US Venture Capitalist Criticized for Underestimating Situation After Claiming 'Taiwan Won't Matter in 18 Months'
(CNA, San Francisco, May 17, by Chang Hsin-yu) American venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya stated on the latest ALL-IN Podcast that Taiwan will lose its strategic importance in semiconductors in 18 months.
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(CNA, San Francisco, May 17, by Chang Hsin-yu) American venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya stated on the latest ALL-IN Podcast that Taiwan will lose its strategic importance in semiconductors in 18 months. The video spread on social media, drawing criticism from all sides. Former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul highlighted Taiwan's democratic value, while New York Times columnist David French refuted it as a 'strategically and morally impoverished way of thinking.'
Chamath Palihapitiya, a well-known Silicon Valley venture capitalist and former Facebook executive, pointed out on the ALL-IN Podcast that in 18 months, Taiwan would no longer be the focus of discussion it is today.
Palihapitiya continued, 'Why 18 months? Because we are now probably only 1 to 2 nanometers away from being able to do what we strategically need Taiwan to do for us.' He also stated, 'Today, Taiwan's importance is economic; and if you remove that factor, I think our attitude towards Taiwan becomes very different.' The video subsequently went viral on social media.
In response to these remarks, Michael McFaul, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia and a scholar at Stanford University, stated on X, 'Some of us, actually, really care that Taiwan is a democracy. The PRC is not.'
Indo-Pacific defense policy expert Blake Herzinger noted on X that casually treating the free democracy of 23 million people in Taiwan as a semiconductor supply chain issue 'is a take I would have expected from a Silicon Valley tech utopian in 2003, not 2026.' Taiwan is a critical gateway in the first island chain.
Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst in defense strategy at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, also criticized on X, pointing out that Taiwan's importance is not just about chips but its key geostrategic position in the entire Indo-Pacific. It involves whether China will break through the first island chain, reshape the Indo-Pacific order, and weaken America's position in Asia.
Davis said this also involves ethical and moral issues. Taiwan is a free and democratic society with over 20 million people who have worked hard for their freedom. Sacrificing the well-being of this democratic nation for an authoritarian oppressor like China would be tantamount to repeating the 1938 Munich Agreement's sacrifice of the Sudetenland on the Czechoslovak border.
David French, a columnist for The New York Times, criticized this as a 'strategically and morally impoverished way of thinking.' Taiwan's strategic importance is not just about chips. 'We (the U.S.) have a direct interest in deterring wars of aggression themselves, especially wars of aggression against democratic allies.'
Tech commentator Daniel Jeffries said Palihapitiya's statement was one of the most ignorant things he had heard on the platform recently.
Jeffries said that when laypeople hear 'we are only 1 to 2 nanometers away,' they think semiconductors are just a matter of transistor size, which is not the case at all. The real moat lies in yield rates, packaging technology, High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) integration, substrates, manufacturing equipment and toolchains, as well as manufacturing expertise that can only be accumulated over the long term, labor density, and supply chain coordination.
As Palihapitiya also mentioned on the show that brain-chip company Neuralink demonstrated a machine operating at an almost nanoscale for implanting chips into the brain, Jeffries said it was like saying 'we are 18 months away from replacing the global oil system because we have built a pretty good electric bicycle.' (Editor: Chang Chih-hsuan) 1150518
Chamath Palihapitiya, a well-known Silicon Valley venture capitalist and former Facebook executive, pointed out on the ALL-IN Podcast that in 18 months, Taiwan would no longer be the focus of discussion it is today.
Palihapitiya continued, 'Why 18 months? Because we are now probably only 1 to 2 nanometers away from being able to do what we strategically need Taiwan to do for us.' He also stated, 'Today, Taiwan's importance is economic; and if you remove that factor, I think our attitude towards Taiwan becomes very different.' The video subsequently went viral on social media.
In response to these remarks, Michael McFaul, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia and a scholar at Stanford University, stated on X, 'Some of us, actually, really care that Taiwan is a democracy. The PRC is not.'
Indo-Pacific defense policy expert Blake Herzinger noted on X that casually treating the free democracy of 23 million people in Taiwan as a semiconductor supply chain issue 'is a take I would have expected from a Silicon Valley tech utopian in 2003, not 2026.' Taiwan is a critical gateway in the first island chain.
Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst in defense strategy at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, also criticized on X, pointing out that Taiwan's importance is not just about chips but its key geostrategic position in the entire Indo-Pacific. It involves whether China will break through the first island chain, reshape the Indo-Pacific order, and weaken America's position in Asia.
Davis said this also involves ethical and moral issues. Taiwan is a free and democratic society with over 20 million people who have worked hard for their freedom. Sacrificing the well-being of this democratic nation for an authoritarian oppressor like China would be tantamount to repeating the 1938 Munich Agreement's sacrifice of the Sudetenland on the Czechoslovak border.
David French, a columnist for The New York Times, criticized this as a 'strategically and morally impoverished way of thinking.' Taiwan's strategic importance is not just about chips. 'We (the U.S.) have a direct interest in deterring wars of aggression themselves, especially wars of aggression against democratic allies.'
Tech commentator Daniel Jeffries said Palihapitiya's statement was one of the most ignorant things he had heard on the platform recently.
Jeffries said that when laypeople hear 'we are only 1 to 2 nanometers away,' they think semiconductors are just a matter of transistor size, which is not the case at all. The real moat lies in yield rates, packaging technology, High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) integration, substrates, manufacturing equipment and toolchains, as well as manufacturing expertise that can only be accumulated over the long term, labor density, and supply chain coordination.
As Palihapitiya also mentioned on the show that brain-chip company Neuralink demonstrated a machine operating at an almost nanoscale for implanting chips into the brain, Jeffries said it was like saying 'we are 18 months away from replacing the global oil system because we have built a pretty good electric bicycle.' (Editor: Chang Chih-hsuan) 1150518