Very wrong! Silk used in an airbag would be a high tech use and command a very high price. Silk used in the interior would not be much, if any, of an advantage over conventional materials (and probably far too expensive even at the price of conventional silk). so profits for KBLB for such use would be miniscule. (how many cars have you seen with conventional silk interiors? There's a very good reason it's not used for such things.)
YOu have to consider the profit margin: Selling to high tech maket could give profit margins of 70 or 80% or even more. Selling to conventional garments markets would probably yield single digits of percents at best. Yes it's a large market but it would take time to grow into it and that growing time would be vastly more profitable in the high tech markets.
HINT: solid gold frying pans are vastly superior to ones made of iron, ceramics, etc (and a VERY few VERY rich people have them). But how many of them do you see on the market? Superior technologies are used where their level of superiority JUSTIFIES THE PRICE. For car interiors, not at all. For airbags likely yes.
To make the same amount of profit at an 8% profit margin you have to sell 10 times as much as at an 80% margin. But that's STILL not equivalent: because you have to also build 10 times the manufacturing and processing facilities. If that's a limiting factor (which it very much WILL be for KBLB at least initially) then you could be making 10 times as much profit on the high tech market for the entire period it took to saturate the market. So IF (doubtful) there is more money to be made EVENTUALLY by selling vastly more to a lower level market, that advantage comes only far down the road whereas IN THE NEAR term you'd make a lot LESS money. ADD on the period required to make up the loss and you're VERY far into the future before there is any advantage to selling vastly more to a lower price market IF EVER!
But wait! Add on the time value of money (highly critical to an early stage company like KBLB) and you LOSE IN EVERY CASE both short term and long term by selling to the much lower profit margin market.
IMHO the ONLY reason Kim ever considered the conventional silk markets was because of thinking that MS wasn't good enough for high tech uses. If it IS he would be incredibly foolish to waste time with the conventional silk industry (except LATER when the high tech industry was under control they MIGHT want to do a tuned down lower quality for the conventional silk market and SELL the rights to those on a royalty agreement and spend it on R&D for the high tech stuff.
Know where your niche is and operate within it at least until you've grown enough to expand out of it!
