age of growing headcount is over, at least in the world of AI startups. Small companies are doing all they can to remain that way whilst growing revenue as part of a bid to showcase efficiency to investors. We take a look at how the trend is reshaping the tech industry. Then we're going on a tour of America's newest tech factories. After years of political promises and encouragement from the government, more chipmakers and other manufacturing companies are breaking ground on US plants and gearing up to hire American workers. But can these facilities really compete with their counterparts in Asia? Stay with us to find out.
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while /waɪl/：～する間に、一方で
-
whilst /waɪlst/：～する間に、一方で（文語的・イギリス寄り）
But first, once upon a time a growing headcount at a new company was seen as a positive sign. Now in an age of AI outsourcing, not so much. Some Silicon Valley startups are running leaner than ever, using the latest AI tools to keep staff numbers as low as possible. My colleague Belle Lin is here to talk about this new flex. Belle, generally speaking, where are these companies finding that AI works best within the workforce? Are there particular jobs or even functions that you've heard these AI companies cutting out and replacing with technology?
- “leaner” より効率的／無駄の少ない／スリムな
- lean on /liːn ɑn/ → ～に頼る、もたれる
- lean /liːn/ → 余分なものがなくて引き締まった、効率的な
- lean meat /liːn miːt/ → 赤身肉、脂肪の少ない肉
Belle Lin: In most cases, it's the software engineering function, so these software developers that use tools like Anthropic's Claude Code or OpenAI's Codex, which are really supercharging the way in which they write code and many times replacing the active writing code at all. So what they're doing is just reviewing the code or looking at the code that's being written by the AI. That's the kind of pattern that's seen across many companies, not just startups in Silicon Valley.
many times replacing the active writing code at all
AI がコードを書く作業を 完全には置き換えない という意味です。
- not … at all 全く～ない、少しも～ない（完全否定）
- 肯定文での at all
少しでも（譲歩・限定・条件付き）
If it helps at all, I can explain again.
→ 少しでも役に立つなら、もう一度説明します全くではない / 完全には～しない（実質的否定の強調）
many times replacing the active writing code at all → 「完全に置き換えてしまうわけではない」というニュアンス
Katie Deighton: How lean is lean? What kind of headcount versus revenue range are we talking about here?
Belle Lin: You can look at the definition as a startup that has maybe less than a hundred employees and is tracking revenue per employee. So they're looking at efficiency as one of the most important metrics very early on. That's more important to them in some cases than growth. Because the old way of looking at things in Silicon Valley was that you had these companies that were just trying to grow as quickly as possible, these startups that considered it a badge of honor to have a lot of employees, and that was something you touted in a press release. But nowadays, it's really about staying small and lean and very mean.
- metric /ˈmɛtrɪk/ 指標、評価基準
- badge of honor /bædʒ əv ˈɑːnər/ 誇りの印→ 誇りの象徴としての表現。「～の証」というニュアンス
- tout /taʊt/ 宣伝する、誇示する
- small and lean /smɔːl ənd liːn/ 小規模で効率的な
- mean /miːn/ 強力で能力が高い（文脈上）
「意地悪」 の意味ではなく、「強力で優れた、やり手である」
ビジネスやスポーツなどの文脈で mean + 名詞（mean machine, mean player）で「能力の高い、強力な」
Katie Deighton: How low can they go? Your story mentions the idea of the one-person company. Is that a feasible thing that we're going to be seeing in the future?
Belle Lin: According to some folks in Silicon Valley, it is very possible. You have folks like Sam Altman who has touted this idea. With the rise of AI agents, like OpenClaw that was very viral a few weeks ago, this personal AI agent that can do a lot of things on your behalf, it's very likely that you have millions of these agents working on behalf of one person, and then you start generating the revenue, like a billion dollars. So it's very possible, but there's a lot of technical infrastructure that needs to be built before we get there.
Katie Deighton: For companies that have more than one person right now, when they're talking about getting lean, are they talking about keeping their headcounts low from the beginning, or are they talking about firing people?
Belle Lin: That is also a possibility. I spoke with a startup called Forethought that realized it needed to pivot, and so it went through a round of layoffs and is now tracking revenue per headcount. So you don't need to necessarily be lean from the get-go from what I've heard from these startups. You can also take on the lean persona.
- from the get-go /frəm ðə ˈɡɛt ˌɡoʊ/ 最初から、始めから
- lean persona /liːn pərˈsoʊnə/ 効率的な姿勢・キャラクター
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lean /liːn/ → 無駄のない、効率的な
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persona /pərˈsoʊnə/ → 「人柄、キャラクター、（役割としての）姿勢」
- take on + 名詞 = 「～を身につける、採用する」
ｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰｰ4：11
Katie Deighton: Keeping revenue per person high obviously sounds great to investors, but what are some of the drawbacks to keeping your employee base this small?
