Paul Jacobs, the former Qualcomm CEO, is starting a new company that will focus more or less on next-generation wireless technology. Paul Jacobs will start the new engineering company called XCOM with two ex-Qualcomm executives. Qualcomm’s board removed him as chairman after he expressed his desire to make the company private.
The startup will mainly focus on tackling and solving important 5G problems such as low latency and greater reliability. The startup is looking forward to investing in the same area. Paul Jacobs is the company’s new CEO and Chairman. He is joined by his former colleagues, Derek Aberle, Qualcomm’s former president who left the company last year, and Matthew Grob, Qualcomm’s chief technology officer from 2011 to 2017.
Jacobs is mainly working with Aberle to raise billions of dollars for a theoretical Qualcomm acquisition. However, Jacobs’ plan to take Qualcomm private is not hindered in any way by this new start-up. The joint effort of Jacobs and Aberle has slowed down a little as Qualcomm is awaiting their Chinese approval to acquire NXP.
It’s unclear where the take private plan will go or how long that will take but this is not an either/or. We are pursuing this new company and we have high expectations and confidence in the take-private plan. – Derek Aberle, Qualcomm’s former president
Jacobs, Aberle, and Grob are planning to hire new employees for XCOM in the coming months to get their start-up working as soon as possible. But since the company is still in its early stages, the executives do not have a well-thought-out plan and a reliable business model. They are still toying with the idea of licensing the proprietary 5G technology and are also considering providing software and designs to other companies. “There’s still a fair amount of work that needs to be done to prove out the applicability of 5G through the various Internet of Things applications. We feel we have some better ideas for how to do some of that stuff.” Aberle mentioned.
