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John Hennessy named chairman of Alphabet/Google
- dmoy 9y agoSo now both H & P working at Google? (Though I don't know enough about corporate board stuff to tell if chairman is "working for")
- cbHXBY1D 9y agoPretty crazy! Hopefully they get Patterson to work on some novel computer architectures. TPUs are very cool but they are not for consumers.
- jlebar 9y agoI know what you mean, but e.g. every time the Google Assistant talks to you, the consumer, you're using TPUs. https://deepmind.com/blog/wavenet-launches-google-assistant/ https://deepmind.com/blog/wavenet-launches-google-assistant/
- utopcell 9y agoThey're getting there: https://cloud.google.com/tpu/ https://cloud.google.com/tpu/
- pharrington 9y agoA "Board of Directors" is the executive unit of a publicly owned company [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_company]. It is separate from Google's internal corporate hierarchy.
- stochastic_monk 9y agoWho are "H & P"? I haven't been able to track down who the P is.
- chewxy 9y agoPatterson. Computer Architecture is their landmark book
- adultSwim 9y agoTo me, Patterson is the real superstar of the duo.
- mediocrejoker 9y agoComputer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach is a seminal text in computer science by John L. Hennessy and David A. Patterson. From what little I've read of it for my classes in the subject, it's well written and accessible.
- stochastic_monk 9y agoThanks! I'm a CS PhD student, but my undergrad and master's are in physics, so I didn't go through all of the same steps many did in their CS curricula.
- dmoy 9y agoIt is usually in graduate courses, I guess maybe some better schools' undergrad programs. Agree with gp, very well written text. Probably the only class textbook that I have actually read entirely. (10 years ago or whatever)
- stochastic_monk 9y agoI’m sure H&P is the CLRS of architecture.
- econner 9y agoHe was also President of Stanford for a bunch of years.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- erikpukinskis 9y agoWhat’s going on with Schmidt? Was this planned?
- oh_sigh 9y agoHe stepped down at the end of 2017 in order to focus on his charities(according to the press release). But, his daughter did die last year as well, perhaps that is the cause for him refocusing his life
- polishTar 9y agoIt's also worth mentioning that he's still on the board, just no longer as chair.
- alphonsegaston 9y agoMost likely he was cast aside so Google can cozy up better with the Trump administration. Schmidt was close with the Clinton campaign, which Trump himself noted when they met: http://www.siliconbeat.com/2017/12/22/time-right-eric-schmidt-leave-alphabet-chairman/ http://www.siliconbeat.com/2017/12/22/time-right-eric-schmid...
- zitterbewegung 9y agoAre you serious? Why can't it be that the CEO under performed and couldn't manage their increasing costs to pay Apple and Mozilla. Also, that they can't seem to sell consumer electronics unless they are low margin phones?
- joshuamorton 9y agoBecause Schmidt isn't the CEO. (note that I also don't really think its politically motivated either, but that's certainly more likely than thinking that Alphabet is underperforming).
- Aloha 9y agoI think this conceptually holds as much water as a colander. Schmidt has been on his way out for a couple years - it appeared to have been part of a planned transition.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- kev009 9y agoI'm glad he got his books updated with the RISC-V editions before this
- davidkuhta 9y agoHaha, while I'm happy for him and excited for what this means for Alphabet, I had the same thought. Something tells me this guy would be able to juggle a new edition nonetheless
- MrBingley 9y agoDoes this mean good things for RISC-V?
- senatorobama 9y agoNope. That's Patterson.
- cbHXBY1D 9y agoYep. And as someone engaged in the RISC-V community, I've seen zero evidence of Google involvement outside of Patterson. Normally if they had something brewing, you would start to see signs on the forums, email, or Github.
- godelmachine 9y agoIs he not the author of the famous book - Computer Architecture : A Quantitative Approach by Hennessy Patterson?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- theDoug 9y agoIndeed the same.
