Moore’s Law is the observation that the number of transistors on an integrated circuit roughly doubles every two years, which has made computing power grow exponentially for decades.
The idea
Gordon Moore, who later co-founded Intel in 1968, observed in 1965 while at Fairchild Semiconductor that the density of transistors on a chip was doubling at a regular pace, and predicted the trend would continue. It held for decades and became a self-fulfilling target the semiconductor industry organized its roadmaps around. The broader lesson beyond chips is that some underlying capabilities improve exponentially rather than linearly, and exponential trends are easy to underestimate early on and easy to take for granted once they’re familiar.
When to use it
- Forecasting the trajectory of a technology that has historically shown exponential improvement.
- Reminding yourself that a slow-seeming trend today can compound into a large capability gap over a decade.
- Explaining why compute-hungry applications (graphics, AI, simulation) that seemed impractical years ago later became routine.
How to apply it
- Check whether a trend’s growth is genuinely exponential (roughly constant doubling time) rather than merely fast-linear.
- Project forward using the doubling time rather than a straight-line extrapolation from recent progress.
- Recognize physical or economic limits that could slow or end the trend, rather than assuming it continues indefinitely.
Watch out for
- Moore’s Law is an empirical, industry-driven pattern, not a law of physics; transistor scaling has slowed in recent years as physical limits are approached.
- Exponential-growth intuitions from one technology don’t automatically transfer to another.
Related models
- Compound Interest — the same accelerating-growth shape applied to money, skill, or knowledge.
- Technium — the broader idea of technology as a self-reinforcing, evolving system.
Sources
Gordon E. Moore, “Cramming More Components onto Integrated Circuits” (1965), Electronics Magazine.