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This is fun validation for what I've been working on for the last year! My startup (Hot Aisle) is all about building, managing and deploying dedicated compute

This is fun validation for what I've been working on for the last year! My startup (Hot Aisle) is all about building, managing and deploying dedicated compute clusters for businesses. At the enterprise level of compute, there is a lot that goes into making this happen, so we are effectively the capex / opex for businesses that don't want to do this themselves, but want to have a lot more control over the compute they are running on. The twist is that while we can deploy any compute that our customers want, we are starting with AMD instead of Nvidia. The goal is to work towards offering alternatives to a single provider of compute for all of AI. You can't do this for others unless you also do it for yourself. As such, we're building our own first cluster of 16x Dell chassis with 128 MI300x GPUs deployed into a Tier 5 data center as our initial rollout. Full technical details are on our website. It has been a long road to get here and we hope to be online and available for rental at the end of this month. One of my goals has also been to get Dell / AMD / Advizex (our var) to offer compute credits on our cluster. Those credits would then get turned around into future purchases to grow into more clusters. It becomes a developer flywheel... the more developers on the hardware, the more hardware needed, the more we buy. This is something unfamiliar to their existing models, so wish me luck in convincing them. Hopefully this announcement helps my story. =) Edit: Getting downvoted. Would love to hear some dialog for why. I don't really consider this an advertisement, so apologies if you're clicking that button for that reason. I'm really just excited about learning about validation of my business model and explaining why.

reaperman 2y ago
Even if it did feel like an advertisement, it's on topic for this discussion and adds something. That said, maybe it's a bit hard to read? Something about the flow throws me off - that could contribute to downvotes. I don't know.
- latchkey 2y ago
  That's how you know it wasn't written by AI. =)
- fragmede 2y ago
  nah, for some reason voters here have been getting very anti-advertisement lately, as if this site wasn't somehow a giant ad in and of itself.
- npinsker 2y ago
  I did not downvote (I upvoted), but I think I can see why others did. Mentioning their startup’s name, right at the top, isn’t a great start for me. OP didn’t need to do that, it means nothing to me, and it doesn’t add anything other than advertising. A few other phrasing choices like “full technical details on our website” evoke a recruiter spiel a little bit, because of wrong time and place — this is a comments section, and to me the writeup is a bit too detailed and overly confident in how interested I am. If I care, I’ll ask, or I’ll go to your profile. Sounds like OP was just excited; unfortunately, the practice of using HN to “organically” advertise startups (particularly through blog posts) is quite common nowadays, and I can’t help being sensitive to it as I feel it doesn’t help discourse. This post was relevant and interesting though; thanks for flagging it as such.
  - anxman 2y ago
    TIL there’s a downvote on here
    - latchkey 2y ago
      From the FAQ (linked in the footer): https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html Why don't I see down arrows? There are no down arrows on stories. They appear on comments after users reach a certain karma threshold, but never on direct replies. Also explained here: https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/blob/master/README.md#downvoting-comments https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/blob/m... I just voted you up to get one more point closer!
  - latchkey 2y ago
    I've been chastised before for not being explicit about my involvement in my own company.
jonathanyc 2y ago
You asked for an explanation of why you're being downvoted. Here is another comment that is effectively an advertisement, but one that adds value: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41113750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41113750 More than anything, your comment just feels like you just copy-pasted it from the blurb you send to investors? For example you say: > ... while we can deploy any compute that our customers want, we are starting with AMD instead of Nvidia... > One of my goals has also been to get Dell ... to offer compute credits on our cluster. ... It becomes a developer flywheel... I mean, OK? The second part in particular ("It becomes a developer flywheel") seems totally irrelevant to anyone except a potential investor. Why would I as a customer care about your product being a flywheel?? I can hardly speak for everyone on this website, but I know I'm here first and foremost because I love to learn (c.f. "If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."). Even if I were working on a startup similar to yours, your comment doesn't really teach me anything ("we're building our own first cluster of 16x Dell chassis..." OK?) Also, quite frankly, I just went to your website and it reads like it was generated by ChatGPT. > In essence, Hot Aisle is not merely a cloud compute provider but a dedicated partner that accelerates the journey of businesses towards HPC advancements, ensuring they navigate the digital transformation landscape with assured resource scalability, enhanced security, and unwavering support.
- latchkey 2y ago
  Great feedback! I definitely didn't copy/paste it, I wrote that whole comment for this post. The developer flywheel was in response to the mentions of credits in the Google announcement. It isn't my product that is the flywheel, it is the imho smart concept of attracting developers to a solution by giving them credits. "free drugs", if you will. This is, in my eyes, a big reason why Nvidia is so popular today and what made the cloud in general, so successful. I'm trying to bring that concept to the AMD ecosystem. Previously, you could only get access to AMD MI (enterprise) class compute, if you had access to super computers like El Capitan and Frontier. I'd like to bring these things to the masses and a big part of that is lowering the barriers as far as possible.
  - drivebycomment 2y ago

