I don't know whether this was inevitable anyway (because of the rough time IP companies have in the long term), but it sure seems like ARM has made a series of

I don't know whether this was inevitable anyway (because of the rough time IP companies have in the long term), but it sure seems like ARM has made a series of blunders in the last 5+ years. The softbank acquisition was a huge strategic mistake by the UK government, letting a strategically important company fall into the hands of foreign owners with massive conflicts of interest (the other companies in Softbanks portfolio). Then the massive screw up in ARM China, essentially giving away their crown jewels for $750m (not sure how the CEO survived that one), and then the protracted sale to NVidia that was never going to happen. Now these massive layoffs which seem the obvious result of Softbank's signature bad money management - showing that ARM just isn't in a reasonable state to IPO. Given the last 5 years it seems unlikely that the people left at ARM after this round of layoffs will be a strong group. The context of this is also important - they have 6,500 employees, which if you compare to similar companies like Altera, Imagination Technologies etc. is just way too large. I don't think this will be the last of the cuts. My prediction is that it'll go the way of Imagination Technologies, and end up getting sliced and diced with the core IP laundered through all sorts of owners whilst being neglected.