Is it only me or is this an economically horrific field
Like I got an entry level job offer from a company (that was a unicorn startup founded 7 years ago) that makes 1.4B revenue with 280 employees and the only thing they do is make a puzzle game. A single puzzle game. that equates to around 5M/employee in revenue and around 2.5-3M/employee in net profit.
In comparison, most chip design specifically fabless design houses are barely breaking even. Like in continental Europe I know a company that claims to be "the largest fab-independent European design group with world-class expertise in analog, digital, mixed-signal and high-voltage IC design" only makes around 20M revenue GROSS with around 120 employees. That's only 166k/employee and god knows how much profit they make per employee.
The sad part is I've spent around 2-3 years in total work ranging from RF/mmWave to Biomedical to SiPho and I always thought that I would earn more or possibly have the possibility to start my own startup.
Now, looking back the net salary they offer me AS AN ENTRY LEVEL(BSc) graduate is more than what I would earn as a manager or SM in Europe even in Apple Munich etc. and is comparable if not more than what an Apple entry level PhD grad makes after taxes and that is CA HCOL versus LCOL area. Why is chip design so horrifically bad of an industry? Like why do people continue choosing it when there are so many companies, and buyers squeeze companies against their own competition to crush any earnings potential.
And the moat of companies generally doesn't come from Hardware generally it seems like hardware is heavily commoditized. Even if you're SOTA a buyer will still pressure you against the competition. Say you have a PMIC chip with say 82% efficiency and you're closest competition has 77%. You can assume the same for PA's or integrated systems etc. you're literally fighting against each other where the upfront cost is insanely high and the marginal cost is low so they try to make you guys fight absolutely horrendously just to make horrifically bad margins.
Like even in SiPho there are tons and tons of players in CPO. SerDes the same, Biomedical AFE's tons of people. Like it's so horifically bad that you have no moat no matter how much you try. The only moat comes from audience lock in such as CUDA or ARM ISA's which are generally software related.