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Intel CEO Bob Swan to step down, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger to replace him

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Re: Intel CEO Bob Swan to step down, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger to replace him

#261

Post by dnautics »

gonehome wrote: post #226
geogra4 wrote: post #214

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would amd be screwed?

My long term bet is on M1 and ARM/RISC5 for the future. x86 is on the way out and can't compete on power or performance. In the end RISC won, it just took a while to get there. As things trend that direction AMD and Intel don't really have much to offer, they're competing on legacy tech. With TSMC providing fabs for designs from anyone, the serious players don't need AMD or Intel. Apple has a massive lead here, but o…

> x86 is on the way out and can't compete on power or performance. In the end RISC won, it just took a while to get there.

What exactly do you think is the fundamental limitation of x86? Most chips do lot and lots of crazy logic to go from instruction set to microcode, it's hard to imagine that the variable nature of x86 instructions are the limiting factor.

Re: Intel CEO Bob Swan to step down, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger to replace him

#262

Post by rayiner »

tryptophan wrote: post #253
person_of_color wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only in America.

You're getting downvotes, but it's true. The rest of the world is a lot more obsessed with credential-ism and pedigree.

Even Silicon Valley in 2020.

Re: Intel CEO Bob Swan to step down, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger to replace him

#263

Post by dogma1138 »

ghaff wrote: post #20
acallan wrote: post #3

Pat was a "boy wonder" at Intel and could do no wrong — until Larrabee. I was working at Intel at the time and remember always assuming that Pat would someday be CEO. His departure came as such a shock to a lot of us, as does his return. He might have what it takes to turn Intel around.

There was also Intel's whole pursuit of frequency--they demoed I think it was a 10GHz chip at IDF at one point (and Itanium was essentially an ILP-oriented design)--and resistance to multi-core. Some of it was doubtless Intel convincing themselves they could make it work. But they were also under a lot of pressure from Microsoft who didn't have confidence that they could do SMP effectively--at least that's what a cer…

I’m not sure Itanium was a technical failure, to me it always was a business model failure as that CPU was co-developed with HP and essentially became a dedicated HP-Oracle box and by the time the ecosystem was opened up it was too late.

The heavy reliance on the compiler for ILP was an “odd-choice” but not something that was unsound in principle.

If the ecosystem was more open from the get go and more vendors were involved it had a much better chance of taking off.

And if nothing else at least it was something new.

The biggest disappointment I have with Itanium is that it and later Larabee/XeonPhi kinda pushed Intel even further into their own little x86 box when it came to processing units.

I think that failure is also why they haven’t really done anything interesting with Altera.

Re: Intel CEO Bob Swan to step down, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger to replace him

#264

Post by mhh__ »

TuringNYC wrote: post #199
UncleOxidant wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pat's a great guy and first class engineer, but I think it's just too late for him to turn Intel around at this point. The problems have become too entrenched. They needed someone like him at the helm 10 years ago. Apple's M1 shows that the world has passed Intel by. I wish him luck, though.

I recently purchased a MacbookPro w/ an M1 chip and i'm taken aback at the value/dollar, compute/power, compute/heat, compute/noise. I love the MBP-m1. I realize that WinTel machines arent going anywhere because of entrenched business use -- but between NVIDIA GPUs for heavy workloads and M1s for day-to-day activities -- what is the feeling inside Intel right now? Is this like a Microsoft-Netscape moment in the 90s?

An M1 equipped Mac Mini with 16 GB of ram and some more storage is still more than £1000. The M1 has to get a lot cheaper to be anything more than a warning shot for Intel.

What it should definitely be, however, is a death-sentence for x86. I bet Intel are proud of it, but ultimately they must be at least somewhat jealous of those who don't have to use it.

