Sky full of stars.
Following a successful lunar flyby, the Artemis II astronauts captured this breathtaking photo of our galaxy, the Milky Way, on April 7, 2026.
Why vertical integration proves an optimum strategy during technology transitions:
New technologies require optimized inputs that are not available in quantities sufficient to support exponential growth. A new technology platform relying on external suppliers will be tripped up by the weakest link in its supply chain.
Tesla vertically integrated through power electronics because it couldn’t maximize the performance of electric vehicles with the specs available off-the-shelf. Subsequently, it built the supercharger network to push aside range anxiety and vertically integrated into battery manufacture to avoid cell-supply constraints.
Though this seems the exception, particularly amongst mature industrial companies that have tried to reduce capital intensity by outsourcing activities into well-developed supply chains, vertical integration is a dominant strategy during technological transitions.