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Random, but a serious question. I've just received an offer from Nvidia as a Senior SWE, and another from [insert FAANG]. Should I be scared of the bubble-ness

Random, but a serious question. I've just received an offer from Nvidia as a Senior SWE, and another from [insert FAANG]. Should I be scared of the bubble-ness of Nvidia? I have a lot of faith in the company and its vision, but reading about the bubble always scares me.

saintradon 3y ago
Take it and RUN with it.
karmasimida 3y ago
It is already a highly speculated bubble, the share price is swinging drastically within the same day. That being said, Nvidia will have a good 2-3 years in the future, until the cloud providers start mass replace their chips with in-house ones. For money, unfortunately, it is as good as anyone's guess, but if you join now, double your share, it will be close to 4T. I personally didn't think that is sustainable amount of money if market/competition does their duty.
- chatmasta 3y ago
  > Nvidia will have a good 2-3 years in the future, until the cloud providers start mass replace their chips with in-house ones How do you imagine that happening on such a rapid timeline? IMO, the biggest threat to Nvidia is radical innovation on the software side of AI that allows common use cases (training and inference) to run on clusters of commodity non-GPU hardware for cheaper price than GPU. A similar threat is posed from ASIC chips that are dedicated to LLM tasks, but at least in that case Nvidia can still compete for a specific hardware design rather than overcoming an entire category of commodity hardware.
  - karmasimida 3y ago
    Simply because of there is too much money on the table, news from today: https://qz.com/intel-microsoft-new-chip-semiconductor-nvidia-1851275354 https://qz.com/intel-microsoft-new-chip-semiconductor-nvidia... NVDA's margin is too high, it attracts competitors to eat into that.
    - chatmasta 3y ago
      But how are competitors going to magically start creating market leading specialized hardware in 2-3 years? Manufacturing chips is not a core competency of any of the cloud providers, and to the extent they've been trying to make it one, they're focused on CPU.
      - karmasimida 3y ago
        Well there is TPU, and it is at least as good as GPU for training, all Google's models are trained TPU, it is the best class of training chips in industry. Second, there is no need to be market leading, it just needs to be cost efficiently to be successful, even if it is slower, as long as it is cheaper. All cloud providers have huge chip design/manufacturing history, AWS/Azure and Google. I would argue it IS indeed the core competency for those cloud providers, because of price. The inhouse chips exist because they can reduce the cost. I know for a fact, there is huge momentum in some big clouds to replace Nvidia GPUs with their own chips, at least for their internal compute needs at first.
      - HDThoreaun 3y ago
        All the cloud megasclaers already have in house chip design teams that have released successful products. Designing a GPU is easier than a cpu, they just need to figure out CUDA.
        chatmasta 3y ago
        They have some small manufacturing operations that are producing a minority of the chips they actually use in their servers. Maybe they'll be able to produce enough GPUs for their use cases eventually, but there is no way they'll get there in "2-3 years" as OP suggests. Also, if GPUs are easier to make than CPUs, then why isn't Intel leading the market in GPUs by now? Surely it's been clear they should compete with Nvidia there for at least the past half a decade. Or do they need more than 2-3 years to catch up?
        HDThoreaun 3y ago
  - godelski 3y ago
    > A similar threat is posed from ASIC chips that are dedicated to LLM tasks, but at least in that case Nvidia can still compete for a specific hardware design rather than overcoming an entire category of commodity hardware. But also consider the reason Nvidia is doing so well in the first place. The reason is because they were already developing hardware that specialized at performing tensor operations. Maybe not at the size or always the same types we see in ML, but not very far either. There's reasons why they aren't filling cards with tensor cores. But they are clearly developing specialized hardware for ML tasks. I'm not sure betting on LLMs sticking around is the best bet though. I'll be very impressed if scale is all you need.
HPMOR 3y ago
You should ABSOLUTELY take the Nvidia offer over other FAANG. The share price of Nvidia is not speculative hype. It's very reasonable given their growth. This is not some random crypto coin. Nvidia's share price really does reflect economic reality and their position in the market. As an employee there, you'll have the opportunity to purchase shares at a reduced price through their Employee Purchasing Program. Also, any RSUs or options you get will appreciate tremendously. Financially, the best decision here is to work at Nvidia.
- lm28469 3y ago
  I don't know what the future will bring but the entire rally around AI and especially nvidia is the purest definition of speculation...
  - godelski 3y ago
    I'm highly critical of AI, even being a ML researcher myself. I'm happy to criticize GPT, explain, and collect many downvotes for these views. I say this not to act victim, but to give context for what I'm about to say. AI isn't going away. The hype is likely to die and I think we're seeing the cracks that come from over promising. But just because people are putting a polished turd on top of something doesn't mean that something isn't a golden nugget. Actually, that's my main complaint at what's going on. We got something special and very powerful. It is weird to cover it in shit and try to convince everyone it's a fancy polish. If scale is all you need, then we'll get there. But I'm not remotely convinced and see this as the bitter lesson's bitter lesson (a misinterpretation of the bitter lesson). But if we fund alternative pathways and hedge our bets, it's possible we get there without missing a step. But imo it looks like we've created a railroad and are just going all in on laying more tracks. Doesn't seem like the right move to me, but hey, I don't know the future any more than anyone else.
- godelski 3y ago
  Jensen also seems to be playing the long game and not letting go of that focus. This seems unique to me given that so many companies are hyper focused on the next quarter. I think Nvidia recognizes that there are more things than money (which was one of the things that set Google apart in the early days). Things like free days go a long way (company wide long weekend per quarter). To me the growth is more Nvidia being in the right place at the right time and taking full advantage of every leg up that they have. I don't think speculation because they aren't just celebrating the luck, but rather acting like they are seizing a lucky opportunity are are aware that it requires a lot of work to maintain.
sfmz 3y ago
Think of Sam Altman's ask: $7T. 7 trillion dollars is going to flow into a company that looks a lot like Nvidia whether its directed by Sam or not. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/sam-altman-wants-7-trillion https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/sam-altman-wants-7-trillion
cavisne 3y ago
My impression is they still have a fairly efficient culture, the main problem with joining a bubble company would be if they are overhiring/losing focus. Just sell shares when they vest to reduce your risk.
01100011 3y ago
Don't think of it like that. Go where you think you'll be the most productive and learn the most. Nvidia could grow substantially from here(probably less than 50% chance of that) or they might not, but your RSUs are going to be based on the current stock price so you'll be getting less of them. The ESPP is capped so it's not like you can dump 100% of your salary into it and use a free money glitch. If NVDA has a position that fits you and you like the team, go for it! If you're just chasing money.. please don't.
sherincall 3y ago
For whatever it's worth it to you, I've been with NVIDIA for over 10 years and I wouldn't switch to F,A,A,N nor G for even 2x my total comp. Feel free to shoot any questions to myusername@gmail.com if it'll help you decide. Or, just talk to your hiring manager(s) about the dilemma. For both companies, it'd be better to talk through any concerns before joining. If you accept one offer and then regret it a few months later, everyone loses: you, NVIDIA and [FAANG].

