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I can give you an example of semiconductor manufacturing and its supply chain. Say, I am a company with X billions to throw at building a Fab. You could probably build one, but finding lithography suppliers, automation, building long term relationships with them and being able to do it in a cost effective manner is a monumental challenge. Intel, Global Foundries, TSMC runs on decades of internal knowledge to be able to manufacture silicon. Furthermore, you now need to package silicon, test it, and post-silicon assembly is insanely complex as we go towards chip-scale manufacturing.

Another example is Tesla. They will and in the past have throw billions of dollars to build a solid manufacturing lines, suppliers and personnel; but you can see the challenge today when theyre trying to ramp up.

On small scale, you can buy time with money; but on a large scale, that transaction often becomes difficult or simply impossible.



>I can give you an example of semiconductor manufacturing and its supply chain. Say, I am a company with X billions to throw at building a Fab. You could probably build one, but finding lithography suppliers, automation, building long term relationships with them and being able to do it in a cost effective manner is a monumental challenge.

Okay, all that sounds logical, but they're not building a fab from scratch here. They already have (IIRC) 30 operational fabs in China. If you said this in 1999 or 2000 when China had no fabs you could have had a point - but they would have proven you wrong because they did precisely what you said they couldn't do by throwing money at the problem.

>Another example is Tesla. They will and in the past have throw billions of dollars to build a solid manufacturing lines, suppliers and personnel; but you can see the challenge today when theyre trying to ramp up.

Tesla had never built a single car before they got started, I do not think its a comparable example.




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