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> but it might be a few decades They could just hire the experts from the incumbents

• 300bps 5y ago
  The article said that’s exactly what they did from CEO to engineers and they still failed. HSMC attracted a former top TSMC executive as chief executive. QXIC recruited dozens of experienced engineers from Taiwan, including from TSMC, with relatively big pay packages, according to former employees.
  • mensetmanusman 5y ago
    I wonder if they were playing both sides, ie getting a ton of money from China and TSMC to just lead them astray :)
• seanmcdirmid 5y ago
  The process/material knowledge is actually pretty easy to keep under lock and key. No one knows the formula, or the key is in the equipment that whose production is strictly controlled. They need to get access to the all of the knowledge all at once, not just bits and pieces of it.
• kelnos 5y ago
  Assuming they'll agree to work for them. I imagine many of the people who hold the secret sauce (especially from TSMC) wouldn't work for a Chinese company. I was surprised they managed to hire a former TSMC executive to head up one of the (now failed) companies. Then again, there may be no "secret sauce" in the way we usually think about it. You might have to hire hundreds of people from an incumbent to pull in enough institutional knowledge to get things going. And even then it's not going to happen overnight. I feel like the right people to hire, at any rate, aren't the executives. You need the right engineers, scientists, and researchers.