Whats the track record of the start-ups Cypress has incubated?
SunPower is very successful–worth about $3 billion. Cypress Microsystems is also very successful. Outright failure: Silicon Magnetic Systems. I couldn’t get the magnetic memories to work. Magnetic memories are a hybrid between a memory chip and a disk drive–it stores information permanently but it’s as fast as a chip. I put in a lot of money and got nothing for it. Each of our start-ups has a target to go from nothing to $50 million in annual sales and make $10 million, or 20%, in pre-tax profit. When they get there, I agree to buy them out. On a scale of 1 to 10, how innovative is Silicon Valley now compared with past decades? Ten. Technology has changed radically. It’s really not Silicon Valley any longer. It became Personal Computer Valley, followed by Workstation Valley, then Biotech Valley, then Software Valley, then Search Engine Valley and now we’re rapidly turning into Energy Valley. Silicon Valley is really about a process, not a technology. What’s the Valley not doing today
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