“Most companies don’t die because they are wrong; most die because they don’t commit themselves. They fritter away their valuable resources while attempting to make a decision. The greatest danger is standing still.” Andy Grove’s Only the Paranoid Survive, first published in 1996.
Looking back 20 years, we all know this… Read More
Now that semiconductors are front page news and a political football, I would like to write more about how we got to where we are today to better understand where semiconductors will go tomorrow. I will start this article with a provocative quote that really made me laugh and will put some context to what I am trying to accomplish here:… Read More
In the heat of a presidential campaign, especially one with 19 competing candidates, the contenders may get carried away in the interest of getting attention and, presumably, attracting supporters. Beto O’Rourke might be accused of such rhetorical excess for his call, in the third Democratic Party debate, for a mandatory Federal
In the 1930s, psychologist B.F. Skinner put rats in boxes and taught them to push levers to receive a food pellet. The pushed the levers only when hungry, though. To get the rats to press the lever repeatedly, even when they did not need food, he gave them a pellet only some of the time, a concept now known as intermittent variable rewards.… Read More
The Broadcom bid for Qualcomm is the biggest, boldest semiconductor deal to date. Just when we thought semi M&A was cooling off, this deal is a years worth of deals rolled into one. Not only does this deal upset the current balance between chip suppliers and customers, it would create a giant entity smack in the middle of IOT, AI,… Read More
Donald Trump says he has a secret plan for defeating ISIS in Syria, but says it would be self-defeating to share that plan with the American electorate and, presumably, ISIS itself. Administrator Mark Rosekind says the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has a plan for reducing highway fatalities to zero in the U.S.,… Read More
The Vision Zero movement, embraced by Sweden and select U.S. and foreign cities around the world, continues to elude the grasp of U.S. Department of Transportation leadership. I was reading an impassioned letter to the President by Marianne Karth on the issue this morning – impassioned because Karth lost two daughters … Read More
As I watched the GOP debate between the top 10 candidates last week I asked myself which one of those men would I pick to help the United States stay competitive in the semiconductor industry. I’m saddened to say that the only candidate even remotely qualified for that conversation in my opinion is Donald Trump. Of course I backed Ross… Read More