- luckydude 9y agoThis guy is one of my heroes, I could not be happier. Go him. The H&P book on computer architecture is a book that changed my life. He is like Knuth except that I understand what he says. The Knuth stuff, I get it, it's profound, but I never got it. It was too hard. H&P, they laid it out in ways that I could understand. I'm not stupid but I'm not that smart, I really loved that book, it was written in a way that not so smart people get it. If there was a way I could say "go you", yeah, I want to do that. He's a great guy, has done great work, go him. And all that said, I bet this is not a "go him" job, I bet he makes a difference, maybe a huge one, maybe not so huge, but I bet he makes a difference. Let's come back in 5 years, I bet he will have made stuff better.
- timb07 9y agoI too loved "Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach", and read it all the way through before the semester even started. Each chapter had a pithy quote at the start, and my favorite was the excerpt from the EDSAC instruction set: Z -- Halt and Ring Bell: Stop the machine and ring the warning bell
- onikolas 9y agoMeh, it has a lot of fallacies and pitfalls.
- jacobolus 9y agoCan you elaborate a bit? Unsubstantiated drive-by insults aren’t very useful to other readers. Edit: thanks for the explanation. Note to the several downvoters: you aren’t accomplishing much here by “punishing” innocent unfamiliarity with an in-joke...
- warkdarrior 9y agoIt's a joke. Every chapter in the book has a section titled "Fallacies and Pitfalls" describing commonly held beliefs that should be avoided for the topic of that chapter. See for example page 58 here: https://books.google.com/books?id=cM8mDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA58#v=onepage&q&f=false https://books.google.com/books?id=cM8mDwAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA...
- baldajan 9y agoI have no issues with John Hennessy, but I’m surprised they didn’t give the chairman position to Larry Page, who’s CEO and a Co-Founder. I wonder what’s preventing him from taking over full control...
- BooneJS 9y agoSarbanes-Oxley Act strongly encourages non-Employee Chairman of the Board. It’s the direction that well-governed companies are moving.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- samfisher83 9y agoPaige and Brin have enough voting power to pretty much make any major decision.
- polskibus 9y agoHow much power exactly? Or do they own some special shares that don't need majority to rule?
- zerocrates 9y agoTogether they control over 50% of the voting power. They both own substantial amounts of Class B shares, which aren't available to the public and carry 10 votes per share.
- justchilly 9y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong but didnt Hennessy, while President of Stanford, agree to give away university-owned page rank IP to Google for $1mm (a company he was conveniently personally invested in) thereby lining himself up for massive personal gains at the expense of the University?
- frankchn 9y agoAccording to [1], Stanford received 1.8 million shares of Google stock (I'd imagine for PageRank and other rights), and they sold it over time for $336 million. [1] http://www.redorbit.com/news/education/318480/stanford_earns_336_million_off_google_stock/ http://www.redorbit.com/news/education/318480/stanford_earns...
- hiuaql 9y agoIf they hadn't sold it in 2005, it would be worth $3.6B now (10x in 12 years), more than 10% of Stanford's total endowment.
- halflings 9y agoRight, that's why Google is still paying Stanford for the license, and gave the university shares that were worth $360M in 2005 already? [0] "In 2012, Google paid Stanford $80,000 for the license, a sharp decline from the $400,000 paid in 201a and only 1/10 of what Google paid in 2010. Since Google began disclosing these payments, the company has paid Stanford around $3 million in licensing fees. Of course, that’s in addition to the $1.8 million shares that Google issued to Stanford, and which the school sold for $336 million in 2005.Google made up some of the difference by donating $3.4 million to Stanford for scholarships and what the proxy describes as “other philanthropic endeavors”, compared with $3 million in 2011." [0] https://www.footnoted.com/new-details-in-googles-proxy-on-stanford-23andme/ https://www.footnoted.com/new-details-in-googles-proxy-on-st...
- lerie82 9y agoI hope he does well.
- yeukhon 9y agoHis CV page [1] is clean and quite up-to-date. Not sure if he handles the edit himself or not, but I find the page's design clean compared to a lot of the professors' out there. I just think it's interesting to mention here. [1]: https://web.stanford.edu/~hennessy/cv.html https://web.stanford.edu/~hennessy/cv.html
- jessriedel 9y agoMost profs don't want to maintain an HTML CV.
- donogh 9y agoImpressive! Only negative: the "Slides from Recent Talks" section is all broken links.