Belle Lin: One investor that I spoke to said that it can really hamper growth from the start. Investors do also like seeing growth. Efficiency is important, but growth is also essential. So in areas like sales, enterprise sales specifically so selling to large companies, that's a place where you still need people to cater to the whims and demands of large enterprise clients. So that isn't changing anytime soon. Then another startup I talked to said that they realized their people were under-resourced. They were at capacity, and so they needed to hire more. So that's certainly a downside is your people are working the 996 hustle culture, and maybe they're not too happy because of it.
- drawback /ˈdrɔːbæk/ 欠点、デメリット
- hamper /ˈhæmpər/ 妨げる
- enterprise sales /ˈɛntərpraɪz seɪlz/ 企業向け営業
- cater to /ˈkeɪtər tuː/ 要求・希望に応える
- whim /wɪm/ 気まぐれ
- under-resourced /ˌʌndər rɪˈsɔːrst/ リソース不足の
- at capacity /æt kəˈpæsəti/ 手一杯で
- 996 hustle culture /ˌnaɪn naɪn sɪks ˈhʌsl ˌkʌltʃər/ 中国の過酷な長時間勤務文化
Katie Deighton: That was WSJ reporter Belle Lin.
Is AI making your workplace more efficient? If you're a listener on Spotify, be sure to let us know in a comment.
Coming up, why a patch of land north of Phoenix has become one of the hottest places for American tech. That's after the break.
For years, the Trump and Biden administrations vowed to beef up America's tech manufacturing capabilities, particularly when it comes to making chips used to power most modern devices. The argument is that doing so would help the US compete with and insulate itself from the Asian countries that have cornered the market of production. Now it's finally happening. Tech factories are being erected throughout the US, and Apple is showing up at the doors as a customer. WSJ reporter Rolfe Winkler recently hit the road to get inside these new plants. Rolfe, you've recently toured this new chip manufacturing plant being constructed in Arizona. Can you set the scene for us? What did you see and hear happening down there?
- insulate oneself from /ˈɪnsjʊˌleɪt wʌnˈsɛlf frəm/ ～から隔離する、影響を受けにくくする
- corner the market /ˌkɔːrnər ðə ˈmɑːrkɪt/ 市場を独占する
名詞の corner（角・隅）から来ています
元のイメージ: 「相手を角に追い込む → 市場を他から奪う → 独占する」 - erect /ɪˈrɛkt/ 建設する、建てる
Rolfe Winkler: Oh, it's huge. It was just one of the facilities that I toured. We started at a wafer facility in Sherman, Texas. We went to TSMC in Arizona. We saw an Apple/Foxconn facility in Houston. It was really quite the trip. But I will say TSMC is the highlight there. It's so big, it's so epic what they're building there in Arizona.
- wafer facility /ˈweɪfər fəˈsɪləti/ ウェハ製造施設（半導体用シリコン基板）
- chip fab /tʃɪp fæb/ 半導体工場（fabrication facilityの略）
- steel beam skeleton /stiːl biːm ˈskɛlɪtən/ 鉄骨の骨組み
- epic /ˈɛpɪk/ 壮大な、非常に印象的な
Katie Deighton: How big are we talking? Can you put it into context for us?
Rolfe Winkler: Right now, one chip fab is built and operating. Another one is almost completed. A third is a steel beam skeleton. These are massive, massive buildings. They're building in one spot, but they've acquired a total of 2,000 acres in that area. If everything is completed, if all six chip fabs, if the advanced packaging facilities they do the R&D center, everything is built, we're talking 2,000 acres, which is more than twice the size of Central Park.
Katie Deighton: Why is the world's largest chipmaker, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing, building a base in the American Southwest? How did we get to this point?
Rolfe Winkler: Yeah, I should back up. The reason we were there is Apple took us on an exclusive tour of some of these facilities. Apple is the world's largest buyer of chips, and so they have a lot of leverage to say, "We want some of that manufacturing to be in the United States," because today it's almost exclusively in Asia, a lot of it in Taiwan. Pressure from the US government, plus they want to diversify their supply chain, says, "All right, let's at least move some of this to the United States."
Katie Deighton: This site, like you said, it's absolutely humongous. I wonder how it compares with those in Taiwan that TSMC and other companies operate out there.
Rolfe Winkler: Much smaller. As big as it is, and $165 billion would be one of the largest construction projects in the United States if they ultimately spend all that and build everything there, it's going to be maybe a decade before this one facility reaches the volumes that TSMC has multiple facilities in Taiwan operating at. Moreover, there's the level of sophistication of the chip that they make in Arizona doesn't match Taiwan. What's made in Arizona is five years behind and will continue to be five years behind because there's no way Taiwan is going to allow the best technology off the island to defend against a Chinese invasion. It's called the Silicon Shield. Does China want to invade the island that actually makes the world's most advanced chips, like all of them? That would be ruinous to the world economy. So it's a very good deterrent.
