Building in hardware takes 5–10 years of heavy investment before the payoff shows up.
But as Tarun Mehta explains, that patience is the moat.
Few companies can afford — financially or mentally — to keep building for a decade.
The engineering hours alone create a barrier most will never cross.
There’s a popular counter-argument:
If venture capital doesn’t go all-in early, legacy players get time to catch up — with 100× more capital.
Tarun disagrees.
Because auto isn’t like internet startups.
It’s not about grabbing land fast and locking users in. There is no “install once, never leave” dynamic.
Consumer tastes evolve. Profit pools stay distributed.
No one owns 70% of the market forever.
The mistake, he says, was treating EVs like a short-term land-grab opportunity.
In this episode of The Blume Podcast, Tarun Mehta in conversation with Karthik Reddy unpacks why patience beats speed in hardware — and why excess capital can sometimes be a distraction.
⚡ Watch the full episode now — a rethink on how great industrial companies are built.