I believe the fundamental issue in all of the technology industry is tying people that know how to take money and turn it into new technology that begets more m

I believe the fundamental issue in all of the technology industry is tying people that know how to take money and turn it into new technology that begets more money. There is tremendous room in semiconductors to do so. In terms of selecting winners, it's no harder than software, but software cycle times (and profit taking) are much shorter so it's faster to wash the wins and losses. It also makes it easier to appear to know what you are doing (VCs) when you don't. A semiconductor upstart as a new entity or within an existing company is a minimum of several years of investment before you can even gague long term success. People (VCs, governance boards, executives, GMs etc) are no better at picking winners in software than hardware, but you spin the wheel more often and therefore it's more lucrative.