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AMD to buy Silo AI for $665M

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Re: AMD to buy Silo AI for $665M

#151

Post by Ekaros »

nicce wrote: post #60
baobabKoodaa wrote: post #47

Happy to see this acquisition landing in Finland, but I have to wonder how the purchase price is justified. Silo AI is primarily a consulting company doing "traditional" kinds of AI consulting projects. Their LLM project is like a side hustle for the company.

Personally, I am bit sad that nothing stays in Finland. Too many promising companies have been sold into foreign countries recently. Just because founders look for exit strategy (not claiming that it is the case here). Not good for Finland in general.

I'm more so for taking money off the table when possible. Future returns are future returns, they can materialize, but might not.

Re: AMD to buy Silo AI for $665M

#152

Post by blackhawkC17 »

p_j_w wrote: post #149
blackhawkC17 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employee loyalty isn’t a good thing. One of the best things about Silicon Valley is that people can swiftly change companies when they get higher offers. Non-competes are void in California. There’s a reason US salaries for software devs are 2-5x EU salaries for similar roles.

>There’s a reason US salaries for software devs are 2-5x EU salaries for similar roles. When you account for medical costs, rent (especially compared to the localities in the USA that provide these huge salaries), extra vacation time, and for those with children, education and child care, this gap narrows considerably. Rent alone... one can find a reasonable spot in Berlin for ~$1300/mo. Good luck finding more than a…

> When you account for medical costs, rent (especially compared to the localities in the USA that provide these huge salaries), extra vacation time, and for those with children, education and child care, this gap narrows considerably.

That's what Europeans generally say to justify or cope with their low salaries, but it's not true. After accounting for all these, an SV, NYC, Seattle, etc., engineer ends up with far more disposable income than their EU counterpart.

The US has the highest average disposable income worldwide; the rest almost don't come close [1]. That's why it has much more entrepreneurial activity.

Yes, the US isn't perfect, but the EU doesn't come close to the US in terms of money for highly skilled professional workers.

1- https://www.statista.com/statistics/725764/oecd-household-di...

Re: AMD to buy Silo AI for $665M

#153

Post by light_hue_1 »

xyst wrote: post #144
eightysixfour wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, nvidia spends a lot of time and money developing software that induces demand for their GPUs.

Nvidia also spends a metric shit ton of money to make sure professors use and teach on their platform. I don’t remember any alternatives in uni. Maybe OpenCL but only lightly mentioned

> Nvidia also spends a metric shit ton of money to make sure professors use and teach on their platform.

Nah. People teach what they use because that's what's easy.

Re: AMD to buy Silo AI for $665M

#154

Post by light_hue_1 »

anonym29 wrote: post #42
csomar wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, buying this company for 600m will fix everything.

"fix"? What is there to fix? AMD has been simultaneously fighting Intel and Nvidia, two MUCH larger companies, and it's been winning the fight against Intel for close to a decade now. It's certainly not Lisa Su's fault that the clowns over at Intel got stuck on variations of 14nm (with clever marketing names like 14nm+++++) for nearly a decade, but credit certainly is hers for introducing Zen and putting AMD back on…

> "fix"? What is there to fix? AMD has been simultaneously fighting Intel and Nvidia, two MUCH larger companies, and it's been winning the fight against Intel for close to a decade now.

There's everything to fix. AMD is sitting on a gold mine and is squandering massive amounts of money every month that they don't just get their shitty software stack in order.

AMD could be as rich as NVIDIA. Instead, Lisa Su for some insane reason refuses to build even the most mediocre ML-capable libraries for their GPUs.

If I could ask anyone in the ML world at the moment what the heck they're thinking, it would be her. Nothing makes sense about AMDs actions for years on this topic. If I was the board, I'd be talking about her exit for wasting such an opportunity.

Re: AMD to buy Silo AI for $665M

#155

Post by [deleted] »

p_j_w wrote: post #149
blackhawkC17 wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Employee loyalty isn’t a good thing. One of the best things about Silicon Valley is that people can swiftly change companies when they get higher offers. Non-competes are void in California. There’s a reason US salaries for software devs are 2-5x EU salaries for similar roles.

>There’s a reason US salaries for software devs are 2-5x EU salaries for similar roles. When you account for medical costs, rent (especially compared to the localities in the USA that provide these huge salaries), extra vacation time, and for those with children, education and child care, this gap narrows considerably. Rent alone... one can find a reasonable spot in Berlin for ~$1300/mo. Good luck finding more than a…

[deleted]

Re: AMD to buy Silo AI for $665M

#156

Post by imtringued »

aardvarkr wrote: post #122
throwway120385 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If it's a culture problem and the C-suite is aware of it, then one reason to buy a company with a working software stack is to percolate their culture into your company so you can be successful.

I have a friend working there and it's a bunch of old curmudgeons stuck in their way. Good luck changing culture with a single acquisition

I also have this impression. The software problems that are plaguing AMD are in the "less than $10 million" range, if they hired the right people to work on the most severe bugs in their GPU drivers and let them do their job.

Re: AMD to buy Silo AI for $665M

#157

Post by hmm37 »

rib3ye wrote: post #147
littlecranky67 wrote: post #34

I've been thinking that NVDA stock is massively overpriced - yes, AI is a hot topic, but their only advantage is the software stack. It is just a matter of time until Intel and AMD realize that they should join hands and do an open-source CUDA alternative for their respecitve GPUs (yes, Intel has competetive GPUs and just like AMD and Nvidia they will try to get a share of the AI chip market share).

NVDA P/E ratio 78.70 AMD P/E ratio 263.25 If NVDA is overpriced, AMD is REALLY over-priced.

AMD PE ratio is that high due to their purchase of Xilinx. It's forward PE ratio is much much lower, in the 50s.

Re: AMD to buy Silo AI for $665M

#158

Post by nicce »

Ekaros wrote: post #151
nicce wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I am bit sad that nothing stays in Finland. Too many promising companies have been sold into foreign countries recently. Just because founders look for exit strategy (not claiming that it is the case here). Not good for Finland in general.

I'm more so for taking money off the table when possible. Future returns are future returns, they can materialize, but might not.

But if that happens (almost) every time for a potential company, then you will never likely have successful company in Finland, where the decision making also stays in Finland, and the money benefits the country in larger scale.

There is this saying that "don't sell the cow when you can sell the milk" - maybe there is still some wisdom... but Finland keeps selling the cow and buying the milk back over and over again. And then they wonder why the state of the economy is so sad and they never see "new Nokia".

Re: AMD to buy Silo AI for $665M

#159

Post by mindcrime »

I don't know how this specific acquisition is going to work out, but at least we can say one thing. This represents some kind of response to the constant chorus of "AMD don't appreciate the importance of software. AMD should invest more in software. CUDA, CUDA, CUDA" comments that one always hears when AMD is mentioned.

Of course there's room to debate the details here: would they have, perhaps, been better off investing that money in their existing software team(s)? Or spinning up (a) new team(s) from scatch? Who's to say. But at least it show some intention on their behalf to beef up their software stance, and generally speaking that feels like a positive step to me.

But then again, I'm an AMD fan boi who is invested in the ROCm ecosystem, so I'm not entirely unbiased. But I think the overall point stands, regardless of that.

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