How was Keller able to pull off so much impactful work over so many organizations? i.e. what proportion of his impact was attributable to novel ideas, solo engineering implementation ability, engineering leadership, or just darn good timing?
Jim Keller and his pioneering work on chip design and architecture
31–40 of 70 posts
Re: Jim Keller and his pioneering work on chip design and architecture
#32[dead]
Re: Jim Keller and his pioneering work on chip design and architecture
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
> just to save $8 on parts I don't think you understand what $8 per vehicle represents in cost savings. $8 in parts can literally be 10s of million in savings per year. And then you are basically tied to this supplier forever as switching something so fundamental isn't easy. In automotive, using less screws to save 50c on each vehicle is considered a big win.
Can confirm. Most people probably wouldn't believe the effort that is spent on improving the physical engine models in the ECUs in order to save a few bucks on sensors. Precisely, as you wrote, because those few bucks multiply while a software effort is one-time.
One FTE saving $0.05 per vehicle pays for their salary.
Re: Jim Keller and his pioneering work on chip design and architecture
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Some design decisions are also really not obvious. I've seen engineering decisions of the kind... We'll put another microcontroller because we would need less wiring between these 2 boards and the wiring would be more expensive. A clever one I saw was where they milled a PCB thinner in a section to make it bendy and did not need 2 boards because of this.
Sounds like that'd have reliability concerns in an environment where the whole thing can receive substantial shocks (the physical kind) over time.
Only if there's motion. Something can be bent and also secured.
Re: Jim Keller and his pioneering work on chip design and architecture
#35How was Keller able to pull off so much impactful work over so many organizations? i.e. what proportion of his impact was attributable to novel ideas, solo engineering implementation ability, engineering leadership, or just darn good timing?
You should see his interviews with Dr. Ian Cutress. The man basically knows everything in the industry in and out and knows how to create great teams. I want to interview for Tenstorrent at some point and would love to work for him. I feel being part of great teams is what he has been fortunate with. People very easily forget the rest of the team in chip design and make it about one person. I feel he's a true leader in chip design teams, but I also think he has worked with many great people to achieve that.
Re: Jim Keller and his pioneering work on chip design and architecture
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
> just to save $8 on parts I don't think you understand what $8 per vehicle represents in cost savings. $8 in parts can literally be 10s of million in savings per year. And then you are basically tied to this supplier forever as switching something so fundamental isn't easy. In automotive, using less screws to save 50c on each vehicle is considered a big win.
Sure, but Tesla doesn’t sell that many vehicles. They only went over a million last year (will be closer to 2 million this year it would appear.
Yes, they were planning ahead. They knew they would sell more vehicles in the future, and thus the effort was worth it.
Not just for V1, but the following version as well. Once you have an internal team, you can vertically integrate and costume the solution to your needs exactly rather then buying a generic part from a supplier.
Things like OTA updates are just easier if you control the software and hardware stack yourself.
And once you have a team with expertise you can use them for other projects as well, like Dojo.
Re: Jim Keller and his pioneering work on chip design and architecture
#37How was Keller able to pull off so much impactful work over so many organizations? i.e. what proportion of his impact was attributable to novel ideas, solo engineering implementation ability, engineering leadership, or just darn good timing?
I was at Intel when Jim Keller came. He was one of the most inspiring technical leaders I have ever encountered. He obviously had very strong engineering knowledge as well. When he came in, he took some time to really understanding our process and challenges. Then he created 5 areas that Intel needed to improve. He said “we are going to fix these, or burn down the place trying”. And these weren’t vague goals like “execute more effectively” or “be customer obsessed”, but really concrete and measurable things like “reduce empty silicon area by 50%”. He had a task force of principle engineers on each task, and every meeting he would spend almost the entire time going into detail of the progress and challenges on them. Anytime someone would complain and say the goal couldn’t be done, his response was “AMD did it, why can’t you?”. He was always trying to simplify things and cut through complexity. His vision was that if we hit those 5 targets, we would win the market. As an engineer, his clear vision and strong technical understanding made him the best leader I have ever been under.
it’s a pity he left Intel so quickly. After he was gone, his 5 goals basically fell by the wayside. I don’t think people like being told they’re doing it wrong. I still try to listen to any podcast or interview with him, because I think he has many deep insights.
Re: Jim Keller and his pioneering work on chip design and architecture
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I found that Lex interview enlightening for two reasons. Firstly, Keller is a profoundly talented and interesting guy. And secondly, Lex is a truly painful and incompetent interviewer; virtually every time Lex spoke I begged my screen for him to stay quiet and let Keller speak.
Does anyone have any insight into how hes managed to get such high profile guests?
Some of the early big name guests who would be known by people outside CS and AI were MIT-affiliated (Chomsky, Krugman).
Re: Jim Keller and his pioneering work on chip design and architecture
#39I recommend Keller's appearances on the Lex Fridman podcast, and also the chat with his (Keller's) brother-in-law Jordan Peterson.
I found that Lex interview enlightening for two reasons. Firstly, Keller is a profoundly talented and interesting guy. And secondly, Lex is a truly painful and incompetent interviewer; virtually every time Lex spoke I begged my screen for him to stay quiet and let Keller speak.
That's exactly what I thought. Jim Keller had a lot of deep insights that he was boiling down to simple terms. It was obvious he had thought about these ideas for a long time and that what he was saying came from a lot of experience. He would talk about things like switching lanes in driverless cars being a matter of ballistics.
Lex Friedman just interrupted him in a whiny voice to say "it's not thaaat simple". He basically just got in Jim Keller's way. It would be like someone interrupting a john carmack presentation every few minutes to say "I don't know about all that". It was a shame.
Re: Jim Keller and his pioneering work on chip design and architecture
#40I recommend Keller's appearances on the Lex Fridman podcast, and also the chat with his (Keller's) brother-in-law Jordan Peterson.
I found that Lex interview enlightening for two reasons. Firstly, Keller is a profoundly talented and interesting guy. And secondly, Lex is a truly painful and incompetent interviewer; virtually every time Lex spoke I begged my screen for him to stay quiet and let Keller speak.
Fridman's interviews are an unusual combination of being well researched and incompetently conducted. When the interviewees are so interesting and well-chosen, and otherwise not the sort of person who would get a lot of media attention (Jim Keller is one example), it is indeed painful when he interrupts the guest or... sigh... interacts with them verbally in any way, really.
Unrelated, but Fridman's proclivity for injecting Elon Musk as a discussion topic into the vast majority of his interviews is genuinely weird.