The Advantage of Being a Prime Contractor in Government Contracts

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Being the prime contractor to the government on a big contract offers much better economics compared to being sub-contracted by one of the primes. Prime defense contractors like Raytheon, Lockheed, and Boeing have the advantage as primes continue to be the primes due to the lucrative nature of government contracts. Companies like Linkabit may never become a prime and would need to pivot to the commercial sector. Despite their expertise in satellite communications, Linkabit's first contract project was setting up Walmart's satellite network.

Qualcomm, or “Quality Communications” — despite being one of the largest technology companies in the world, few people know the absolutely amazing technological and business history behind it. Seriously, this story is on par with Nvidia, TSMC and all the great semiconductor giants. Without this single fabless company based in San Diego, there’s almost no chance you’d be consuming this episode on whatever device you’re currently listening on — a fact that enables them to earn an incredible estimated $20 for every new phone sold in the world. We dive into this story live at the perfect venue: our first-ever European live show at Solana’s Breakpoint conference in beautiful Lisbon, Portugal!

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