John Bathgate of NZS Capital explains the structural challenges facing vertically integrated chipmakers like Intel and Samsung.
Opinion
Bathgate: TSMC surpassed Intel because vertical integration forced impossible multi-front technological battles
“Intel has to fight TSMC on process technology, which, like, in itself is one of the hardest things, you know, any technology companies had to do over the last 20 years, and that's why Intel has been surpassed by TSMC, right?”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Bathgate: A TSMC fab shutdown sets Western tech progress back five years
“If for some reason, you know, China moved to seize Taiwan or however, you know, it went into play and all of a sudden TSMC's fabs were shut down, then you really, the Western world would be, you know, set back at least five years, if not 10, just in terms of l…”
Insight
Bathgate: Investors should avoid extractive moats reliant on price-hiking lock-in
“One of the things that we're careful about is like looking for companies where, you know, part of their moat is kind of you know, inserting themselves into the value chain or into their you know, their customers, you know, share of wallet basically, where they…”
Assertion Supported
Bathgate: Halving Apple App Store take rate costs 5% of gross profit
“What's the gross profit impact if they cut their app store you know, take rate from 30% to 15%, you know, across The board. What is that like? Five percent of gross profits. It's like meaningless to them and it would create so much value for all the, and there…”
Insight
Bathgate: TSMC keeps margins below its customers to prioritize long-term platform value
“TSMC has lower margins than most of their gross margins than most of their customers. And so at any point they could probably take the margins from 50% to 60% and say, Hey, I'm obviously have a monopoly in this market, but the way, you know, Morris Chang archi…”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Bathgate: Moore's Law will continue spiritually for 10 to 15 years
“I think just like for the spirit of Moore's law, we still have, we have visibility probably for the next. 10 to 15 years.”