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Andy Grove has died

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Re: Andy Grove has died

#101

Post by Create »

samstave wrote: post #63
ChuckMcM wrote: post #41

I'm sorry to hear of his passing. My first job in the Bay Area was working for Intel in Santa Clara, and I worked in the same building that Andy did at the time (Santa Clara 4). It amazed me that he had a cubical (well it had slightly higher walls but was still just a cube.) I have two very influential memories of my time at Intel, the first was when I went to a design update meeting on the 80386 and Andy locked the…

Wow.same, I worked in building 5 in 1997 - I recall "going pee next to Andy many times" - other than this interaction with him I didn't really talk to him much. I recall asking the question then "why can't we stack cores on top of each other" and being told by very senior engineers how stupid that idea was... Working at Intel was actually the golden age of my gaming experience; I worked in the game development lab an…

As for "going pee next to Andy many times", Szilard was trying to switch from physics to biology and was housing for ideas at Karolinska.

He visited Klein, who happened to follow him to the bathroom and saw blood in the pot after him. As a non practicing doctor, but avid observer, he quickly diagnosed him with cancer. Szilard then signed up for one of the highest doses of radiotherapy in humans. He survived both the therapy and the cancer and lobbied afterwards to set up EMBL (with Viki Weisskopf, patterned after CERN).

Re: Andy Grove has died

#102

Post by nickpsecurity »

yuhong wrote: post #65
ChuckMcM wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the reasons I left Intel for Sun was that Intel had just realized that "lots of people" making x86 chips was a bad thing for their control of the market. There were no less than 6 suppliers of 8086 chips. But with the 80286 and the 80386 it became clear that "owning the processor" so that they could claim a big chunk of the profit on every PC sold was very very important to the company. That strategy, while un…

Yea, I know the history. The point being that Intel buying say Compaq would obviously allow them to claim Compaq's profits instead, and maybe eventually driving all other PC makers out of business (by the low margins) instead of making the same undifferentiable "beige boxes".

I was thinking he meant buying x86 competitors or burying them via patents. Intel both patents and buys patents on plenty of CPU-related tech, esp for x86 compatibility. Alpha and Transmeta CPU's come to mind immediately. Things just kept disappearing until we were down to basically three companies: Intel, AMD, and VIA. AMD had to pay Intel for I.P. with VIA being a niche player running losses despite some good tech.

So, I.P. control from purchases or threats could keep Intel on top of competition for a long time. Worst case was they end up in an oligopoly position where they can still pull huge profits.

Re: Andy Grove has died

#103

Post by dang »

guessmyname wrote: post #84
dang wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please stop.

Why don't you delete the parent comment?

We never delete comments outright unless the author asks us to. We do kill comments as part of banning a user (killed comments aren't deleted because anyone with 'showdead' turned on can read them), but going offtopic and getting a bit overheated isn't something we ban people for.

Re: Andy Grove has died

#104

Post by nickpsecurity »

astrodust wrote: post #59
nodesocket wrote: post #46

PBS did a great documentary "Silicon Valley"[1] (not to be confused with the show), which I highly recommend. It tells the amazing story of how Robert Noyce, Arthur Rock, Gordon Moore, and Andrew Grove were absolute pioneers and insanely gifted. A huge loss. Here is the first 15 minutes of the documentary on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LcOoQP7nhl4

The effect of Grove's talent was only made obvious when he retired and the company started to drift seriously sideways with their forays into VLIW and stupidly deep instruction pipelines. His ability to steer a company through what was perpetual chaos against relentless competitors is almost unparalleled. They didn't have it easy like Microsoft did where they were virtually the only game in town. They almost lost the…

"They didn't have it easy like Microsoft did where they were virtually the only game in town. They almost lost their position to AMD on more than one occasion, and were under constant pressure from Motorola, IBM, Sun, MIPS, DEC, and others all intent on capturing a dominant position in the highly lucrative desktop and server markets."

