Fairchij: What people fail to appreciate (or ignore) is that this is a very dynamic industry that is in continual change and I think we need to recognize that especially when we are talking about cutting edge science and its ability to move into real world applications.

Indeed, Fairchij, the dynamic aspect of this industry and market cannot be emphasised enough! In this industry you simply cannot make a Five Years Plan and execute it, no matter what. The only constant is change, and as a company you have to continuously adapt to these changes, especially market needs. Suresh pointed that out in the AGM presentation:

• 32:43 We, as every responsible company should, have a strategy committee. We meet, we look at a three year strategic plan, we look at where we need to make our investments, in term of what our operating plan has to be.

So POET is reviewing and – if needed – adapting their strategy multiple times each year. This is very reasonable and responsible – also very reasonable and responsible towards shareholders.

I suggest people to have a look at slide 15 of the AGM presentation again, listen to what Suresh said, and understand that the shift towards InP has been motivated by a changing market:

• 36:52 This is a slide on relative market opportunity in terms of data communications of indium phosphide versus gallium arsenide. And this is something that we noted in 2016, early 2016, as a potential shift in the market towards indium phosphide-based optics and a significant growth there. Gallium arsenide grows and it is an important piece of the segment, it is almost a billion dollar market share in data communication in 2021, but while indium phosphide and gallium arsenide were more or less on even keel in 2015, there has been appearing growth – or projected appearing growth – in indium phosphide. And that has come to path in 2016. 2016 the numbers that were projected for indium phosphide did actually happen and there is an expectation of that growth to continue within the next five years.
  
  37:47 There has also been a market share transition from gallium arsenide to indium phosphide, primarily because of choices made by data center providers to go towards single-mode optics as opposed to multi-mode optics, which is where gallium arsenide really has earned its stripes right over the years. Gallium arsenide has been the engine for data center growth, but at the 100 gigabyte per second point and beyond, there a thrust and a shift to single-mode optics.
  
  38:16 So our strategic direction within the company needs to be to capitalize on this near-term opportunity with indium phosphide, because we have the technology, we made the acquisitions to be able to own the capability to participate in it, and we have differentiation and IP in that market that allows us to get the penetration loads that we need to promote that growth.

To me, this is absolutely plausible, reasonable and the right strategic path to go.

However, scary armchair CEOs will of course always know better. The will have found better ways to deal with changing market needs – and if only to ignore them and make no changes at all, because someone said something a hundred years ago.