Jensen Huang's five-layer cake goes up twice in Stanford's MS&E 435, and both times the guest gets the same question: you have $100, which layer do you put it on? I worked through all 9 in August 2026. The shape underneath them: semiconductors took 79% of AI gross profit in 2026 and applications took 7%, the inverse of cloud software. This recap walks the course in order, from $59M per megawatt to a 16% antibody hit rate, and argues that "compute is scarce" has become the industry's substitute for a depreciation estimate. Nine lectures, and the number that decides whether any of it pays never appears on a slide.
What I Learned From Attending REWORK AI Applications Summit 2021
Last month, I attended REWORK’s AI Applications Virtual Summit, which discovers machine learning tools and techniques to improve the financial, retail, and insurance experience. As a previous attendee of REWORK’s in-person summit, I have always enjoyed the unique mix of academia and industry, enabling attendees to meet with AI pioneers at the forefront of research and explore real-world case studies to discover the business value of AI.
In this long-form blog recap, I will dissect content from the talks that I found most useful from attending the summit. The post consists of 13 talks that are divided into 3 sections: (1) AI in Finance and RegTech, (2) AI in Retail and Marketing, and (3) AI in Insurance.

