John Bathgate describes the decade-long learning cycle ASML and TSMC required to make EUV lithography economically viable.
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?”
Insight
Bathgate: Escalating Moore's Law complexity favors horizontal semis over vertical integration
“The needs of Moore's law are just so difficult that like, it's hard enough to just do one of these things well and doing multiple of them well makes it makes it harder.”
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…”