reaperman 2y ago

Even if it did feel like an advertisement, it's on topic for this discussion and adds something. That said, maybe it's a bit hard to read? Something about the flow throws me off - that could contribute to downvotes. I don't know.

latchkey 2y ago
That's how you know it wasn't written by AI. =)
fragmede 2y ago
nah, for some reason voters here have been getting very anti-advertisement lately, as if this site wasn't somehow a giant ad in and of itself.
npinsker 2y ago
I did not downvote (I upvoted), but I think I can see why others did. Mentioning their startup’s name, right at the top, isn’t a great start for me. OP didn’t need to do that, it means nothing to me, and it doesn’t add anything other than advertising. A few other phrasing choices like “full technical details on our website” evoke a recruiter spiel a little bit, because of wrong time and place — this is a comments section, and to me the writeup is a bit too detailed and overly confident in how interested I am. If I care, I’ll ask, or I’ll go to your profile. Sounds like OP was just excited; unfortunately, the practice of using HN to “organically” advertise startups (particularly through blog posts) is quite common nowadays, and I can’t help being sensitive to it as I feel it doesn’t help discourse. This post was relevant and interesting though; thanks for flagging it as such.
- anxman 2y ago
  TIL there’s a downvote on here
  - latchkey 2y ago
    From the FAQ (linked in the footer): https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html Why don't I see down arrows? There are no down arrows on stories. They appear on comments after users reach a certain karma threshold, but never on direct replies. Also explained here: https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/blob/master/README.md#downvoting-comments https://github.com/minimaxir/hacker-news-undocumented/blob/m... I just voted you up to get one more point closer!
- latchkey 2y ago
  I've been chastised before for not being explicit about my involvement in my own company.

jonathanyc 2y ago

You asked for an explanation of why you're being downvoted. Here is another comment that is effectively an advertisement, but one that adds value: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41113750 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41113750 More than anything, your comment just feels like you just copy-pasted it from the blurb you send to investors? For example you say: > ... while we can deploy any compute that our customers want, we are starting with AMD instead of Nvidia... > One of my goals has also been to get Dell ... to offer compute credits on our cluster. ... It becomes a developer flywheel... I mean, OK? The second part in particular ("It becomes a developer flywheel") seems totally irrelevant to anyone except a potential investor. Why would I as a customer care about your product being a flywheel?? I can hardly speak for everyone on this website, but I know I'm here first and foremost because I love to learn (c.f. "If you had to reduce it to a sentence, the answer might be: anything that gratifies one's intellectual curiosity."). Even if I were working on a startup similar to yours, your comment doesn't really teach me anything ("we're building our own first cluster of 16x Dell chassis..." OK?) Also, quite frankly, I just went to your website and it reads like it was generated by ChatGPT. > In essence, Hot Aisle is not merely a cloud compute provider but a dedicated partner that accelerates the journey of businesses towards HPC advancements, ensuring they navigate the digital transformation landscape with assured resource scalability, enhanced security, and unwavering support.

latchkey 2y ago
Great feedback! I definitely didn't copy/paste it, I wrote that whole comment for this post. The developer flywheel was in response to the mentions of credits in the Google announcement. It isn't my product that is the flywheel, it is the imho smart concept of attracting developers to a solution by giving them credits. "free drugs", if you will. This is, in my eyes, a big reason why Nvidia is so popular today and what made the cloud in general, so successful. I'm trying to bring that concept to the AMD ecosystem. Previously, you could only get access to AMD MI (enterprise) class compute, if you had access to super computers like El Capitan and Frontier. I'd like to bring these things to the masses and a big part of that is lowering the barriers as far as possible.
- drivebycomment 2y ago