Explore an improved approximation algorithm for the Asymmetric Traveling Salesman Problem (ATSP) in this 24-minute conference talk presented at the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). Delve into the history of approximation ratios for ATSP and learn about linear programming relaxation. Discover a sequence of reductions and strongly laminar instances, followed by an examination of a naive recursive algorithm. Analyze nice paths and understand recursion with vertebrate pairs. Gain insights into constructing the backbone and conclude with a summary of the current state of the art for ATSP.