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Hard to say from my perspective. I think AMDs offer was fair (full remote access to several test machines), then again just giving tinycorp the boxes on their

Hard to say from my perspective. I think AMDs offer was fair (full remote access to several test machines), then again just giving tinycorp the boxes on their terms with no strings attached as a kind of research grant would have earned them some goodwill with that corner of the community. Either way both parties will continue making controversial decisions.

latchkey 2y ago
It isn't hard. We offered as well. Full BIOS access even. Another neocloud, that is funded directly by AMD, also offered to buy him boxes. He refused. It had to come from AMD. That's absurd and extortionist. Long thread here: https://x.com/HotAisle/status/1880467322848137295 https://x.com/HotAisle/status/1880467322848137295
- dhruvdh 2y ago
  To add, AMD only makes _parts_ of an MI300X server. It's like asking a tire manufacturer to give you a car for free.
  - latchkey 2y ago
    Great analogy! Just uploaded some pictures of how complex these machines really are... https://imgur.com/gallery/dell-xe9860-amd-mi300x-bGKyQKr https://imgur.com/gallery/dell-xe9860-amd-mi300x-bGKyQKr
  - piskov 2y ago
    He explained the reasoning: > Now, why don't they send me the two boxes? I understand when I was asking for firmware to be open sourced that that actually might be difficult for them, but the boxes are on eBay with a simple $$ cost. It was never about the boxes themselves, it was a test to see if software had any budget or power. And they failed super hard
    - latchkey 2y ago
      "and they failed" from his PoV... but not from us looking at things from the other side of the table.
    - protimewaster 2y ago
      I know this is someone else's reasoning, so you can't answer this question, but, doesn't this just test if they want to spend the budget on this specific thing? If I ask a company for a $100,000 grant, and they're not willing, it doesn't seem like correct logic to assume that means they don't have the budget for it. Maybe they just don't want to spend $100,000 on me. Why does this mean they don't have a budget or power?
      - KeplerBoy 2y ago
        He assumes the software department wants to do this, which - yes - seems to be flawed logic on his side. Let's imagine he's indeed correct. He receives the hardware, get's hacking and solves all of AMDs problem, the stock surges and tinygrad becomes a major deep learning framework. That would be a collosal embarrassment for AMDs software department.
        rangestransform 2y ago
        They should be more interested in selling product than ego
        latchkey 2y ago
        https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTwitterAccounts/comments/zrfhdg/superstar_programer_quits_his_12_weeks_twitter/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTwitterAccounts/comments/zrfhdg...
        saagarjha 2y ago
        FWIW that login panel is controlled by a single feature flag
  - wmf 2y ago
    Chip vendors regularly send out free hardware to software developers. In this case I don't think the cost is the issue; AMD simply doesn't want what Geohot is offering.
  - imtringued 2y ago
    Considering that AMD is only really supporting their datacenter GPUs with ROCm, this is the worst possible response. It means compute on AMD GPUs is only meant for the elite of the elite and forever out of reach for the average consumer and that Nvidia is not only outcompeting AMD on quality but also on cost.
- Onavo 2y ago
  Maybe he needs the AMD brand for his fundraising.
- roenxi 2y ago
  > He refused. It had to come from AMD. That's absurd and extortionist. I'm on the wrong side of the Twitter wall to read the source, but that doesn't sound absurd. Extortionist, maybe. Hotz's major complaint (last time I checked, anyway) is pretty close to one I have - AMD appears to have between little and no strategic interest in consumer grade graphics cards having strong GPGPU support leading to random crashes from the kernel drivers and a certain attitude of "meh, whatever" from AMD corporate when dealing with that. I doubt any specific boxes or testing regime are his complaint, he'd be much more worried about whether AMD management have any interest in companies like his succeeding. Third parties providing some support doesn't sound like it'd cut it. The process of being burned by AMD leaves one a little leery of any alleged support without some serious guarantees that more major changes are afoot in their management view.
  - sangnoir 2y ago
    > ...he'd be much more worried about whether AMD management have any interest in companies like his succeeding. This reads as incredibly entitled. AMD owes him nothing, especially if he's opposed to the leadership's vision[1] and being belligerent about it. There is maybe 1 or 2 companies with enough cachet to demand management changes at a supplier like AMD - and they have market caps in the trillions. 1. Lisa Su hasn't been shy about AMD being all about partnering with large partners who can move volume. My interpretation of this is AMD prefers dealing with Sony, Microsoft, hyperscalers, and HPC builders, then possibly tier II OEMs. Small startups are probably much further down the line, close to consumers at the tail end of AMD's attention queue. I don't like it as a consumer, but it seems like a sound strategy since the partners will shoulder most of the software effort, which is a weakness AMD has against Nvidia. They can focus on cranking out ok-to-great hardware at more-than-ok prices and build up a warchest for future investments, and who knows when this hype bubble will burst and take VC dollars with it, or someone invents an architecture that's less demanding on compute (if you're more optimistic)
    - roenxi 2y ago
      Sure. But we hear a lot about Hotz because all the unentitled people rolled their eyes and went over to buy Nvidia cards. He's one of the major voices who are unreasonable enough to pipe up on Twitter and air dirty laundry. I doubt AMD are going to listen to him. They're in a great spot and are probably going to tap into the market in a big way. But Hotz isn't crazy to test them in an odd way - although he'd probably be better off dropping AMD cards like most other people in his price range would.
px1999 2y ago
AMD's offer was more than fair. Hotz was throwing a trantrum.

