This week, we’ll be talking with Silicon Labs CEO Tyson Tuttle. Silicon Labs just announced it will be selling off its entire automotive business, which represents roughly 40 percent of the company’s revenue. We put the question to Tuttle: What would possess a company to divest that big of a chunk of itself?

本周，我们将与Silicon Labs首席执行官Tyson Tuttle进行交谈。Silicon Labs刚刚宣布将出售其全部汽车业务，约占公司收入的40％。我们向Tuttle提出一个问题：一家公司将剥离自己的大部分股份会怎样？

CEO Interview: Tyson Tuttle of Silicon Labs

首席执行官访谈：Silicon Labs的Tyson Tuttle

Silicon Labs is a mid-sized semiconductor design house founded in 1996. Over the years it has established a reputation for tightly focused innovation in its chosen market segments.

Silicon Labs是一家成立于1996年的中型半导体设计公司。多年来，它在选定的细分市场中以专注于创新而著称。

Silicon Labs hired Tyson Tuttle as CEO in 2012. He immediately focused the company on the Internet of Things market, leveraging the company’s expertise in the wireless technologies that are critical for IoT connectivity. The company’s other major division covers automotive and infrastructure.

Silicon Labs在2012年聘请Tyson Tuttle担任首席执行官。他利用公司在物联网连接至关重要的无线技术方面的专业知识，立即将公司聚焦于物联网市场。该公司的其他主要部门涵盖汽车和基础设施。

Now, back in 2014, Silicon Labs’ IoT operations brought in a little over 15 percent (that’s 1-5) 15 percent of revenue. Silicon Labs just reported its first quarter earnings earlier this week. IoT now represents 62 percent of the company’s total first quarter revenue of $255 million.

现在，回到2014年，Silicon Labs的物联网业务带来了15％以上的收入。Silicon Labs在本周早些时候刚刚报告了其第一季度收益。物联网现在占该公司第一季度总收入（2.55亿美元）的62％。

The company’s IoT operation and its Automotive & Infrastructure operation both grew, but the IoT group has simply been growing faster. Still, the automotive business is thriving, and it’s heading toward becoming a 400millionannualbusiness.Nothingtosneezeat!Andyet,SiliconLabsjustannounceditsoldtheoperation,for$400millionannualbusiness.Nothingtosneezeat!Andyet,SiliconLabsjustannounceditsoldtheoperation,for$2.75 billion, to Skyworks.

该公司的物联网业务以及其汽车和基础设施业务都在增长，但是物联网集团的增长速度却更快。尽管如此，汽车业务仍在蓬勃发展，并且正朝着每年4亿美元的业务迈进。没什么可唏嘘的！然而，Silicon Labs刚刚宣布将其业务以27.5亿美元的价格卖给了Skyworks。

Right after the sale was announced, global editor Junko Yoshida got Tuttle on a video call. It was late in the day for both of them, and while the two were talking, the lights at Silicon Labs’ headquarters were turned off for the night. Tuttle bravely soldiered on, lit only by his laptop screen. So if the audio quality is a little off, that’s why.

交易宣布后，全球编辑吉田顺子（Junko Yoshida）通过视频通话采访了Tuttle。对于他们俩来说，这都是很晚的时候，而当他们正在交谈时，Silicon Labs总部的灯却关了一个晚上。Tuttle勇敢地坚持着，只在他的笔记本电脑屏幕上亮着。因此，如果您听到的采访音频质量有些差，这就是原因。

A quick note on part of the conversation coming up. Junko interviewed Tuttle in 2014, a couple years after he was hired at Silicon Labs. At the time, the IoT market was still very poorly defined, and it wasn’t clear what semiconductor products would be useful or necessary. Well… it wasn’t clear to most people. It was crystal clear to Tuttle.

采访还有些背景。在Tuttle被Silicon Labs聘用几年后，Junko于2014年采访了Tuttle。当时，物联网市场的定义还很不明确，尚不清楚哪种半导体产品会有用或必要。好吧……大多数人还不清楚。但Tuttle却看的如水晶般透彻。

During that conversation, Tuttle took out a pen and diagrammed what an IoT processor should look like. Cliché of clichés — he did his sketch literally on the back of a napkin. He immediately began showing that diagram around, and it really did help guide how the IoT market developed.

在那次谈话中，Tuttle拿出一支笔，画出了IoT处理器的外观。陈词滥调的陈词滥调-他的素描实际上是在餐巾纸的背面。他立即开始显示该图，它确实有助于指导物联网市场的发展。

Okay, back to the present, and their interview this week. Junko asked Tuttle what motivated the sale of the company’s automotive operations. Here’s Tuttle’s reply.

