Podcast Review | The Complete History & Strategy of TSMC by Acquired Podcast

The Complete History & Strategy of TSMC by Acquired Podcast

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The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) is now in the top 10 of the world’s most valuable companies. The name suggests what they do but the current day dominance of this business is extraordinary. You could argue that TSMC is the company that runs the technology of the world by being a contract manufacturer for companies including Apple, Google and Nvidia. TSMC truly became something out of nothing, founded by Morris Chang in 1987 after a directive from the Taiwanese government to build something which would effectively help to improve the total GDP of the nation. It was a very significant gamble at the time as the concept of contract manufacturing semiconductors was not widespread, nor was Silicon Valley anything like it is today. One thing is for sure, Morris Chang was the right man for the job.

At times, this podcast is quite a technical deep dive, but for listeners there is no doubt some interesting information to learn about the industry behind the industry which impacts us all. For example, the cost of production of modern-day chips is so high that only a very small few (if not only one) companies can spend the capital to do it. That list continues to shrink over time as the science, maths and engineering behind chip cutting edge chip design nowadays becomes so hard that it lends itself to a monopolistic market. Whether we like it or not, you get the sense that the world is so dependent on TSMC that they are without a doubt too big to fail.

Link to Podcast

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