latchkey 2y ago

It isn't hard. We offered as well. Full BIOS access even. Another neocloud, that is funded directly by AMD, also offered to buy him boxes. He refused. It had to come from AMD. That's absurd and extortionist. Long thread here: https://x.com/HotAisle/status/1880467322848137295 https://x.com/HotAisle/status/1880467322848137295

dhruvdh 2y ago
To add, AMD only makes _parts_ of an MI300X server. It's like asking a tire manufacturer to give you a car for free.
- latchkey 2y ago
  Great analogy! Just uploaded some pictures of how complex these machines really are... https://imgur.com/gallery/dell-xe9860-amd-mi300x-bGKyQKr https://imgur.com/gallery/dell-xe9860-amd-mi300x-bGKyQKr
- piskov 2y ago
  He explained the reasoning: > Now, why don't they send me the two boxes? I understand when I was asking for firmware to be open sourced that that actually might be difficult for them, but the boxes are on eBay with a simple $$ cost. It was never about the boxes themselves, it was a test to see if software had any budget or power. And they failed super hard
  - latchkey 2y ago
    "and they failed" from his PoV... but not from us looking at things from the other side of the table.
  - protimewaster 2y ago
    I know this is someone else's reasoning, so you can't answer this question, but, doesn't this just test if they want to spend the budget on this specific thing? If I ask a company for a $100,000 grant, and they're not willing, it doesn't seem like correct logic to assume that means they don't have the budget for it. Maybe they just don't want to spend $100,000 on me. Why does this mean they don't have a budget or power?
    - KeplerBoy 2y ago
      He assumes the software department wants to do this, which - yes - seems to be flawed logic on his side. Let's imagine he's indeed correct. He receives the hardware, get's hacking and solves all of AMDs problem, the stock surges and tinygrad becomes a major deep learning framework. That would be a collosal embarrassment for AMDs software department.
      - rangestransform 2y ago
        They should be more interested in selling product than ego
      - latchkey 2y ago
        https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTwitterAccounts/comments/zrfhdg/superstar_programer_quits_his_12_weeks_twitter/ https://www.reddit.com/r/RealTwitterAccounts/comments/zrfhdg...
        saagarjha 2y ago
        FWIW that login panel is controlled by a single feature flag
- wmf 2y ago
  Chip vendors regularly send out free hardware to software developers. In this case I don't think the cost is the issue; AMD simply doesn't want what Geohot is offering.
- imtringued 2y ago
  Considering that AMD is only really supporting their datacenter GPUs with ROCm, this is the worst possible response. It means compute on AMD GPUs is only meant for the elite of the elite and forever out of reach for the average consumer and that Nvidia is not only outcompeting AMD on quality but also on cost.
Onavo 2y ago
Maybe he needs the AMD brand for his fundraising.
roenxi 2y ago
> He refused. It had to come from AMD. That's absurd and extortionist. I'm on the wrong side of the Twitter wall to read the source, but that doesn't sound absurd. Extortionist, maybe. Hotz's major complaint (last time I checked, anyway) is pretty close to one I have - AMD appears to have between little and no strategic interest in consumer grade graphics cards having strong GPGPU support leading to random crashes from the kernel drivers and a certain attitude of "meh, whatever" from AMD corporate when dealing with that. I doubt any specific boxes or testing regime are his complaint, he'd be much more worried about whether AMD management have any interest in companies like his succeeding. Third parties providing some support doesn't sound like it'd cut it. The process of being burned by AMD leaves one a little leery of any alleged support without some serious guarantees that more major changes are afoot in their management view.
- sangnoir 2y ago
  > ...he'd be much more worried about whether AMD management have any interest in companies like his succeeding. This reads as incredibly entitled. AMD owes him nothing, especially if he's opposed to the leadership's vision[1] and being belligerent about it. There is maybe 1 or 2 companies with enough cachet to demand management changes at a supplier like AMD - and they have market caps in the trillions. 1. Lisa Su hasn't been shy about AMD being all about partnering with large partners who can move volume. My interpretation of this is AMD prefers dealing with Sony, Microsoft, hyperscalers, and HPC builders, then possibly tier II OEMs. Small startups are probably much further down the line, close to consumers at the tail end of AMD's attention queue. I don't like it as a consumer, but it seems like a sound strategy since the partners will shoulder most of the software effort, which is a weakness AMD has against Nvidia. They can focus on cranking out ok-to-great hardware at more-than-ok prices and build up a warchest for future investments, and who knows when this hype bubble will burst and take VC dollars with it, or someone invents an architecture that's less demanding on compute (if you're more optimistic)
  - roenxi 2y ago
    Sure. But we hear a lot about Hotz because all the unentitled people rolled their eyes and went over to buy Nvidia cards. He's one of the major voices who are unreasonable enough to pipe up on Twitter and air dirty laundry. I doubt AMD are going to listen to him. They're in a great spot and are probably going to tap into the market in a big way. But Hotz isn't crazy to test them in an odd way - although he'd probably be better off dropping AMD cards like most other people in his price range would.

px1999 2y ago

AMD's offer was more than fair. Hotz was throwing a trantrum.