好吧，回到本周的采访。顺子问Tuttle是什么促使了该公司汽车业务的出售。这是Tuttle的回复。

TYSON TUTTLE: Usually you hear about companies getting acquired, and here we are investing to win in a new, exciting opportunity and swinging for the fences. I think you were one of the first editors that I talked to about our IOT vision.

TYSON Tuttle：通常您会听说一些公司被收购的消息，在这里我们正投资以赢得新的，令人兴奋的机会，并为之奋斗。我认为您是我谈到我们的物联网愿景的第一批编辑之一。

JUNKO YOSHIDA: Yes.

TYSON TUTTLE: Now that’s over 60% of our business. We had a very high quality infrastructure and automotive business, but it was very different for IoT. There were more components and targeting different customers and markets and different technologies and all of that stuff. And being able to put that into a good home… Skyworks is a great company. And I think that team and those products are in good hands. We got a good valuation for it.

TYSON TUTTLE：现在，这已占我们业务的60％以上。我们拥有非常高质量的基础设施和汽车业务，但它和物联网差别很大。该业务有更多的组件，并且针对不同的客户和市场，不同的技术以及等。并能够将其放置在一个好的归宿……Skyworks是一家出色的公司。而且我认为这个团队和这些产品都被合适的人掌控。为此我们获得了不错的估值。

Now that gives us the focus and clarity to go after this IoT thing as our number one job. And that’s great for the company’s culture, for the customers, the brand, the mission. Even with suppliers, we’re not losing scale. We’ll be back to the same size that we were last year in a couple of years.

现在，这给了我们专注和清晰的基础，可以把物联网作为我们的头号工作。这对于公司的文化，客户，品牌和使命而言都是非常重要的。即使有供应商，我们也不会失去规模。我们将恢复几年前的规模。

JUNKO YOSHIDA: Really? That was the thing that I wanted to ask you because usually I don’t hear companies willing to shed. I think it’s like 42% of the business revenue, right?

JUNKO YOSHIDA: 真的吗？那就是我想问您的问题，因为通常我听不到公司愿意披露。我认为这大约占业务收入的42％，对吗？

TYSON TUTTLE: The 2020 business. But then you have to remember that the infrastructure and automotive business is more modest growth and more profitable. So those would be more value investors investing in that.

TYSON TUTTLE: 这是2020年的数字。但是您必须记住，基础设施和汽车业务的增长较为温和，而且利润更高。因此，那些将是更具价值的投资者进行投资。

And then our IoT business is really on hyper growth. Our model is 20% growth, but this year we’re going to grow 25 to 30% over last year. So you’ve got this very high growth business, then that’s more growth investor. Right?

然后，我们的物联网业务真正实现了高速增长。我们的模型是20％的增长，但是今年我们将比去年增长25％到30％。因此，您拥有了这一非常高增长的业务，那么那便是更多的增长投资者。对吧？

JUNKO YOSHIDA: Yeah. Okay.

TYSON TUTTLE: And so these two businesses looked very different under the same umbrella. The way to think about it is if we were a pure play IoT company, would we acquire our infrastructure and automotive business? And the answer is no. It grew up under the same umbrella and had a lot of the same sort of common culture and technology. They were targeting very, very different applications and customers.

TYSON TUTTLE：因此，在同一伞下，这两个业务看起来截然不同。思考的方式是，如果我们是一家纯粹的物联网公司，我们是否会收购基础设施和汽车业务？答案是否定的。它是在同一个伞下成长的，并具有许多相同的共同文化和技术。他们的目标是非常不同的应用和客户。

In some ways scale matters, but it only matters if you’re doing more of the same thing, not if you’re doing a whole different set of things. So it was really two different companies under one umbrella.

在某些方面，规模很重要，但是只有在您做更多相同的事情时才重要，而不是在做完全不同的事情集时才重要。因此，实际上是两家不同公司在同一个伞下。

I just want to point out to you (and you probably can write this down) is that two other companies have really done similar things.

我只想向您指出（您可能会写下来），另外两家公司也做了类似的事情。

JUNKO YOSHIDA: Really?

TYSON TUTTLE: You look at Cree. So Cree is selling their LED business and their lighting business and focusing on silicon carbide for electric vehicles and going after a pure play. And those guys are highly valued and it’s a big high growth market and they’ve got great differentiation in technology. And so this is similar to that.

