I suspect the reason is that semiconductor industry relies much heavier on captial (comparing to talents) than software industry given the same level of risk. O

I suspect the reason is that semiconductor industry relies much heavier on captial (comparing to talents) than software industry given the same level of risk. One or two talented software enginners can bootstrap a company with reasonable amount of success that can be a good indictor of future larger success. You can't do that in semiconductor industry.