The Gross Margin Staircase

Palantir's gross margin is 81%. Super Micro's is 11%. Both are "AI companies." The difference is not execution. It is where they sit in the stack. Where you sit in the stack determines the economics of your business. Plot a dozen public AI companies by stack position: hardware, platform, application . A staircase appears. Each layer up adds about 20 points of gross margin.Stack position alone…