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Apple M2 Die Shot and Architecture Analysis – Big Cost Increase and A15 Based IP

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Re: Apple M2 Die Shot and Architecture Analysis – Big Cost Increase and A15 Based IP

#21

Post by exhilaration »

dhanna wrote: post #5
daguava wrote: post #2

There's a lot of claims of poached talent in the article, basically claiming [paraphrasing] "Apple, maintaining their stressful work env and not paying to shore that up lost some rockstars" How true is this? If they're on the money it's an excellent example of a talent retention miss leading to a demonstrable mediocrity in delivery.

The youngest, strongest RTL engineer I know jumped from Apple to Rivos.

I'm still amazed at how jumping to a rival firm like this is possible in California, those of us in pretty much the rest of the country are locked behind non-competes.

Re: Apple M2 Die Shot and Architecture Analysis – Big Cost Increase and A15 Based IP

#22

Post by somethoughts »

daguava wrote: post #2

There's a lot of claims of poached talent in the article, basically claiming [paraphrasing] "Apple, maintaining their stressful work env and not paying to shore that up lost some rockstars" How true is this? If they're on the money it's an excellent example of a talent retention miss leading to a demonstrable mediocrity in delivery.

Likely its a bit of hyperbole to get views.

I think there's always a desire to work at a startup in SV and in a low/zero interest rate environment - VCs could probably fund something in the chip design space.

But now that interest rates are going up, I think that will be a lot tougher and Apple will be a better position due to their direct access to free cashflow - to either compete or acquire them at a later date.

Its also an observation that w.r.t. chip design and consumer electronics, the pay is general lower than say Google, Facebook, Salesforce, Web 2.0 based startups (i.e. AirBnb, Uber, DoorDash), etc.

My presumption is that this is because as a chip designer or embedded software/hardware engineer, the capital costs to do anything interesting on your own as a startup (i.e. tape out a chip, mass production in Asia, etc.) are very very high and very fixed and very up-front. Even fabless semiconductors and factory-less product design companies that outsource manufacturing to Asia would need to go find outside capital for IC masks or HW prototypes. You also need a cadre of supply chain, biz dev, marketing, ad spend, channel sales distribution.

Compare that to AirBnb, Dropbox where you need a good idea, a handful of 10x SW engineers and an AWS account that can scale as you grown and a free tier for onboarding customers. Therefore, Google/FB etc. need to pay more to prevent these folks from going off and starting their disruptor (i.e. Insta, WhatsApp, SalesForce).

Re: Apple M2 Die Shot and Architecture Analysis – Big Cost Increase and A15 Based IP

#25

Post by wmf »

dagmx wrote: post #19
daguava wrote: post #2

There's a lot of claims of poached talent in the article, basically claiming [paraphrasing] "Apple, maintaining their stressful work env and not paying to shore that up lost some rockstars" How true is this? If they're on the money it's an excellent example of a talent retention miss leading to a demonstrable mediocrity in delivery.

The author has been pushing this conjecture for a year over the past year or so, and has been repeatedly called out on the Hardware reddit. I would recommend not taking their business conjecture without a giant pinch of salt. Just today they were claiming Apple has lost hundreds of engineers in the chip division. The idea that a single division somehow lost hundreds without the industry noticing is ridiculous.

Why do you think the industry hasn't noticed? If it's not hundreds, how many Apple employees have moved to Nuvia and Rivos?

Re: Apple M2 Die Shot and Architecture Analysis – Big Cost Increase and A15 Based IP

#26

Post by Josteniok »

dagmx wrote: post #19
daguava wrote: post #2

There's a lot of claims of poached talent in the article, basically claiming [paraphrasing] "Apple, maintaining their stressful work env and not paying to shore that up lost some rockstars" How true is this? If they're on the money it's an excellent example of a talent retention miss leading to a demonstrable mediocrity in delivery.

The author has been pushing this conjecture for a year over the past year or so, and has been repeatedly called out on the Hardware reddit. I would recommend not taking their business conjecture without a giant pinch of salt. Just today they were claiming Apple has lost hundreds of engineers in the chip division. The idea that a single division somehow lost hundreds without the industry noticing is ridiculous.

