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What makes this more bizarre than Keller’s typical short stints at previous companies is that he has done a ton of media in the last year. He’s probably given m

by cepth 6y ago

What makes this more bizarre than Keller’s typical short stints at previous companies is that he has done a ton of media in the last year. He’s probably given more time to journalists/interviewers in 2020 than in the previous 3 decades of his career combined. A Fortune piece from May of this year gave some insights into his plans (as well as provided a nice overview of his career) (https://fortune.com/longform/microchip-designer-jim-keller-intel-fortune-500-apple-tesla-amd/ https://fortune.com/longform/microchip-designer-jim-keller-i...). > Keller won’t talk much about the massive chip redesign he’s overseeing—chip designers seldom do—and Intel’s new chip probably won’t be ready for another year or two. Still, both Intel and Keller have scattered some clues about how the chips might work. The new chips will cleanly separate major functions, to make it easier for the company to improve one section at a time—an approach that evokes the chiplet model Keller used at AMD. Keller also hints that Intel’s low-power Atom line of chips may figure more prominently in his future designs for PCs and servers. It doesn’t sound like at press time he was planning to leave. Keller also did a great interview on Lex Fridman’s podcast, which was released in February of this year (https://youtu.be/Nb2tebYAaOA https://youtu.be/Nb2tebYAaOA). Keller then did a presentation at the Matroid conference (held at the end of February) (https://youtu.be/8eT1jaHmlx8 https://youtu.be/8eT1jaHmlx8). I hope he’s ok, since the Intel statement specifically mentioned “personal reasons”.

baybal2 6y ago
I heard that he had a speech impediment before. Never felt that he did when I first saw him speaking on hot chips.
- SuoDuanDao 6y ago
  Hm, I remember a highly requested Joe Rogan guest talking about how he got over a speech impediment. Wonder whether there's a connection.
  - wand3r 6y ago
    Stamets?
    - SuoDuanDao 6y ago
      That's the one. Making my predictions for 2020, I thought that co-operation with fungal systems would slowly ramp up this year. Probably just that I'm looking for evidence I was right, but it's a fun connection to draw about someone who seems in some way at least adjacent to that scene.
  - bArray 6y ago
    I've known quite a few friends and some family with speech impediments (maybe there's something in the water), but they all seem to do much better when they are in their wheel-house. I guess that public speaking on topics you are comfortable with could be quite positive. One of my family members was able to remove it entirely, he became a chef and was required to shout orders a lot.
Traster 6y ago
His personal reasons may well include that he "personally hates working at Intel"
- libertine 6y ago
  When you have FU money and the expertise to be desired by anyone, doesn't seem like a bad reason.
  - hitpointdrew 6y ago
    > and the expertise to be desired by anyone Seriously...Jim Keller doesn't apply to work places....places seek him out. The interview process is Jim interviewing the company, not the other way around.
- bredren 6y ago
  Big company, but having worked at and for Intel I would not be surprised. I don’t have nice things to say about Intel.
  - UncleOxidant 6y ago
    Same here. It's a terrible place if you want to try to get things done. Meetings about meetings and nobody ever wants to make a decision.
- rathel 6y ago
  Oh yeah. I have friends who work or have worked at Intel. Management who runs this company are straight lunatics. The sheer amount of shelved projects, pointless reorgs, layoffs-for-show is staggering. I do work in a corp, but thanks God our leadership is much more down-to-earth, even if I earn less money, I am able to retain relative sanity (due to my allergy to bullshit).
- mabbo 6y ago
  There's something I can really respect about that, if that is the case. Imagine you hate working for your company, but you're still going out, giving positive interviews, and doing your job well. I know a lot of folks (almost certainly myself included) who struggle to not make it obvious when they loathe coming to work in the morning.
jstimpfle 6y ago
> Keller also did a great interview on Lex Fridman’s podcast, which was released in February of this year (https://youtu.be/Nb2tebYAaOA https://youtu.be/Nb2tebYAaOA). This is great. I'm 12 minutes in and I'm getting the kicks from the way this guy describes concepts (that I already know, more or less) in a simple way.
- lozaning 6y ago
  The whole video is wonderful, really shows you how smart of a person Jim is, and as always Lex is a great interviewer.
Pietertje 6y ago
Just wow, listening to the podcast interview is super interesting. The abstraction and knowledge on so many different levels and topics is thrilling. Any other tips for interviews with similar architects?
- cepth 6y ago
  There have been a couple others that come to mind. With the CEO of Cerebras (a buzzy and well-funded chip startup) on the ARK Invest podcast: https://ark-invest.com/podcast/cerebras-wafer-scale-engine-ai-chip-with-ceo-andrew-feldman/ https://ark-invest.com/podcast/cerebras-wafer-scale-engine-a.... I will say that the interviewee here was a little bit more coy, and the podcast generally is geared more towards a business audience, though they have had very top tier technical talent on. Also from ARK Invest was this discussion of the just launched Nvidia A100 GPUs: https://ark-invest.com/podcast/fyi-ep67-nvidia-gpu/ https://ark-invest.com/podcast/fyi-ep67-nvidia-gpu/. From the Matroid conference, the chief architect at Groq (another buzzy chip startup): https://youtu.be/q-lBj49iF9w https://youtu.be/q-lBj49iF9w
stupidcar 6y ago
Maybe the reason he was doing so much media was because he was encountering resistance to his ideas internally at Intel. Talking publicly about them and becoming the public face of Intel's CPU design program might have been his way to get more intellectual leverage. If it was, I guess it didn't work.
- cepth 6y ago
  I can’t speak specifically to Intel, but at most large private companies when you’re an employee you give up the rights to talk to media/press about your work without employer approval. For the Fortune and Lex Fridman interviews, Keller would likely have had to get Intel PR’s approval to participate. In Lex’s interview, you can see him wearing an Intel guest badge, so I assume the interview took place on-site.
UncleOxidant 6y ago
Just listening to that Lex Fridman podcast. Keller is a very good explainer. However, I'm on the part where he says that you need to throw everything out every 5 years or so and rewrite and it makes me think that that would be an area where he would've gotten a lot of push-back at Intel.

