Couldn't agree more. I've worked for small companies and now work for a very large company with lots of leverage. Conservatively I would guess that we have 1-2

Couldn't agree more. I've worked for small companies and now work for a very large company with lots of leverage. Conservatively I would guess that we have 1-2 years of advantage over a startup when competing for the attention of large component suppliers. Just getting the lawyers on both sides to agree on a NDA can be a big production. On the other hand, when a mega company joins up with another mega company, e.g. phone manufacturer and processor supplier, there's a lot of risk aversion on both sides due to the large investments. There's a crack in the system somewhere that small innovative companies can take advantage of but I don't think open reference designs do much more than documenting the state of the art. That's great for hobbyists but makes little difference in the high-volume commercial space.