saintradon 3y ago

Take it and RUN with it.

karmasimida 3y ago

It is already a highly speculated bubble, the share price is swinging drastically within the same day. That being said, Nvidia will have a good 2-3 years in the future, until the cloud providers start mass replace their chips with in-house ones. For money, unfortunately, it is as good as anyone's guess, but if you join now, double your share, it will be close to 4T. I personally didn't think that is sustainable amount of money if market/competition does their duty.

chatmasta 3y ago
> Nvidia will have a good 2-3 years in the future, until the cloud providers start mass replace their chips with in-house ones How do you imagine that happening on such a rapid timeline? IMO, the biggest threat to Nvidia is radical innovation on the software side of AI that allows common use cases (training and inference) to run on clusters of commodity non-GPU hardware for cheaper price than GPU. A similar threat is posed from ASIC chips that are dedicated to LLM tasks, but at least in that case Nvidia can still compete for a specific hardware design rather than overcoming an entire category of commodity hardware.
- karmasimida 3y ago
  Simply because of there is too much money on the table, news from today: https://qz.com/intel-microsoft-new-chip-semiconductor-nvidia-1851275354 https://qz.com/intel-microsoft-new-chip-semiconductor-nvidia... NVDA's margin is too high, it attracts competitors to eat into that.
  - chatmasta 3y ago
    But how are competitors going to magically start creating market leading specialized hardware in 2-3 years? Manufacturing chips is not a core competency of any of the cloud providers, and to the extent they've been trying to make it one, they're focused on CPU.
    - karmasimida 3y ago
      Well there is TPU, and it is at least as good as GPU for training, all Google's models are trained TPU, it is the best class of training chips in industry. Second, there is no need to be market leading, it just needs to be cost efficiently to be successful, even if it is slower, as long as it is cheaper. All cloud providers have huge chip design/manufacturing history, AWS/Azure and Google. I would argue it IS indeed the core competency for those cloud providers, because of price. The inhouse chips exist because they can reduce the cost. I know for a fact, there is huge momentum in some big clouds to replace Nvidia GPUs with their own chips, at least for their internal compute needs at first.
    - HDThoreaun 3y ago
      All the cloud megasclaers already have in house chip design teams that have released successful products. Designing a GPU is easier than a cpu, they just need to figure out CUDA.
      - chatmasta 3y ago
        They have some small manufacturing operations that are producing a minority of the chips they actually use in their servers. Maybe they'll be able to produce enough GPUs for their use cases eventually, but there is no way they'll get there in "2-3 years" as OP suggests. Also, if GPUs are easier to make than CPUs, then why isn't Intel leading the market in GPUs by now? Surely it's been clear they should compete with Nvidia there for at least the past half a decade. Or do they need more than 2-3 years to catch up?
        HDThoreaun 3y ago
- godelski 3y ago
  > A similar threat is posed from ASIC chips that are dedicated to LLM tasks, but at least in that case Nvidia can still compete for a specific hardware design rather than overcoming an entire category of commodity hardware. But also consider the reason Nvidia is doing so well in the first place. The reason is because they were already developing hardware that specialized at performing tensor operations. Maybe not at the size or always the same types we see in ML, but not very far either. There's reasons why they aren't filling cards with tensor cores. But they are clearly developing specialized hardware for ML tasks. I'm not sure betting on LLMs sticking around is the best bet though. I'll be very impressed if scale is all you need.