by cepth 6y ago

baybal2 6y ago

I heard that he had a speech impediment before. Never felt that he did when I first saw him speaking on hot chips.

SuoDuanDao 6y ago
Hm, I remember a highly requested Joe Rogan guest talking about how he got over a speech impediment. Wonder whether there's a connection.
- wand3r 6y ago
  Stamets?
  - SuoDuanDao 6y ago
    That's the one. Making my predictions for 2020, I thought that co-operation with fungal systems would slowly ramp up this year. Probably just that I'm looking for evidence I was right, but it's a fun connection to draw about someone who seems in some way at least adjacent to that scene.
- bArray 6y ago
  I've known quite a few friends and some family with speech impediments (maybe there's something in the water), but they all seem to do much better when they are in their wheel-house. I guess that public speaking on topics you are comfortable with could be quite positive. One of my family members was able to remove it entirely, he became a chef and was required to shout orders a lot.

Traster 6y ago

His personal reasons may well include that he "personally hates working at Intel"

libertine 6y ago
When you have FU money and the expertise to be desired by anyone, doesn't seem like a bad reason.
- hitpointdrew 6y ago
  > and the expertise to be desired by anyone Seriously...Jim Keller doesn't apply to work places....places seek him out. The interview process is Jim interviewing the company, not the other way around.
bredren 6y ago
Big company, but having worked at and for Intel I would not be surprised. I don’t have nice things to say about Intel.
- UncleOxidant 6y ago
  Same here. It's a terrible place if you want to try to get things done. Meetings about meetings and nobody ever wants to make a decision.
rathel 6y ago
Oh yeah. I have friends who work or have worked at Intel. Management who runs this company are straight lunatics. The sheer amount of shelved projects, pointless reorgs, layoffs-for-show is staggering. I do work in a corp, but thanks God our leadership is much more down-to-earth, even if I earn less money, I am able to retain relative sanity (due to my allergy to bullshit).
mabbo 6y ago
There's something I can really respect about that, if that is the case. Imagine you hate working for your company, but you're still going out, giving positive interviews, and doing your job well. I know a lot of folks (almost certainly myself included) who struggle to not make it obvious when they loathe coming to work in the morning.

jstimpfle 6y ago

> Keller also did a great interview on Lex Fridman’s podcast, which was released in February of this year (https://youtu.be/Nb2tebYAaOA https://youtu.be/Nb2tebYAaOA). This is great. I'm 12 minutes in and I'm getting the kicks from the way this guy describes concepts (that I already know, more or less) in a simple way.

lozaning 6y ago
The whole video is wonderful, really shows you how smart of a person Jim is, and as always Lex is a great interviewer.

Pietertje 6y ago

Just wow, listening to the podcast interview is super interesting. The abstraction and knowledge on so many different levels and topics is thrilling. Any other tips for interviews with similar architects?

cepth 6y ago
There have been a couple others that come to mind. With the CEO of Cerebras (a buzzy and well-funded chip startup) on the ARK Invest podcast: https://ark-invest.com/podcast/cerebras-wafer-scale-engine-ai-chip-with-ceo-andrew-feldman/ https://ark-invest.com/podcast/cerebras-wafer-scale-engine-a.... I will say that the interviewee here was a little bit more coy, and the podcast generally is geared more towards a business audience, though they have had very top tier technical talent on. Also from ARK Invest was this discussion of the just launched Nvidia A100 GPUs: https://ark-invest.com/podcast/fyi-ep67-nvidia-gpu/ https://ark-invest.com/podcast/fyi-ep67-nvidia-gpu/. From the Matroid conference, the chief architect at Groq (another buzzy chip startup): https://youtu.be/q-lBj49iF9w https://youtu.be/q-lBj49iF9w

stupidcar 6y ago

Maybe the reason he was doing so much media was because he was encountering resistance to his ideas internally at Intel. Talking publicly about them and becoming the public face of Intel's CPU design program might have been his way to get more intellectual leverage. If it was, I guess it didn't work.

cepth 6y ago
I can’t speak specifically to Intel, but at most large private companies when you’re an employee you give up the rights to talk to media/press about your work without employer approval. For the Fortune and Lex Fridman interviews, Keller would likely have had to get Intel PR’s approval to participate. In Lex’s interview, you can see him wearing an Intel guest badge, so I assume the interview took place on-site.

UncleOxidant 6y ago

Just listening to that Lex Fridman podcast. Keller is a very good explainer. However, I'm on the part where he says that you need to throw everything out every 5 years or so and rewrite and it makes me think that that would be an area where he would've gotten a lot of push-back at Intel.