TYSON TUTTLE: 你看Cree。因此，Cree正在出售他们的LED业务和照明业务，并专注于电动汽车用碳化硅，并且很专注。那些人非常受重视，这是一个很大的高增长市场，他们在技术上有很大的差异。因此，这与此类似。

And then you also think about what Matt Murphy has done over at Marvell. Right? He sold his WiFi business and the media business and several other things. And when he took over at Marvell, he said, Hey, we need focus. We need to go after the data center and computing and 5G and all of these things with a common platform. And then now they’re pulling it InPhi, and he’s been doing a great job in creating a lot of value over there. So we viewed this as a value creation for our shareholders, and also achieving that focus delivers huge benefits in terms of our ability to accelerate our growth in the IoT markets.

然后，您还要记得Matt Murphy在Marvell时的行为。对吧？他卖掉了他的WiFi业务和媒体业务以及其他几个业务。当他接管Marvell时，他说：嘿，我们需要专注。我们需要在一个通用平台上关注数据中心，计算和5G以及所有这些东西。然后现在他们开始收购InPhi，而他在那方面创造了很多价值，一直做得很出色。因此，我们将其视为为股东创造价值的方式，并且实现这一关注点将在我们加速物联网市场增长的能力方面带来巨大的好处。

JUNKO YOSHIDA: Right. Six years ago when I when I covered that famous back of the napkin IoT SOC story, I thought that actually you were nuts. Okay?

JUNKO YOSHIDA: 对。六年前，当我谈到餐巾IoT SOC那个著名的背后故事时，我以为实际上你真疯了。好的？

TYSON TUTTLE: Well, I may still be nuts! Some things never change.

TYSON TUTTLE: 嗯，我可能还是疯了！有些事永远不会改变。

JUNKO YOSHIDA: It’s not a knock on you. But I thought that IoT was so undefined and everybody wanted to call his or her business IoT-related. But you are the first executive actually who came out saying that this is the concept, but this is how I define IoT in my business. You had the clear message with that concept.

JUNKO YOSHIDA: 这不是提醒。但是我认为物联网是如此不确定，每个人都想称呼他或她与企业物联网相关的业务。但是，您实际上是第一个高管，出来说这是概念，但这就是我在业务中定义IoT的方式。您对这个概念有清楚的信息。

TYSON TUTTLE: That’s been consistent all the way along. We’ve expanded into some additional wireless standards and we’re now building our third generation silicon platform. So that drawing that I gave you is still essentially the same sort of chips that we’re building today. We’ve added security and we’re adding artificial intelligence. We’re moving smaller process geometries. And then applying that broadly to thousands of applications and tens of thousands of customers.

TYSON TUTTLE：一直以来都是一致的。我们已经扩展到其他一些无线标准，现在正在构建第三代芯片平台。因此，我给您提供的图纸在本质上仍与我们今天正在构建的芯片相同。我们增加了安全性，并增加了人工智能。我们正在向更小的工艺迈进。然后将其广泛应用于成千上万的应用和成千上万的客户。

But we’ve now seen those IoT markets really start taking off. When I started talking about IoT, people didn’t really even know what it meant. And from my perspective, it was like, you have your mobile phones and you have your PCs, and those are connected to the internet, but all this other stuff is going to get connected to the internet. And when you connect something, you create inherent value.

但是，我们现在已经看到那些物联网市场真正开始腾飞。当我开始谈论物联网时，人们甚至根本不了解它的含义。从我的角度来看，这就像您拥有手机和PC一样，它们都已连接到Internet，但是所有其他这些东西都将连接到Internet。当您连接某物时，便会创造内在价值。

And so whether that value is in convenience or in economic value or saving money or saving energy, making devices more intelligent by connecting them to the internet and connecting them to each other and connecting them to applications and people, creates whole new business models and whole new use cases for devices.

因此，无论该价值是在便利性，经济价值，节省金钱或节省能源方面，通过将设备连接到互联网，将它们彼此连接以及将它们连接到应用和人员，使设备变得更加智能，从而创建了全新的商业模式和整体设备的新用例。

And in fact, in some ways, any sort of device today that you do not connect is kind of a race to the bottom, right? Because all the products we have, if it’s not connected, it’s just static. Whereas when it gets connected, it becomes more intelligent. It evolves in the future.

实际上，从某种意义上说，当今您未连接的任何设备都在竞相竞争，对吧？因为我们拥有的所有产品，如果没有连接，那就是静态的。而当它连接时，它将变得更加智能。它在未来发展。

There’s new functionality that can be embedded into that device, and that’s creating value. And that’s what we’re providing the platform for.

