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by moconnor 1034 days ago
The "risks" section is pretty interesting, e.g.:

"Arm China is 25% of our revenue, but we have no control over them, they have failed to pay us in the past resulting in us taking on additional costs to recover the money, also we have no way of knowing what they actually owe us and other than what they say, which has already been a problem"

3 comments

The "ARM China going rogue" story is so weird. Although supposedly Softbank restored control last year? [1] So I don't know where things stand at the moment.

https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Caixin/In-Depth-How-SoftBa...

the article says that Wu is effectively still on the job, and Wu's own LinkedIn page claims he's still the boss there.

Having myself been part of a joint venture with the Chinese (in the education space), and having a Chinese employee go rogue, I only advise against western firms (even large ones with clout) from engaging in such ventures. The Chinese will take control by any means necessary and bleed you dry from the inside.

>Although supposedly Softbank restored control last year?

Nope, the F-1 addresses this: "Neither we [Arm] nor SoftBank Group control the operations of Arm China, which operates independently of us. "

How do they manage IP if they have no control over them? I see a pretty big issue
They don’t. They’re proper rogue and being China there isn’t much you can do about it
According to the filing they have extremely limited ability to influence them and yeah it is a big issue.
Which is terrifying - ARM's biggest risk in that regard is that ARM China can effectively shoot itself in the foot in the name of Chinese strategic/geopolitical/technological interests, and all their Chinese employees will have absolutely nothing to worry about.
I wonder if it would have been better for Nvidia to have bought ARM. Nvidia's cards might have been sufficient influence.
ARM learning the hard way what “49% ownership in a joint venture” really means.