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Jim Keller moves to AI chip startup
- IQunder130 6y agoYou know you've made it as an engineer when you switching jobs gets an article in reuters.
- dvh 6y agoSo is he 10x or how much?
- ovi256 6y ago10000x at least. Whole staffed departments at rivals can't bring to market what he did repeatedly.
- vnorilo 6y agoNobody does that stuff alone. I think a more accurate description would be that he seems to be a force multiplier for the team he leads, which can have a bigger impact than any singular engineering feat.
- robertlagrant 6y agoThat's what Xx means often. Leads can depress teams' output, maintain it, or enhance it, and he presumably enhanced hugely.
- ahmedalsudani 6y agoHe played a large role in Apple’s ARM SoCs and in AMD’s Zen, possibly the largest role of any individual. Keller can move the entire market if he’s given enough space and resources. 10,000x is closer to him than 10x.
- rorykoehler 6y agoIf there are only a handful of people capable of doing this or even just one then 10x or 10000x doesn't make sense because that is a productivity metric. 10000 normal engineers wouldn't be able to do it just like 10 juniors can't do the job of one senior.
- ahmedalsudani 6y agoIMHO, the correct way to look at it is to compare impact/results. A 10x engineer might not get 10x done, but their work will be 10x better in a combination of ways: quality, maintainability, speed, portability, extendability, etc. Hopefully the ways in which their work is better fits the priorities of the organization. That’s the only way you can really call someone an N-xer compared to a productive individual contributor. Someone like Jim Keller is a big multiplier at a higher level. People today understand the value an executive like Steve Jobs brings, but usually there’s debate on the value before it becomes clear a few years later.
- Keyframe 6y agoHe's a great football coach that's also a great player.
- de6u99er 6y agoThat's a very academic way of looking at it. Keller doesn't strike me as someone who cares about that.
- vnorilo 6y agoThis page has some details of Tenstorrent's current chips [1]. Looks like a manycore simd design focused on tensor ops from a brief look. Apparently they also have some sort or compression scheme to boost memory bandwidth. 1: https://www.tenstorrent.com/technology/ https://www.tenstorrent.com/technology/
- modeless 6y agoThey have a Hot Chips presentation on YouTube with a lot more detail: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLjumOyWj0g https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HLjumOyWj0g I don't notice anything in particular that stands out vs. the many other AI chips people are making, at first glance. But I'm far from an expert. There are several other technical videos on their YouTube channel as well: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7041p6DlAh0r4_Fnlk10pQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7041p6DlAh0r4_Fnlk10pQ
- vnorilo 6y agoThanks for these! My assumption is that hiring Keller means they plan to gain advantage by world class execution rather than some crazy architectural leap of faith.
- andy_ppp 6y agoWatching the video I think turning each tensor into packets is quite clever as you get some ability to send them around a network and organise layers/data manipulation/transforming the layers/compression all as part of the stack. I’m pretty surprised no-one has actually exposed the actor model for parallelising neural networks, it seems it would work quite well and allow you to have a layer per node (or actually many split configurations). Maybe data locality would be an issue with actor based approaches. They seem to be solving this at a lower level but with less knowledge of the actual parallelism in software.
- jcims 6y agoAlso Jim was almost certainly the one doing the interviewing, so there’s likely something interesting in there that he felt was worth his time.
- systemvoltage 6y agoJim is a tour de force: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA
- texasbigdata 6y agoThis was one of the most impressive things I've ever seen. The sheer mind puzzle exploration of "well..if we had a CPU the size of the sun, here's why it still wouldn't work". Guy seems unbelievably brilliant.
- newbie578 6y agoThe part at 01:24:00 shocked me... Couple of books per week for 50 years... Damn man, that is a whole another scale. I loved also how he explained why books are good, some takes 20 years of his experience and writes it in 200 pages...
- arkj 6y agoThis requires a post of its own. This is a must watch for anyone interested in cpu architecture. The clarity with with he talks about some of the complex problems in cpu design is brilliant. The interviewer does a decent job to make it more palatable for a larger audience.
- ZephyrBlu 6y agoHad no idea this man was so prolific, and Lex had interviewed him. I'm sure it'll be a very interesting interview. Thanks for the link!
- TheAlchemist 6y agoVery very impressive interview - thanks !
- PartiallyTyped 6y agoThank you. This is definitely one of the best interviews I have read. The precision of the statements and the usage of analogies to explain the topics is astonishing.
- carlsborg 6y agoPredicted. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23498142 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23498142
- kowlo 6y agoWhat was your prediction based on?
- izzytcp 6y agoGood question. I also predicted in 2015, that Donald Trump could become president, since he was giving public speeches about that before running. So yeah, I was right. Also, chances were 50-50 since there are only 2 parties. So I predicted and he become president. I think the same goes with this guy, Jim Keller quit Intel and could join another company sooner or later, and that will not be a former one, likely a startup. We are Genius.
- robertlagrant 6y ago> The chips also operate on the assumption that future software will involve programmers giving high-level directions while artificially intelligent computers write much of the nitty gritty code required to implement those human ideas. I can't wait to stop writing machine code.
- Cthulhu_ 6y agoIt'll turn more like trying to teach someone to do a trick, with all the misunderstandings and frustrations to boot. Mind you, that same thing is now done to software devs, that is, product manager tries to explain what they want, designers and devs interpret in a certain way.
