The royalty-to-product transition is the right move but it introduces execution risk that the IP model never had — ARM's moat was built on being the neutral infrastructure layer everyone could build on, and the moment it ships its own CPU it becomes a competitor to the hyperscalers that currently co-develop on its architecture. Meta as lead customer is validation, but AWS, Google, and Microsoft designing their own ARM chips now have a reason to accelerate that independence rather than deepen the relationship.