Oxide Computer: Docs

It sound nice, but I've been building systems like that since 2012 (usually vmware vCloud director plus custom code). Using hardware like Fujitsu's cx1000, Nexus 1000 distributed vswitch, brocade network switches, and San storage. The systems I built back then could dynamically provision separate network/conpute/storage segments for PCI compliance and more. If I were to build something like this today I'd probably consider using Kubernetes too and integrating it with public cloud for scale out. This way a business can have their "own" cloud that is much more cost effective at certain scales and access to "unlimited" public cloud resources at the same time (at the cost of increase in system complexity).

Is this just more of the same, or is there some innovation there? It is interesting that computing trends go in centralise/decentralise cycles. We can observe this as far back as 1980s. I can't wait for the next "decentralise" cycle as I'm under an impression a lot more innovation happens during that phase.

They could probably have someone proofread the transcripts, there aren't that many episodes.

Here's the big negative things I can come up with quickly:

1. It's not clear the market case closes, because while there are customers who would greatly benefit from their systems, those same customers are also very averse to change, meaning that most of them will probably sit out for the first few generations to see if they have staying power. If everyone does that, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

2. ... but this would have been fine, a few years ago. It's not fine in the current market situation, where there is much less easy money looking for a place to go. I sure hope they are sitting on a long runway.

3. Speaking of, they are very late in their execution. A SM4 platform that only shipped in 2023 is not great. I really hope they are far along on their SP5 development. (... But this also dampens current sales. I bet a lot of potential customers are thinking that a SP5 Oxide Rack seems a much more appealing than a SP4 one, so why not wait?)

But the reason they are not discussed that much is that people who understand the market are all really, really hoping that they pull it off. Because the current situation in server hardware is dire. In every thread people who don't know much about servers ask why not get a similar system from Dell or Supermicro or whoever. The answer is that the commodity servers are pieces of shit that requires significant local engineering resources to manage. Software quality of firmware is generally horrendous, and when this is pointed out to the vendors, their answer is that they know, but everyone else is just as bad, wontfix. A significant draw of the cloud is that all that pain goes away, because the hyperscalers realized how shit everything was and fixed it in their systems. It just never trickled down to the market below them.

It partly because they have a good podcast that is perfectly aligned with what many people on HN like.

Other then that, the code is open source. They also help sponsor both Rust and OpenFireware conferences.

> First, no one would have coached you on "how to interview at Oxide" because that's not where the process starts

I was using “interview” as a generic term for applying to a company, not literally referring to your internal process.

I didn’t interview with or even pursue Oxide after the conversation (and never said I did)

This all came up because I asked the person what the equity compensation was like. Not an unreasonable question when talking about a startup. That’s when they started advising me that I shouldn’t bring it up and it’s not something they talk about. After that I got uncomfortable about pursuing a company that discourages any conversation about compensation to the extent that someone felt necessary to warn me about it when I hadn’t even applied.

> no one at Oxide would tell you to "not bring it up" because everyone at Oxide knows that it is a subject dealt with early in the process.

They were trying to tell me that it was important that I avoid giving the impression that I cared about compensation, as that would be a negative if I talked to anyone else at the company. Just repeating what I was told.

> And finally, this is all assuming that you were talking to someone before March 2021, when we published our blog post on it.[1]

No, they told me to look up the blog post, but I had not read the company blog before taking to this person.

> After the blog post, compensation simply doesn't come up: everyone has seen it -- and indeed, our approach to compensation is part of what attracted them to the company!

Or maybe your approach to compensation is what filters people out of the application pipeline? I don’t think it’s realistic to think that this compensation strategy is what attracts people to the company rather than pre-selecting people out.

I read the blog post, but I feel like I’m missing the equity portion of the conversation still.

Regardless, is it so hard to believe that compensation “simply doesn’t come up” because potential candidates (like me) are sometimes coached to not bring it up? Or that the company’s stance appears to discourage bringing it up? This feels like some circular logic: Nobody brings it up because we discourage people from bringing it up.