Well, I think we're of two valid points of view on this one. You're saying Apple adds value to the CPU itself, which taken abstractly is true since they do have some advancements in the CPU and how they package it in the SoC. I'm saying that concretely they and their customers tend to consider it value added to the finished system, especially since you can't just go out and buy an M1Max or an M2 for your own system with a board from elsewhere. Lots of their design and engineering is in the SoC rather than the CPU proper, too, with how it's integrated with the GPU, the memory, and the storage controller.
So in the really broad statement that only companies that make just the CPU or CPU IP add value to it, I'd consider Apple more of an edge case than an outright exception. Of course Intel, Qualcomm, Samsung, NVidia, and AMD don't build and sell only CPUs either. They make, among them, storage, RAM, display panels, GPUs, chipsets, radio baseboards, TVs, whole computers, etc. I think the point is best worded that they sell the CPUs as a retail or OEM part rather than as part of a larger system of their own. That's debatable, too, but I'm not sure Apple is a perfect counterexample to the point as I described above.
> I wonder if it's because Apple captures so much margin from the final product which means they can afford to spend top dollar on CPU design teams?
That's an excellent question. If I could answer it completely and definitively I'd probably be making my living as an industry analyst for some magazine or investment fund. I have a suspicion that might be right, though.
Apple and Google today, and sometimes other companies, are starting to remind me of AT&T before the divestiture. They're such big, profitable players that they can have huge skunkworks attacking adjacent problems to their core business and keep doing so in new directions.
