TSMC
Acquired
Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal
4.7 • 5.2K Ratings
🗓️ 7 September 2021
⏱️ 153 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
We dive into the unbelievable and unlikely history behind the quietest technology giant of them all: the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company. Founded in 1987 by the then-56 year old Morris Chang, already a legend in the semiconductor industry by virtue of his meteoric rise and fall at Texas Instruments, TSMC today manufactures nearly all the leading-edge chips for Nvidia, Apple, Broadcom, Qualcomm, AMD, and yes — even Intel. Tune in for an incredible story of innovation, perseverance and lasers. Lots and lots of lasers!
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Do you think people can tell when we're like fishing for teaser quits? |
| 0:04.8 | I think they'll be able to tell on this one. |
| 0:24.2 | Welcome to season 9 episode 3 of Acquired, |
| 0:27.8 | the podcast about great technology companies and the stories and playbooks behind them. |
| 0:32.2 | I am Ben Gilbert and I'm the co-founder and managing director of Seattle based Pioneer Square Labs |
| 0:37.4 | in our venture fund PSL Ventures. |
| 0:39.4 | And I'm David Rosenthal and I am an angel investor based in San Francisco. |
| 0:44.2 | And we are your hosts. |
| 0:46.2 | Well, listeners, David and I are coming at you live, well, sort of live together from Seattle in person. |
| 0:53.6 | First time since our Ethereum episode, David. |
| 0:55.6 | That's right, which was not that long ago. |
| 0:57.6 | Love that we're back in the swing of things. |
| 0:59.6 | I know. I feel as listeners, you probably don't notice a difference, |
| 1:02.6 | but it feels totally different to be doing this with you in person, David, in full 3D. |
| 1:07.6 | Energy in the room is electric. |
| 1:10.6 | Well, today's episode is on TSMC or the Taiwan semiconductor company. |
| 1:15.6 | It is your classic. |
| 1:17.6 | Most people have never heard of it, |
| 1:19.6 | but it's the ninth largest company in the world episode. |
| 1:22.6 | This is wild. |
| 1:23.6 | Morris Chang founded TSMC at age 56, retired at 74, then came back at age 78, |
| 1:32.6 | aimed to the deal to make all of Apple's chips. |
... |
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