That is not true across the board. Many companies are looking for specific technical talent. When nVidia is looking for someone to fill a specific niche on the

That is not true across the board. Many companies are looking for specific technical talent. When nVidia is looking for someone to fill a specific niche on the CUDA team, they don't care about how much money you made for company A or B; they care whether you have the technical ability to fill the niche as they conceive of it. The hiring manager isn't naive, and already has an idea of why this position was created and what they're looking for in a hire. The interviewer is quite likely to be an engineer already on the team. What they want you to convince them of is that you have the technical skills to fill the role. If you start talking about ROI and business value, it can be seen as a red flag that you're from a more "soft" background like business informatics, and not a good fit for the position. Of course, if you're getting hired by someone who doesn't have a specific technical role they're trying to fill, or doesn't know what exactly they're looking for, the situation will be different. But that is not usually the case at chip-design firms.