可以将新功能嵌入到该设备中，从而创造价值。这就是我们提供的平台。

I think one of the other things is, the business we sold were components that go into other people’s systems. Whether it’s an isolator going into an electric vehicle or a timing shift going into a communication system. In IoT, we are doing all of the silicon. We are the ones that are integrating the processing and the memory and the energy battery management, the sensor interfaces, the entire system, both at the hardware and the SOC level, but also at the software levels. All the way from the transistor and the silicon all the way up to the cloud.

我认为另一件事是，我们出售的业务是进入他人系统的组件。无论是进入电动汽车的隔离器，还是进入通信系统的定时转换。在物联网中，我们正在做所有的芯片。我们是在硬件和SOC级别以及软件级别集成处理，内存和能量电池管理，传感器接口，整个系统的公司。从晶体管和硅一直到云。

This has really transformed the company from being just a pure silicon component provider to be a silicon software and solution provider where we can really control the integration path.

这确实使公司从单纯的硅组件提供商转变为可以真正控制集成路径的硅软件和解决方案提供商。

We don’t sell this into PCs or handsets. We sell it very broadly into all these different applications. It’s a very resilient business, because we’re not just dependent on one customer or one application, and we’re sharing… Once we achieve scale in that business, as we scale this up to the point where it’s hitting the profitability targets and all that that we’re putting out there, there’s a high degree of differentiation, a high degree of defensibility in a very high quality… In other words, it’s like a snowball going downhill, right? You’re just building momentum.

我们不会将其出售给PC或手机。我们将其广泛销售到所有这些不同的应用中。这是一个非常有弹性的业务，因为我们不仅依赖于一个客户或一个应用，而且我们正在共享……一旦在该业务中实现规模，我们就将其扩展到达到利润目标和所有目标的地步。那就是我们要展示的东西，它具有很高的差异性，很高的防御性和非常高的质量……换句话说，就像滚雪球一样，对吧？您只是在建立动力。

There’s kind of an equivalent to this on the software side. So if you think about enterprise software, like Salesforce creates a platform or CRM across industries. We’re creating a silicon and software platform that goes across industries. Either of these companies can’t afford to do it themselves, or if you just do one part, you never achieve the scale to be able to reach this escape velocity that we believe that we finally achieved, which is kind of related to the timing of when we’re doing this. We’ve now reached this critical mass, this escape velocity.

在软件方面，这相当于一种情况。因此，如果您考虑使用企业软件，例如Salesforce会创建跨行业的平台或CRM。我们正在创建一个跨行业的芯片和软件平台。这些公司中的任何一个都承担不了自行开发的费用，或者如果您只做一部分，您将永远无法达到能够达到我们认为最终实现的这一逃逸速度的规模，这与我们这样做的时机有关。现在我们达到了这个临界质量，这个逃逸速度。

JUNKO YOSHIDA: Let me ask you this: You said that the basic building blocks that you conceptualized in that IoT SOC hasn’t really changed. So in order to have this snowball effect that you’re gunning for, with the booming IoT business, where do you need to actually invest more? There must be a good reason that you wanted to focus on IoT, and I’m just assuming that it’s parts of IoT business that you really need to not just focus on, but you need to invest in. What are they?

JUNKO YOSHIDA: 让我问你一个问题：你说你在IoT SOC中概念化的基本构建块并没有真正改变。因此，为了发挥您不断追求的滚雪球效应，随着蓬勃发展的物联网业务，您实际上需要在哪里进行更多投资？您一定有充分的理由要专注于物联网，而我只是假设它确实是物联网业务的一部分，您不仅需要专注于物联网，还需要投资。它们是什么？

TYSON TUTTLE: Certainly we need to increase our investments in Bluetooth and WiFi, which are two of the key wireless standards for IoT. We’ve got a great position in both of those, but there’s additional investments in silicon platforms and software and support that need to happen as we do our third… and really into our third generation silicon platform. So there’s a lot of software to do. There’s additional silicon to do, and there’s additional standards to get critical mass around.

TYSON TUTTLE：当然，我们需要增加对蓝牙和WiFi的投资，这是IoT的两个关键无线标准。我们在这两个方面都拥有很强的地位，但是在我们真正进入第三代硅平台时，需要在硅平台，软件和支持方面进行额外的投资。因此，有很多软件可以做。还有其他芯片的工作要做，还有其他标准可以解决关键问题。

And the focus that we’re going to be able to achieve by doing this… and we will be freeing up some additional dollars to be able to invest in R&D to accelerate those developments internally. We’re able to reset our financial model and then grow from there and have this ramp in profitability over time as we scale.