HPMOR 3y ago

You should ABSOLUTELY take the Nvidia offer over other FAANG. The share price of Nvidia is not speculative hype. It's very reasonable given their growth. This is not some random crypto coin. Nvidia's share price really does reflect economic reality and their position in the market. As an employee there, you'll have the opportunity to purchase shares at a reduced price through their Employee Purchasing Program. Also, any RSUs or options you get will appreciate tremendously. Financially, the best decision here is to work at Nvidia.

lm28469 3y ago
I don't know what the future will bring but the entire rally around AI and especially nvidia is the purest definition of speculation...
- godelski 3y ago
  I'm highly critical of AI, even being a ML researcher myself. I'm happy to criticize GPT, explain, and collect many downvotes for these views. I say this not to act victim, but to give context for what I'm about to say. AI isn't going away. The hype is likely to die and I think we're seeing the cracks that come from over promising. But just because people are putting a polished turd on top of something doesn't mean that something isn't a golden nugget. Actually, that's my main complaint at what's going on. We got something special and very powerful. It is weird to cover it in shit and try to convince everyone it's a fancy polish. If scale is all you need, then we'll get there. But I'm not remotely convinced and see this as the bitter lesson's bitter lesson (a misinterpretation of the bitter lesson). But if we fund alternative pathways and hedge our bets, it's possible we get there without missing a step. But imo it looks like we've created a railroad and are just going all in on laying more tracks. Doesn't seem like the right move to me, but hey, I don't know the future any more than anyone else.
godelski 3y ago
Jensen also seems to be playing the long game and not letting go of that focus. This seems unique to me given that so many companies are hyper focused on the next quarter. I think Nvidia recognizes that there are more things than money (which was one of the things that set Google apart in the early days). Things like free days go a long way (company wide long weekend per quarter). To me the growth is more Nvidia being in the right place at the right time and taking full advantage of every leg up that they have. I don't think speculation because they aren't just celebrating the luck, but rather acting like they are seizing a lucky opportunity are are aware that it requires a lot of work to maintain.

sfmz 3y ago

Think of Sam Altman's ask: $7T. 7 trillion dollars is going to flow into a company that looks a lot like Nvidia whether its directed by Sam or not. https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/sam-altman-wants-7-trillion https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/sam-altman-wants-7-trillion

cavisne 3y ago

My impression is they still have a fairly efficient culture, the main problem with joining a bubble company would be if they are overhiring/losing focus. Just sell shares when they vest to reduce your risk.

01100011 3y ago

Don't think of it like that. Go where you think you'll be the most productive and learn the most. Nvidia could grow substantially from here(probably less than 50% chance of that) or they might not, but your RSUs are going to be based on the current stock price so you'll be getting less of them. The ESPP is capped so it's not like you can dump 100% of your salary into it and use a free money glitch. If NVDA has a position that fits you and you like the team, go for it! If you're just chasing money.. please don't.

sherincall 3y ago

For whatever it's worth it to you, I've been with NVIDIA for over 10 years and I wouldn't switch to F,A,A,N nor G for even 2x my total comp. Feel free to shoot any questions to myusername@gmail.com if it'll help you decide. Or, just talk to your hiring manager(s) about the dilemma. For both companies, it'd be better to talk through any concerns before joining. If you accept one offer and then regret it a few months later, everyone loses: you, NVIDIA and [FAANG].