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Work to Ride comma Ride to Work
He was let go. Probably too old.
DaveR1234
What happened to Bill Schweber???
Touchstone CEO eyes Linear, Maxim, disruption
Brian Fuller
9/21/2012 10:00 AM EDT
Startup wasteland
Q: You guys have been a success story in a very difficult market. But you're not seeing semiconductor startups. Economies don't grow without electronics. What does that mean? Is it a bad thing?
A: Is is a bad thing. It's sad, it's shortsighted, it's all of those things. The argument is: Well software is where all the innovation is. Well, there has to be innovation in hardware to keeping funding the software piece of it. You can say all the existing companies are going to do the innovation, and I don't really think that's true. Go back to the Maxim example. Maxim almost by definition is going to be focused on what Apple needs or what Samsung needs and to keep up with them because their design cycles are so short it limits their ability to innovate.
But the world's not static; the world's changing. and somebody's gotta go after those things and that's where startups typically come in. They're going after the areas that are less mined. what does this problem exist.
VC's created their own problem. look at what's being funded in the late '90s. And look at those companies companies were basically one-hit wonders..they basically had one product. Those products would come out maybe silicon would wiggle, maybe it would work and they were able to sell those companies for hundreds of millions of dollars. It was kind of like the classic bubble peak. CSs keep funding the same thing and, guess what, it didn't work anymore. So you get into the stage of awol, "nothing works." People forgot there was another way to do it, which we understood."
Q: You make a good point and there's that school of thought that says innovation will come out of existing companies. But it almost can't, right, because it's the whole Clayton Christensen thing, right?
A: I know you were going to go there, it's the innovator's dilemma.I love that book.
Q: You can't think past your profitability.
A: True disruption isn't about going after big markets. It's going after small, non-obvious market and then they turn into big markets and you come up from the bottom.
Look at Maxim, for example, think about the pyramid of customers. Maxim is going up and up that pyramid, right, and they're focused right now right at that tip. And they're saying and you know this has to go on in a company like this if you're doing $250 million with Samsung you have to be saying … well i don't care if I lose some of these customers to Touchstone. Then they wake up one day and all they have left are those top guys and you could argue oh great that's all that matters but no it doesn't. Because now you've got all these other companies innovating and doing it with us and others that service them. And Maxim eventually--and this isn't going to happen any time soon--but eventually and in the long term--if they don't adjust--dies.
Related stories:
--Analog startup goes old school, gets funding
--Touchstone targets 'everything in the signal path'
--Analog IC startup blog
Q: You guys have been a success story in a very difficult market. But you're not seeing semiconductor startups. Economies don't grow without electronics. What does that mean? Is it a bad thing?
A: Is is a bad thing. It's sad, it's shortsighted, it's all of those things. The argument is: Well software is where all the innovation is. Well, there has to be innovation in hardware to keeping funding the software piece of it. You can say all the existing companies are going to do the innovation, and I don't really think that's true. Go back to the Maxim example. Maxim almost by definition is going to be focused on what Apple needs or what Samsung needs and to keep up with them because their design cycles are so short it limits their ability to innovate.
But the world's not static; the world's changing. and somebody's gotta go after those things and that's where startups typically come in. They're going after the areas that are less mined. what does this problem exist.
VC's created their own problem. look at what's being funded in the late '90s. And look at those companies companies were basically one-hit wonders..they basically had one product. Those products would come out maybe silicon would wiggle, maybe it would work and they were able to sell those companies for hundreds of millions of dollars. It was kind of like the classic bubble peak. CSs keep funding the same thing and, guess what, it didn't work anymore. So you get into the stage of awol, "nothing works." People forgot there was another way to do it, which we understood."
Q: You make a good point and there's that school of thought that says innovation will come out of existing companies. But it almost can't, right, because it's the whole Clayton Christensen thing, right?
A: I know you were going to go there, it's the innovator's dilemma.I love that book.
Q: You can't think past your profitability.
A: True disruption isn't about going after big markets. It's going after small, non-obvious market and then they turn into big markets and you come up from the bottom.
Look at Maxim, for example, think about the pyramid of customers. Maxim is going up and up that pyramid, right, and they're focused right now right at that tip. And they're saying and you know this has to go on in a company like this if you're doing $250 million with Samsung you have to be saying … well i don't care if I lose some of these customers to Touchstone. Then they wake up one day and all they have left are those top guys and you could argue oh great that's all that matters but no it doesn't. Because now you've got all these other companies innovating and doing it with us and others that service them. And Maxim eventually--and this isn't going to happen any time soon--but eventually and in the long term--if they don't adjust--dies.
Related stories:
--Analog startup goes old school, gets funding
--Touchstone targets 'everything in the signal path'
--Analog IC startup blog
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dylan.mcgrath
9/24/2012 3:58 PM EDT
It was fascinating to me when Touchstone came out of the gate happily describing itself as a second source supplier. The strategy made a ton of sense--but you just don't normally hear that from a chip startup. Most feel, I assume, that they have to have a more aggressive story to make a splash. But Fox and his colleagues knew what they were doing. And it seems like Touchstone is evolving to the next stage.
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GREAT-Terry
9/25/2012 9:57 PM EDT
Touchstone anyway will have its innovation in order to shine.
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DaveR1234
9/26/2012 5:42 AM EDT
What happened to Bill Schweber???
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Work to Ride comma Ride to Work
9/27/2012 6:43 PM EDT
He was let go. Probably too old.
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