- vanderZwan 9y agoI do love how these kind of CV sites always seem to abhor any CSS styling that would not be understood by a twenty year old browser. EDIT: and now contrast1970 has solved the mystery!
- yeukhon 9y agoYeah but this one is particularly neat though.
- contras1970 9y ago<html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml" xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml" xmlns:mv="http://macVmlSchemaUri" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40"> <head> <meta name=Title content=cv.html> <meta name=Keywords content=""> <meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=unicode"> <meta name=ProgId content=Word.Document> <meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 14"> <meta name=Originator content="Microsoft Word 14"> <link rel=File-List href="cv_files/filelist.xml"> <link rel=Edit-Time-Data href="cv_files/editdata.mso"> <!--[if !mso]> ...
- Steeeve 9y agoHennessy was an incredible steward at Stanford, and I'm 100% sure that he will be a difference maker at Alphabet. I don't see him taking the position if he didn't have an incredible vision for the future that he could drive. The intro to this video talks a bit about his accomplishments as president. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApTQ1bfKXyY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApTQ1bfKXyY This video is probably more in line with the interests of the community here (Stanford Seminar - Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders: John Hennessy of Stanford University): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB3oAg0wuYg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB3oAg0wuYg I was in the audience when he announced the launching of the Knight-Hennessey scholarship. It was an incredible speech. He was always an incredible fundraiser, but putting together a $750M fully endowed scholarship program is a heck of a way to say goodbye to the university.
- thomasahle 9y ago> I don't see him taking the position if he didn't have an incredible vision for the future that he could drive. How much influence does a chairman really have on the the vision though? Isn't that more of the CEO's business? I suppose the board picks the CEO, but that spot doesn't appear to be changing anytime soon.
- fsloth 9y ago"How much influence does a chairman really have on the the vision though? Isn't that more of the CEO's business?" In an ideal situation the chairman can function as the intellectual sparring partner of the CEO. Not many can do that, as some things cannot be discussed outside of the company personnel, and going downwards in the chain of command always has this gradient of authority which can function as an intellectual inhibitor.
- walshemj 9y agoThe Chair also acts in the last resort to sack the CEO if the company is going off the rails - soothing which the Chair at HP should have done a few years ago.
- koitunchodaer 9y agoNFL Super Bowl LII (52) - Sunday, Feb 4, 2018, is the annual championship game https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/SuperBowl2018/conversations/messages/17 https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/SuperBowl2018/conversati...
- koitunchodaer 9y agohttp://b.hatena.ne.jp/entry/s/news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16289243 http://b.hatena.ne.jp/entry/s/news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1...
- thomastjeffery 9y agoHuh?
- singularity2001 9y agovictory of the meritocracy! if only this principle was applied to politics (no flags please)
- Chris2048 9y agoI love his whisky!
- Shengbo 9y agoWrong Hennessy, wrong drink.
- davidkuhta 9y agoUnless we're talking Ballmer Peak, in which case Hennessy can be the correct answer to either.
- nottorp 9y agoI was disappointed too that this guy doesn't have anything to do with the cognac ...
- YTGRK 9y agohttps://youtu.be/I2l8xkjTUh4 https://youtu.be/I2l8xkjTUh4
- bby 9y agoDude knows how to make a beverage.
- jacksmith21006 9y agoGreat choice.
- deanCommie 9y agoWeird.. In a time when people are extra tuned to the relationship between technology and society and whether just because we can build something, should we (information bubbles, etc), it's strange that Alphabet would pick someone so out of touch with their impact to the long tail of humanity. At least that's the impression I got of Hennessey from Malcolm Gladwell's podcast http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/06-my-little-hundred-million http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/06-my-little-hundred-...
- trs80 9y agoGreat, another white male.
- rakenrainbow 9y agoOn the plus side, he must be extraordinarily good to get this job over minority applicants. Google has a bias for hiring minorities (easier to get an internship, interview, or re-interview) so I assume the same bias holds here.
- gxs 9y ago>>RISC pioneer John Hennessy’s side hustle gets serious I couldn't help but get a chuckle out of the subtitle. One day I hope my side hustles involve helping to run an $800B company.
- mathattack 9y agoIs this a conflict of interest?
- flormmm 9y agoAmazing and Awesome. Congrats.