Re: Intel CEO Bob Swan to step down, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger to replace him

#265

Post by LogicX »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #211

Here's a fun fact (and I suspect shows what a loser I am :-)) Pat Gelsinger and I were colleagues at Intel in the early 80's. We both worked in what was called "MIPO" (Microprocessor Operation) but I was in Systems Validation and he was on the customer facing side with field engineering. My career went off through a variety of engineering roles, his went into management and up. When he joined EMC, I told him I had al…

Pat went to my high school and computer science program. It’s in a small rural, Pennsylvania farming town - pop 2000. Somehow we got an amazing math teacher turned CompSci and he turned out world class students - we always ranked high enough each year to compete internationally in ACSL.

A few years back when the teacher retired, we all gathered together to thank him, including Pat! World-class guy, and makes us proud! So great to share a story with students, who come from nothing, how you can leave our hometown and eventually be the CEO of Intel.

Wishing Pat the best of luck in his new role!

Re: Intel CEO Bob Swan to step down, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger to replace him

#266

Post by mhh__ »

dnautics wrote: post #261
gonehome wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My long term bet is on M1 and ARM/RISC5 for the future. x86 is on the way out and can't compete on power or performance. In the end RISC won, it just took a while to get there. As things trend that direction AMD and Intel don't really have much to offer, they're competing on legacy tech. With TSMC providing fabs for designs from anyone, the serious players don't need AMD or Intel. Apple has a massive lead here, but o…

> x86 is on the way out and can't compete on power or performance. In the end RISC won, it just took a while to get there. What exactly do you think is the fundamental limitation of x86? Most chips do lot and lots of crazy logic to go from instruction set to microcode, it's hard to imagine that the variable nature of x86 instructions are the limiting factor.

At very least having a big fat decoder costs you power and space, measuring the tradeoff in raw decoder performance is probably dependent on being an engineer working on it at Intel or AMD (or Apple). At very least, Zen 3 is a cutting edge microarchitecture on a cutting edge node with lots of transistors to play with, and it still decodes only half as many instructions per cycle as M1 - an unbelievably wide CPU, which is probably the way forward.

The "x86 tax" (if it exists, I guess) is usually estimated at somewhere on the order of 5% to 10% - which is a lot of money at scale but probably not enough for a total rethink.

Re: Intel CEO Bob Swan to step down, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger to replace him

#267

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #262
tryptophan wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're getting downvotes, but it's true. The rest of the world is a lot more obsessed with credential-ism and pedigree.

Even Silicon Valley in 2020.

Is, what? Obsessed with credentials? It really isn't (but I can't tell if I'm just misreading you and don't want to belabor it).

Re: Intel CEO Bob Swan to step down, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger to replace him

#268

Post by caycep »

somethoughts wrote: post #228
microtherion wrote: post #219

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"It's just too late to turn them around" is pretty much what people said about Apple when Steve Jobs returned, though (in fact, it's more or less what I thought as well). As Adam Smith said, "there is a great deal of ruin in a nation", and likewise, big companies generally get more opportunities to reinvent themselves than one would expect.

Similarly some (many?) thought Microsoft was a lost cause due to Ballmer (sales/business development background), but they seem to be doing okay under Nadella (engineering background). That said, only time will tell.

I think the telling thing is would you see a Nadella (and indeed, a Jobs)-like pivot when he takes over. i.e. axe old design/business models that don't work and fully embrace new ones.

Re: Intel CEO Bob Swan to step down, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger to replace him

#269

Post by rayiner »

tptacek wrote: post #267
rayiner wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even Silicon Valley in 2020.

Is, what? Obsessed with credentials? It really isn't (but I can't tell if I'm just misreading you and don't want to belabor it).

I meant Silicon Valley 2020 is more focused on credentials than it was when Pat Gelsinger was starting out.

Re: Intel CEO Bob Swan to step down, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger to replace him

#270

Post by tptacek »

rayiner wrote: post #269
tptacek wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is, what? Obsessed with credentials? It really isn't (but I can't tell if I'm just misreading you and don't want to belabor it).

I meant Silicon Valley 2020 is more focused on credentials than it was when Pat Gelsinger was starting out.

Maybe? I don't know what it was like when Gelsinger started. But it's the least credential-driven high-status professional market in the country, and maybe the world. It's hard to start your career with a first job at Google without a top 10 CS degree, but that might be the only example; it can be your second job without one.
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