The IBM refusal decision in 99 is probably one of those things that looks obvious in hindsight but took real guts at the time. Walking away from IBM when they still had serious clout in semiconductors, especially when theyre offering essentially free R&D partnership (even if with strings), isnt the kind of move most CEOs make. Chang's read on their structural weakness from losing Qualcomm was pretty sharp, but what really stands out is how he protected TSMC's ability to serve diverse customers instead of optimizing for one big partner. I ran into a similarsituation a few years back where we almost took money from a strategic that wanted board seats and veto rights on future partnerships. Wlked away even though we needed the capital badly. The IBM story shows that maintaining independence at the foundry layer isnt just strategy its actually the whole business model.
Agreed. It's hard to say what would have / could have happened if Chang had made the different choice. But they likely wouldn't be the go-to source for the entire industry.
The IBM refusal decision in 99 is probably one of those things that looks obvious in hindsight but took real guts at the time. Walking away from IBM when they still had serious clout in semiconductors, especially when theyre offering essentially free R&D partnership (even if with strings), isnt the kind of move most CEOs make. Chang's read on their structural weakness from losing Qualcomm was pretty sharp, but what really stands out is how he protected TSMC's ability to serve diverse customers instead of optimizing for one big partner. I ran into a similarsituation a few years back where we almost took money from a strategic that wanted board seats and veto rights on future partnerships. Wlked away even though we needed the capital badly. The IBM story shows that maintaining independence at the foundry layer isnt just strategy its actually the whole business model.
Agreed. It's hard to say what would have / could have happened if Chang had made the different choice. But they likely wouldn't be the go-to source for the entire industry.