You're way overstating that. You're whole post, but especially that one, totally ignores the concept of lock-in due to ISA, OS, and library backward compatibility. And first mover advantage, patents, and the Microsoft/Intel partnership. It's amazing how successful a product can be when attempting to clone or ditch it can sink an entire business or its profit margins. And especially if it's cheaper than UNIX/RISC or mainframes on top of that. ;)

Note: I'm an Intel and Windows opponent who can't do shit for specific customers of theirs with legacy apps due to the above. They want benefits of other things but can't switch. I can say same about certain mainframe shops. I'll be able to say same about Oracle/Java and certain cloud shops 10 years from now. I bet you $100.

Re: Andy Grove has died

#105

Post by dang »

cb18 wrote: post #87

He was also a Jew. As in the Jews that are well known for prodigious scientific, economic, musical, etc. etc. output. Hardly a Syrian, or Iraqi, or Afghani, or some other adherent to a hostile, violent, and regressive ideology[0]. Not everything is an equivalency just because you want the world to be as such. Worth noting in today's political climate. [0] Not that all Syrians, Iraqis, or Afghanis are. Edit: Ok, what…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11334283 and marked it off-topic.

Re: Andy Grove has died

#106

Post by em500 »

jmspring wrote: post #50
gogopuppygogo wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gates also is known for having built a home that stood out. It's not about the era its about the person.

There was much fan fare over all the technology Bill Gates put into his house. It was interesting to read, especially in the context of home automation these days. I worked with people who helped Jim Clark with some of his home automation in the early/mid 2000s. My point in general was I think the Silicon Valley elders of old, Grove, Moore, Packards (I know multiple individuals who benefitted from the Packard Childre…

> That said, the Packards have been very local vs. Gates more international (maybe it's need, size of endowment, etc).

Given the international needs are fare more pressing, I'd say the Gates have the right objective.

Re: Andy Grove has died

#107

Post by lordnacho »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #41

I'm sorry to hear of his passing. My first job in the Bay Area was working for Intel in Santa Clara, and I worked in the same building that Andy did at the time (Santa Clara 4). It amazed me that he had a cubical (well it had slightly higher walls but was still just a cube.) I have two very influential memories of my time at Intel, the first was when I went to a design update meeting on the 80386 and Andy locked the…

He was CEO when I joined. Highly respected guy.

Re: Andy Grove has died

#108

Post by cb18 »

dang wrote: post #105
cb18 wrote: post #87

He was also a Jew. As in the Jews that are well known for prodigious scientific, economic, musical, etc. etc. output. Hardly a Syrian, or Iraqi, or Afghani, or some other adherent to a hostile, violent, and regressive ideology[0]. Not everything is an equivalency just because you want the world to be as such. Worth noting in today's political climate. [0] Not that all Syrians, Iraqis, or Afghanis are. Edit: Ok, what…

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11334283 and marked it off-topic.

So straight-up censorship is a thing on HN now?

I don't know how this could be argued off-topic when it directly pertained to the parent comment. If anything the parent comment was off-topic, and I found it unseemly that oska would use the occasion of Mr. Grove's death to promote a political agenda.

I felt compelled in the interest of Mr. Grove's memory to point out the flaws in oska's statement.

Was this really a joint decision, or is that a royal we?

Glancing at your comment history, dang, it becomes apparent that the ratio of pleasant to unpleasant interactions you have on this site is quite lopsided.(excuse my presumption)

So I just want to say thanks for all the actions you take to make HN a better place, even if I don't agree with them all.

Re: Andy Grove has died

#109

Post by Vegard7 »

nickpsecurity wrote: post #104
astrodust wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The effect of Grove's talent was only made obvious when he retired and the company started to drift seriously sideways with their forays into VLIW and stupidly deep instruction pipelines. His ability to steer a company through what was perpetual chaos against relentless competitors is almost unparalleled. They didn't have it easy like Microsoft did where they were virtually the only game in town. They almost lost the…

"They didn't have it easy like Microsoft did where they were virtually the only game in town. They almost lost their position to AMD on more than one occasion, and were under constant pressure from Motorola, IBM, Sun, MIPS, DEC, and others all intent on capturing a dominant position in the highly lucrative desktop and server markets." You're way overstating that. You're whole post, but especially that one, totally ig…

I hear you, but on the flip side, there are companies out there that don't get locked in. Usually reflects quality of leadership at the very top and a lot of luck.
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