Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Mohapatra: To Win and Profit, Operate 80% Gross Margin Businesses

Hemant Mohapatra · Episode 53 | Hemant Mohapatra, Partner, Lightspeed India Partners · Feb 24, 2020 · at 2:29

Hemant Mohapatra was not on this episode. A recording of them was played into it, so these are their words but not an appearance on the Neon Show. It still counts as said, and it is kept out of every score on their page.

Lightspeed India Partner Hemant Mohapatra reflects on why he left his engineering career at AMD to transition toward higher-margin software and technology businesses.

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“Ended up realizing, after spending six years there, ended up realizing that, you know, you have, if you want to win and make money, you have to be in a 80% gross margin, you know, business versus a 20% gross margin business, which is what chip design and chip manufacturing is all about.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

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