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On a regular basis Mill pops up here and generates some interest, I just can’t understand why. They haven’t produced an FPGA proof of concept, after claiming t

On a regular basis Mill pops up here and generates some interest, I just can’t understand why. They haven’t produced an FPGA proof of concept, after claiming they would have one ready last year. They now say they need investors to finish it, yet they previously claimed to not even be looking for funding. They claim to have angel investors, but they are all secret ones. Of course it’s an investors right to stay private, but the reason you often see investors and companies shouting from roof tops is because the funding event itself can help a company. Publicizing it generates PR, gives the company credibility in dealing with other companies, and is a signal that can generate demand for more investors. Even putting that aside, the biggest issue is they haven’t made a compelling case for how their ideas will outperform existing CPUs in practical usage scenarios. Yes a running FPGA would be nice, that’s not the only way to show potential. They could do quantitative analysis, modeling, or start adding a lot more detail to their talks and papers (which tend to sound about as deep as you get in an undergrad architecture classroom), and argue very specifically and comparatively against today’s standards, even for just a few key scenarios. Maybe they believe even those ways would still have capital/labor/opportunity costs that are prohibitive or for a startup? Another option could be small meetings with a few well respected hardware architects, who will have the best chance of understanding the potential value. Once convinced, they will probably be glad to write about it or just provide a reference, which will make funding, partnerships, hiring, etc all easier. I dislike being critical of people swinging for the fences, because it’s what many of us here are trying to do, and it’s important that people keep doing it. However in this case it’s not just about long odds. Because of the reasons above and a few other details, things just don’t add up. I don’t believe the FPGA will ever demonstrate anything compelling, and don’t think any investor in their own backyard on sand hill road will bite. It’s all conjecture of course, I’d be happy to be proven wrong.

ema 9y ago
You brought up the question of why people are interested in the mill and then discussed the question of whether the mill is viable. They're not completely unrelated but still distinct. Being a software guy I can't say much about the viability. Watching Ivan's lectures and thinking it over however tickles the same part of my brain that enjoys learning a new programming language. It is just fun to see how some problem could be solved differently.
- WhitneyLand 9y ago
  that’s a good point - i would agree that’s a very natural and healthy viewpoint yet has nothing to do with the startup aspect.
jacquesm 9y ago
As a seed investor into several companies I'm pretty happy to keep my investments private.
rjsw 9y ago
A closed source software emulation would be fine for me, ARM provide this for AArch64.
igodard 9y ago
All sound points. Most of what you'd like to see are things we'd like to see too. At the beginning we decided to bootstrap rather than follow the usual funding model, at least to the point at which we could demonstrate what we had to people who would understand it in detail. We choose bootstrap in large part because most of us were old enough to have had actual experience with other business models. Yes, it has taken far longer to get this far than we wanted, but we have gotten this far. About evaluation: it has been our experience that the more senior/skilled a hardware (and software) guy is the more they fall in love with the Mill. You don't hear much of that - we want the tech to be judged on its merits, not on some luminariy's say-so. And of course those senior guys tend to work for potential competitors and don't want to say much publicly. But you are right: the proof will be running code, and we're starting to do that. We'll be doing more talks like the switches talk, with actual code comparisons. Eventually we will put our tool chain and sim on the cloud for you to play with. Patience, waiting is.

ema 9y ago

You brought up the question of why people are interested in the mill and then discussed the question of whether the mill is viable. They're not completely unrelated but still distinct. Being a software guy I can't say much about the viability. Watching Ivan's lectures and thinking it over however tickles the same part of my brain that enjoys learning a new programming language. It is just fun to see how some problem could be solved differently.

WhitneyLand 9y ago
that’s a good point - i would agree that’s a very natural and healthy viewpoint yet has nothing to do with the startup aspect.

jacquesm 9y ago

As a seed investor into several companies I'm pretty happy to keep my investments private.

rjsw 9y ago

A closed source software emulation would be fine for me, ARM provide this for AArch64.

igodard 9y ago

All sound points. Most of what you'd like to see are things we'd like to see too. At the beginning we decided to bootstrap rather than follow the usual funding model, at least to the point at which we could demonstrate what we had to people who would understand it in detail. We choose bootstrap in large part because most of us were old enough to have had actual experience with other business models. Yes, it has taken far longer to get this far than we wanted, but we have gotten this far. About evaluation: it has been our experience that the more senior/skilled a hardware (and software) guy is the more they fall in love with the Mill. You don't hear much of that - we want the tech to be judged on its merits, not on some luminariy's say-so. And of course those senior guys tend to work for potential competitors and don't want to say much publicly. But you are right: the proof will be running code, and we're starting to do that. We'll be doing more talks like the switches talk, with actual code comparisons. Eventually we will put our tool chain and sim on the cloud for you to play with. Patience, waiting is.