Katie Deighton: For the better part of a decade, we've had two presidents pushing for more tech manufacturing in the US. What are the main challenges involved with doing so, and what factors are tech companies and other stakeholders pointing to as obstacles in this push?
Rolfe Winkler: Cost and capability. China has a couple great things going for it, China and India and Vietnam, which are places that Apple has expanded to. They have, first off, very cheap labor. It's gotten more expensive. Labor in China is no longer as cheap. Vietnam and India are more competitive in that regard. But they also have very skilled labor, people machining metal and all of the talented engineering it takes to make the parts. Smartphones are intricate devices, and there's a lot of expertise that China has built up over years that puts them ahead. We just don't have that in the United States anymore. So you combine lots and lots of workers coming from rural areas who are happy to work inside an assembly plant by the hundreds of thousands or millions, and, with the skilled labor that exists there, that's an advantage that a place like China has that the US can't match. If you're going to try to do it in the US, you wouldn't have the workers and they would cost more. It's just not plausible to do that unless you wanted to pay $10,000 or whatever for your iPhone.
- machining metal /məˈʃiːnɪŋ ˈmɛtl/ 金属を加工すること
- intricate device /ˈɪntrɪkət dɪˈvaɪs/ 精密装置
- plausible /ˈplɔːzəbl/ 現実的な、もっともらしい
- It's just not plausible to do that unless ~
→ 「～しない限り、それを行うのは現実的ではない」 - a couple great things going for ~ /ə ˈkʌpl ɡreɪt θɪŋz ˈɡoʊɪŋ fɔːr/ ～にはいくつか有利な点がある
go for it = 「思い切ってやってみる」「挑戦する」
go for something = 「～を狙う」「～を選ぶ」have something going for someone/something = 「～の強み・利点がある」
Katie Deighton: With all that in mind, what do you think the story of this plant and the others that you've been touring says about where American companies are at with bringing manufacturing here?
Rolfe Winkler: It shows there's a start. There's actually stuff being built. It's the beginning. We have a long way to go, and we will probably never catch Asia without a generational investment and focus on this as America, but it's not nothing.
- generational investment /ˌdʒɛnəˈreɪʃənl ɪnˈvɛstmənt/ 世代単位の大規模投資
- bring manufacturing here /brɪŋ ˌmænjuˈfæktʃərɪŋ hɪər/ 製造業を国内に呼び戻す
- long way to go /lɔːŋ weɪ tuː ɡoʊ/ まだ長い道のりがある
Katie Deighton: That was WSJ reporter Rolfe Winkler. That's it for Tech News Briefing. If you're a listener on Spotify, be sure to take this episode's poll or leave us a comment. Today's show was produced by Julie Chang with supervising producer Katie Ferguson. I'm Katie Deighton for The Wall Street Journal. We'll be back later this morning with TMB Tech Minute. Thanks for listening.
What’s News
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2026
2/25/2026 5:09:00 PMShare This Episode
Why Businesses Are Selling Their Tariff Refund Claims to Wall Street
なぜ企業は関税還付請求権をウォール街に売却しているのか
P.M. Edition for Feb. 25. Businesses are still figuring out whether they’ll get tariff refunds after last week’s Supreme Court decision. But some aren’t waiting for an answer; WSJ reporter Caitlin McCabe discusses how they’re selling their tariff refund claims to Wall Street traders. Plus, four people on a U.S.-registered speedboat were shot and killed after exchanging fire with Cuba's border guard. And prediction-market platform Kalshi has fined two users for breaking its rules. While it’s the first time the company has done so publicly, Journal reporter Krystal Hur says it likely won’t be the last. Alex Ossola hosts.
- tariff refund /ˈtærɪf ˈriːfʌnd/ 関税還付
- claim /kleɪm/ 請求権
- Supreme Court /suːˈpriːm kɔːrt/ 最高裁判所
- sell A to B /sel/ AをBに売る
- trader /ˈtreɪdər/ トレーダー
- U.S.-registered /ˌjuːˈes ˈredʒɪstərd/ 米国登録の
- exchange fire /ɪksˈtʃeɪndʒ faɪər/ 銃撃戦を交わす
- border guard /ˈbɔːrdər ɡɑːrd/ 国境警備隊
- prediction-market platform /prɪˈdɪkʃən ˌmɑːrkɪt/ 予測市場プラットフォーム
- fine (動詞) /faɪn/ 罰金を科す
- publicly /ˈpʌblɪkli/ 公に
- likely /ˈlaɪkli/ 可能性が高い