I wondered about this too and I like your advice about salt but apparently Apple is suing Rivos about this very thing: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/apple-lawsuit-says-...

Re: Apple M2 Die Shot and Architecture Analysis – Big Cost Increase and A15 Based IP

#27

Post by modeless »

daguava wrote: post #2

There's a lot of claims of poached talent in the article, basically claiming [paraphrasing] "Apple, maintaining their stressful work env and not paying to shore that up lost some rockstars" How true is this? If they're on the money it's an excellent example of a talent retention miss leading to a demonstrable mediocrity in delivery.

Seems silly to me. CPU designs are important, but these companies have more than enough engineers to make competent designs even with some people leaving. There's another factor that completely dominates. It's all about the fabs. Intel lost the performance lead, was it because of their designs? No, it's because they lost the lead in fabs. AMD passed Intel, was it because of their designs? No, it's because they use TSMC's fabs and TSMC passed Intel. Apple blew everyone away with M1, was it because of their designs? No, it's because they paid TSMC boatloads of money for exclusivity on their latest fabs. Apple M2 disappoints on CPU performance, is it because of their designs? No, it's because TSMC's next fab isn't ready yet so they're still using the same fabs as M1.

These days I care more about which TSMC process node my chips came from than which company designed them. I need a new computer but I'm waiting until next year because there will be a wave of new CPUs and GPUs coming out with much better performance. Better designs? Maybe a little, but it's really because they're all moving to TSMC N4.

I really hope Pat Gelsinger can save Intel's fab business because we really need another company that can compete in fabs and Samsung isn't doing too hot either.

Re: Apple M2 Die Shot and Architecture Analysis – Big Cost Increase and A15 Based IP

#28

Post by drawingthesun »

Josteniok wrote: post #26
dagmx wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author has been pushing this conjecture for a year over the past year or so, and has been repeatedly called out on the Hardware reddit. I would recommend not taking their business conjecture without a giant pinch of salt. Just today they were claiming Apple has lost hundreds of engineers in the chip division. The idea that a single division somehow lost hundreds without the industry noticing is ridiculous.

I wondered about this too and I like your advice about salt but apparently Apple is suing Rivos about this very thing: https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/apple-lawsuit-says-...

The article says 40 employees not hundreds, but I imagine that 40 of Apple's top chip talent is going to hurt, that is a lot of brain power to lose!

Seems some employees took more than themselves to Rivos. "at least two former Apple engineers took gigabytes of confidential information with them to Rivos."

Re: Apple M2 Die Shot and Architecture Analysis – Big Cost Increase and A15 Based IP

#29

Post by walterbell »

brokencode wrote: post #24

Why does the biggest and richest company in the world ever have to suffer from talent leaving because they don’t get paid enough? It just doesn’t make any sense.

New companies offer an absence of technical and cultural debt.

Nuvia was purchased for $1.4 billion by Qualcomm, a couple of years after being started.

Re: Apple M2 Die Shot and Architecture Analysis – Big Cost Increase and A15 Based IP

#30

Post by hunterb123 »

999900000999 wrote: post #16
hemantv wrote: post #13

Apple generally pay very poorly for quality of talent. I would love to live in world where 10x engineers are rewarded 10x. Right now it's 25% better pay than median.

Most 10xers aren't constantly 10x. You might have a 10x year and then a 1.1x year. With tech it's a bit of a catch 22, most engineers really become effective after 18 to 24 months. At this point you know how to really get things done in your org. But after 2 years you can job hop and make significantly more, so your interest might not align 100% with the company's

This. I'll make a product for someone in a few weekends, working 18 hours a day for a few weeks straight,

Then I won't have the energy for a few months.

Probably evens out to an employer, but imo you do better when the snowball is rolling longer without breaks.

That's the secret to 10x. ADHD and don't stop. Stopping is the enemy, you can't see the forest.

I hear regulation is nice, but tell my mind that.

Been at my employer for 10 years making cool shit if that matters.

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