[quantummkv]

What HTC has here is experience, facilities and a supply chain. Recreating a hardware company from scratch is not an easy job. You don't get any prebuild packages that you can just reuse. You have to assemble your own design team. Build your own supply chain. Conduct R&D for years before getting a viable, marketable product. Even then there is no guarantee of everything going smoothly. Samsung has decades of experience and facilities. Yet the Note 7 went the way it did.

I doubt Google or any of these new age silicon valley companies have the attention span to do something like this.

[arkitaip]

As I have written upthread, Andy Rubin has launched a pretty damn successful mobile phone startup in just two years with a staff of 100 people. Seems like a better example to emulate than take over a failing company with 1% market share and ~14k employees.

[hbosch]

You need to cite or qualify the phrase "pretty damn successful". Essential is not a success story yet.

[criddell]

Are you talking about Essential? Is it successful?

[MikusR]

Like the new Nokia phones, Essential is an Foxconn supported project.