通过这样做，我们将能够实现的重点……我们将腾出一些额外的资金，用于研发，以在内部加速这些发展。我们能够重置我们的财务模型，然后从那里开始发展，并且随着我们规模的扩大，盈利能力会随着时间的推移而逐渐增加。

So it allows us to kind of front-end load some of those investments that were hard to make, actually. Even though the company was more profitable before, we were really valued more on the earnings, and now we’re going to really be valued more on the growth.

因此，它实际上使我们可以在前端加载一些难以进行的投资。即使该公司以前盈利更高，但我们在收益方面的确获得了更高的估值，现在，我们将在增长方面得到了更高的估值。

JUNKO YOSHIDA: I see.

TYSON TUTTLE: We’re at this point where the pandemic has accelerated the demand for our products and accelerated the adoption of IoT technology. And so that’s a really important thing to think. Why now? It’s not as though has the IoT business reached this kind of critical mass. The markets are really taking off. And so to really capitalize on that and to be able to achieve leadership requires focus and purity in terms of what we’re doing. And we believe that we can run faster as a pure play company in this area.

TYSON TUTTLE：在这一点上，新冠疫情已经加速了对我们产品的需求，并加速了IoT技术的采用。因此，这是一件非常重要的事情。为什么现在？物联网业务似乎并没有达到这种临界水平。市场真的起飞了。因此，要真正利用这一点并获得领导才能，就需要我们做事的重点和纯正性。而且我们相信，在这方面，作为一家纯粹公司，我们可以更快地运转。

JUNKO YOSHIDA: Can I ask you something? I don’t think I’m quite comprehending. When you said that you need to invest more on things like WiFi and Bluetooth, I thought those are standardized products. Why do you need to invest more? What’s going on there?

JUNKO YOSHIDA：我能问你一件事吗？我认为我不太了解。当您说需要在WiFi和蓝牙等方面进行更多投资时，我认为这些都是标准化的产品。为什么需要增加投资？那里发生了什么事？

TYSON TUTTLE: Well, to be able to address thousands of applications and tens of thousands of customers, you have to build out a portfolio of products. So it’s a platform.

TYSON TUTTLE：好吧，要能够处理成千上万的应用和成千上万的客户，您必须构建一系列产品。所以这是一个平台。

Today, if you’re going to achieve leadership, you have to run faster. Right? You have to move into the next process nodes, and you’ve got to get into the next version of the standard. And you’ve got to have all the variations of those technologies and all the various permutations to be able to address more and more of that market.

今天，如果要获得领导地位，您必须运行得更快。正确的？您必须进入下一个流程节点，并且必须进入标准的下一个版本。而且，您必须拥有这些技术的所有变体以及所有不同的排列方式，才能应对越来越多的该市场。

We’ve got a great position in the market in a lot of areas. But you’ve gotta be able to make those investments and run faster to be able to gain the market share as the markets are growing. The IoT markets are growing about 15% per year. And so with our 20% per year model that we’re putting out, that means that we’re going to be gaining market share over time.

我们在许多领域在市场上都占有重要地位。但是，您必须能够进行这些投资并以更快的速度运行，从而能够随着市场的增长而获得市场份额。物联网市场每年增长约15％。因此，随着我们推出的每年增长20％的模型，这意味着随着时间的流逝，我们将获得越来越多的市场份额。

JUNKO YOSHIDA: Wow.

TYSON TUTTLE: We see evidence of this. We see companies like TI kind of not really keeping up. Other companies might do a chip for lighting or try to go after one market or another. But if you don’t have the critical mass of being able to have revenue from all of these markets, it doesn’t work.

TYSON TUTTLE：我们看到了这方面的证据。我们看到像TI这样的公司并没有跟上步伐。其他公司可能会制造用于照明的芯片，或者试图占领一个市场或另一个市场。但是，如果您没有足够的能力从所有这些市场中获得收入，那将是行不通的。

In other words, the leader in a market is always the one that achieves the best return on their investment. And so it’s our view that focusing on accelerating our path to that market leadership… While today we have a market leadership, but the market is going to be much, much, much bigger in the future. And so that requires even greater momentum.

换句话说，市场的领导者永远是能够获得最佳投资回报的人。因此，我们认为，专注于加快我们在市场领导地位方面的道路……虽然今天我们拥有市场领导地位，但未来的市场将越来越大。因此，这需要更大的动力。

BRIAN SANTO: That was Silicon Labs CEO Tyson Tuttle, with EE Times global editor Junko Yoshida. We’ve got a link to Junko’s story on the podcast episode web page.

BRIAN SANTO：那是Silicon Labs的首席执行官Tyson Tuttle，与EE Times全球编辑Junko Yoshida的对话。我们在播客插播网页上有一个指向Junko的故事的链接。

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