- MrPatan 6y agoExactly this. Maybe after Neuralink we'll get there. Maybe, because there's still a human on one end who doesn't know what they really want or need.
- rorykoehler 6y agoIt's just another layer (or two) of abstraction. Like the jump from machine code to something like Ruby.
- DoofusOfDeath 6y agoAbout 6 months ago my job required that I finally get my hands dirty writing x86 assembly. It's my first real foray into assembly coding. There are a few aspects of it that I'm really enjoying: - I can now actually understand the disassembled code that I see during debugging. This includes recognizing some of the assembly patterns that appear because of ABI requirements and/or common programming idioms. - I'm becoming comfortable with a programming idiom that I've never really used in the past: registers, flags, various kinds of memory addressing. - It helps my understanding of compilers' lower levels / backends, and the related problems: register allocation, instruction selection, etc. - It provides a clear path for my first attempt at writing JIT code (using Xbyak[0]). So as Richard Feynman might have said, it's great fun! [0] https://github.com/herumi/xbyak https://github.com/herumi/xbyak
- dr_faustus 6y agoI often find it hard to believe that a single person can make much of a difference in such intricate problem domains as chip design but in his case the evidence is overwhelming. Also goes to show what a shit show Intel has become since even he was not able to right that ship. I think in the CPU space it will be all ARM and RISC ten years from now and since Intel never really managed to become a dominant player in any other (relevant) field, they are pretty much done for.
- 29athrowaway 6y agoIntel died with Andy Grove. Every CEO after that has been living off the momentum he created. If his successors applied his management style, mobile phones would have an Intel processor in them.
- _the_inflator 6y agoIt is hard to believe. However out of my own experience: Execution, decision making, vision and goals, people, alignment, setbacks. A very complex mixture and the more people there are, the more important a driver is. PS: Nice nickname. Read the book from Th. Mann - over a period of 7 years I think.
- rand_r 6y agoI like those words. Execution, decision making, etc. But can you explain a bit more? What about those concepts, eg. setbacks, are you saying?
- andy_ppp 6y agoIf you have someone in charge who knows how to run things and help people do their jobs better while having a vision of the future you have a much better chance of success.
- kettro 6y agoGoethe’s was always my favourite rendition (ignoring pt2). Just enough romance and woe
- johnnujler 6y agoSilicon Ronin is at it again. This time to revolutionize the startup world and shake up the hold of big players.
- ece 6y agoAnandtech story has some more details about the companies current and past chip designs: https://www.anandtech.com/show/16354/jim-keller-becomes-cto-at-tenstorrent-the-most-promising-architecture-out-there https://www.anandtech.com/show/16354/jim-keller-becomes-cto-...
- IanCutress 6y agoDon't know why Reuters was posted over this.
- BadInformatics 6y agoI think it's a timing thing. There was an earlier post with the Anandtech article late yesterday, but because so much of HN is in NA timezones it was likely smothered by the morning. Love the TechTechPotato breakdown of this BTW :)
- ece 6y agoYoutube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0ve1hchIKk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0ve1hchIKk
- Fresh20210106 6y agoWho is the dork? Are we supposed to know him/her?
- gregorygoc 6y agoHas anybody on HN worked with him and could say a little bit more about his individual contributions and management style?
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- eric_khun 6y agoYou can have a sense of how it would be to work with him in this interview with Lex Fridman[1]. I'm also curious how it would be to work with him since it sounds like he is full of himself[3]. But he I believe he has the right for it since all what he has achieved[3]. The guy also read couple books a week[4] for last decades [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=3973s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=3973s [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Keller_(engineer) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Keller_(engineer) [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=5040s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nb2tebYAaOA&t=5040s
- olau 6y agoI watched that interview half a year ago, and came away with the impression of a curious humble guy who was interested in digging deep below the surface and working on big advances. I think you meant to refer to [2], and that part of the interview is Lex Fridman interjecting him when he was trying to make a deep point about how to think about things.
- ksec 6y ago"Intel has just published a news release on its website stating that Jim Keller has resigned from the company, effective immediately, due to personal reasons. "Intel’s press release today states that Jim Keller is leaving the position on June 11th ( 2020 ) due to personal reasons. However, he will remain with the company as a consultant for six months in order to assist with the transition." [1] Exactly six months later he took a new job. Some may want to look back at their comment on the subject. [2] [3] Still waiting for the Story between Jim and Gerard.[4] [1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/15846/jim-keller-resigns-from-intel-effective-immediately https://www.anandtech.com/show/15846/jim-keller-resigns-from... [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23496083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23496083 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23493046 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23493046 [4] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23497336 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23497336
- choonway 6y agoYou know, he does have a more than a passing resemblance to Jim Raynor, of Starcraft...
- frou_dh 6y agoIt's a bit corny that Reddit and HN go over the top about this guy like he's the centre of the universe, just because he's the only player they know the name of and could point out in a photo.
- newsclues 6y agoThey speak of him, as gamers did on forums back on the day about Carmack and Abrash.
- classified 6y agoFolks like to think of themselves as enlightened or even ahead of the curve, but they succumb to personality cult like in Pharaoh's times.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tengbretson 6y agoCool. How do I invest in them?
- alberth 6y agoA lot of people in this thread are asking questions about Jim Keller single-handed contributions. Could it be possible he's "famous for being famous"? E.g. Some might say Jeff Dean (Google) fits this mode a bit, whereas Sanjay Ghemawat (Google) has contributed arguably just as much if not more - but is mentioned radically less than Jeff.