Most semiconductor startups position themselves as "better."
Better performance. Better efficiency. Better cost.
But "better" is optional.
Customers can delay "better" indefinitely. They can wait for the next quarter. They can wait until competitors validate the approach. They can wait for a recession to pass.
The companies that win don't position themselves as better. They position themselves as inevitable.
When you are inevitable, customers don't evaluate you like a vendor. They align with you because the alternative feels like extinction.
This isn't manipulation or marketing tricks. It's alignment with principles that have remained unchanged for 100,000 years and will remain unchanged for the next 100,000.
There are two frameworks that create this inevitability:
1. The Law (the universal truth your technology serves)
2. The Enemy (the timeless condition your technology eliminates)
When you align your company with these, you stop being "a startup with a product." You become a necessity the universe requires.
Here's how it works.
The Law is the underlying truth about the world, physics, or logic that your technology ultimately serves.
It is not your company, your product, or your goal. It's the universal principle that makes your solution absolutely necessary and inevitable.
Think of it as the reason the universe needs your technology. It's bigger than business. It's bigger than trends.
Elon does this every time he launches a company. He doesn't make it about him or the company. He states a truth that is a necessity with or without him.
Let's look at two space companies with the same mission but different beliefs:
"A future where millions of people are living and working in space for the benefit of humanity."
Does this sound like a necessity with or without Bezos?
This is a goal. It describes:
But it is optional. It is framed like a dream or a vision. There is no existential force behind it. If it doesn't happen, life continues as normal.
"Humanity must become multiplanetary. Anything else risks extinction."
Does this sound like a necessity with or without Elon?
This is inevitable. It describes:
It creates a sense of inevitability. Not optional. Not a dream. A requirement for humanity's continued existence.
Blue Origin says: "We want X to happen."
SpaceX says: "If X doesn't happen, humanity dies."
One is nice to have, the other is mandatory. One is vision, the other is destiny. One inspires excitement, the other triggers survival instinct.
This is why SpaceX attracts talent, urgency, capital, and belief at a different level—it taps into a primal law: "SpaceX is not about rockets, not about space, it is about survival."
Same Mission. Different Beliefs.
Let me show you what this looks like for a real semiconductor company.
Photonics company (Teramount):
"Information must flow at the speed of light. Anything else limits evolution."
a. Information is the lifeblood of modern systems
Everything (AI, cloud, HPC, data centers, chips) depends on moving information.
b. The fastest possible speed in the universe is the speed of light
No matter what you build, light is the ultimate limit.
c. Anything slower introduces bottlenecks
Electronic interconnects, copper, and current-based signaling are slower than photons.
d. Those bottlenecks slow evolution
"Evolution" here means:
If information can't move fast enough, all progress above it hits a ceiling.
a. Universal
It applies to all data systems, not just Teramount.
b. Timeless
It will still be true in 10, 50, 100 years.
c. Emotional
"Limits evolution" triggers fear of stagnation, being left behind, slowing humanity.
d. Inevitable
It makes photonics feel like a historical necessity, not a startup product.
e. Reframes the company
Teramount isn't selling photonic packaging. Teramount is restoring a natural law of the universe: that information should move at light speed.
Meanwhile, all copper-based competitors are reframed as:
Physics already decided the future. Light is faster than electrons. Photonics is inevitable.
Here are two career pages from semiconductor companies. You have to apply to one of them. Which would you choose?
About Us:
We're a semiconductor startup building wafer-level optical connectivity.
We're hiring:
Benefits:
(This is standard. It appeals to a transaction: time for money.)
THE WORLD'S INTELLIGENCE IS BOTTLENECKED BY FRICTION
Every watt lost to heat, every nanosecond lost to electrical resistance: these are boundaries holding the future hostage.
We exist to remove those boundaries.
The next age of computing runs on light, but light has never met silicon at scale. We are that meeting point.
Our mission isn't to build a better connection. Our mission is to remove friction from intelligence itself.
If you've ever felt the frustration of wasted potential (the drag that keeps the world a step behind), your place is here.
OPEN ROLES:
We're not offering jobs. We're offering authorship of the future.
[Apply]
One attracts job seekers. The other attracts believers.
The difference? Company B is built on a Law.
The Enemy is not a competitor. The Enemy is the condition your technology makes impossible.
You are not fighting another company or another system. You are fighting a condition that exists in the world.
Let me show you why defining your enemy as a competitor is dangerous.
If you say: "Our enemy is copper interconnects."
Then your entire identity becomes tied to:
What happens if the world invents:
Your identity collapses.
Because your enemy disappears. And if your enemy disappears, your company's reason to exist disappears too. That is fragile.
But if you say: "The Enemy is friction."
Now your identity is tied to a timeless condition.
Friction = loss, resistance, heat, bottlenecks, slowdowns, inefficiency.
This is universal:
It never goes away. Everything in the universe fights friction.
So your company becomes: "The eliminator of friction in information flow."
Not: "Photonics company."
Photonics is simply the tool you use to eliminate friction.
If tomorrow, photonics is no longer the best method, you can move to other methods - perhaps something not even invented yet, and it STILL fits your identity.
You don't lose your philosophy. You don't lose your mission. You don't lose your narrative. You simply change the tool while keeping the purpose.
By tying identity to the Enemy (friction), not the method (photonics), you create longevity, adaptability, and investor confidence.
Remember: Competitors die. Technologies get obsolete. Conditions remain timeless.
Let me show you how these two frameworks create inevitability when combined.
The Law: "Information must flow at the speed of light."
The Enemy: "Friction" (heat loss, resistance, delay)
When a customer hears both:
The Law makes them think: "This is where the industry must go. Physics demands it."
The Enemy makes them think: "We're suffering from friction right now. This solves our pain."
Together: "We must adopt this. The alternative is falling behind physics itself."
I've worked with semiconductor founders who shifted from "Better" to "Inevitable."
Here is what changes in the sales process:
In deep tech, you cannot cheat the qualification cycle, testing takes time. But you can compress the decision cycle. Instead of sitting in the "evaluation" bucket for 18 months, you move to the "strategic roadmap" bucket immediately. Founders typically see a 40-60% reduction in the time it takes to get a firm commitment.
When you pitch "Better," customers treat you like a science project to test when they have spare budget. When you pitch "Inevitable," customers treat you like infrastructure they need to survive the next generation.
"Better" allows the customer to wait. "Inevitable" forces the customer to hedge against the risk of being left behind.
Creating Inevitability aligns you with physics. It solves the Strategic problem. But you still have to solve the Human problem.
Even if a customer believes your tech is inevitable, they can still refuse to buy it because of:
You have solved the Physics. You have not solved the Adoption Paradox.
There are 5 invisible psychological barriers that block "inevitable" technology from entering the market. If you cannot dismantle these barriers, your company will die in the waiting room, no matter how good your physics are.
I have broken down exactly what these 5 barriers are, and the specific framework to defeat them in a separate analysis.
Learn the 5 psychological barriers that block adoption, and how to dismantle them.
Read: The Semiconductor Adoption Paradox: Why Proven Tech Fails to Sell2025 Heavyclick