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US Intel

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Re: US Intel

#221

Post by otterley »

nateglims wrote: post #213
otterley wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s not forget here that Chinese companies operate some of—if not the —most popular social networks in the world. WeChat and TikTok/Douyin are enormous. (Also, in neither country is the majority of its GDP comprised of websites.)

Yes but the Chinese state is much more willing to direct capital to where it thinks it should go. The argument w.r.t. geopolitics is usually that the US is late to doing this and now lacks production capacity which is useful for competing.

I think this is an "and," not a "but." Your statement and mine aren't in conflict.

Re: US Intel

#222

Post by Workaccount2 »

georgeburdell wrote: post #23
themgt wrote: post #7

I’ll be honest: there is a very good chance this won’t work .... At the same time, the China concerns are real, Intel Foundry needs a guarantee of existence to even court customers, and there really is no coming back from an exit. There won’t be a startup to fill Intel’s place. The U.S. will be completely dependent on foreign companies for the most important products on earth, and while everything may seem fine for t…

If I may add my view as a formerly high-achieving semiconductor worker that Intel would benefit greatly from having right now, a lot of us pivoted to software and machine learning to earn more money. My first 2 years as a software engineer earned me more RSUs than a decade in semiconductors. Semiconductors is not prestigious work in the U.S., despite the strategic importance. By contrast, it is highly respected and r…

Amen, software sucked all the talent out of the hardware room. When you write the pros and cons of software vs hardware, pretty much the only positive on the hardware side is a subjective "it's more fun".

Re: US Intel

#223

Post by etempleton »

sailfast wrote: post #114

I’m confused. Why is equity required when the current loan guarantees were perfectly adequate? The only answer is that the USG wanted more control and leverage than was required to achieve national security objectives. Kinda negates the whole approach to the article in my opinion.

Don't underestimate the pettiness of the current administration. They didn't like the old deal because they didn't make it. It is really as simple as that.

Re: US Intel

#225

Post by bigyabai »

onetimeusename wrote: post #220
bigyabai wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Recently, the US was pushing NVDA to start using Intel's foundry. I assume it's for national security reasons. The real reason is simple, if you've been following IFS: Intel's foundry has no large customers. The free market has spoken and almost every single customer prefers TSMC or Samsung silicon. America was boxed-out of serious world-class chip manufacturing ever since Intel swerved on EULV. If it was for natse…

I'm not sure they need to claim Intel as eminent domain and that type of move is beyond what I know about but I suppose they could've done that previously but opted instead for market based solutions like with the CHIPS Act. That is really what led to the equity stake. The purpose of the CHIPS Act had more to do with the AI Cold War and securing the supply chain than it did trying to save one particular business. So…

> The purpose of the CHIPS Act had more to do with the AI Cold War and securing the supply chain than it did trying to save one particular business

I just don't think we're ever going to see eye-to-eye if this is your belief. In realpolitiks terms, Intel hasn't been a player on the AI board since Gaudi. And even that was a total flop.

If securing AI compute was the goal, buying Intel is about as large of a mistake as you can possibly make. Even Samsung has more skin in the game at this point. The only logical explanation, given Intel's history, is that they're desperate for customers and need help from the fed. If this is our plan to win the "AI cold war" then we've already lost.

Re: US Intel

#226

Post by twoodfin »

vonneumannstan wrote: post #100
zoeysmithe wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a real folly in capitalist countries thinking they can be self-sufficient walled castles. Capitalism by its nature will seek out the lowest cost be it in labor or manufacturing. That means often means outsourcing. Our system has no breaks for this. In fact it works actively for this, hence the neolib ideal of "just move towards efficiencies, and let the chips fall where they may." This is ideal under capitali…

>Also what exactly happens if intel goes under? We have to buy 'foreign' licensed ARM? Manufacture in Asia? We're already doing that. And we have AMD which is a good, if not, superior product, regardless of manufacturing locale. We don't need local fabs the same way we don't need local factories for a lot of other things. You can't just depress wages with a wave of a hand nor do tariffs work outside of some really fo…

What happens if there’s a global pandemic next month and every industry experiences massive labor and supply chain disruption?

It sucks for a while; the system is strong and adapts.

I appreciate fabs are multi-year, massive capital investments, but TSMC already has one up and running in Arizona. There are others (including owned by Intel) all around the world. They won’t go poof when INTC is no more.

Re: US Intel

#227

Post by Workaccount2 »

makestuff wrote: post #126
bix6 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s ridiculous. It’s so easy to find VC funding for software but heaven forbid you try and make agricultural innovations. Biotech is slightly better but still a struggle. Hardware only counts right now if it’s defense tech but even then people would rather have another SaaS.

Yeah seeing the innovations DJI is making in agriculture makes me wonder why VCs do not want to fund other startups like it. I know the margins are worse and it takes way more capital to fund hardware companies, but that has to be better than funding another chat-gpt wrapper. I guess that is why I am not a VC though lol.

To fund a software start-up you need 5 people and 5 laptops to get to tens of millions of value.

To fund a similar sized hardware start-up you need a full lab andddd already the proposition is dead.

Re: US Intel

#228

Post by lumost »

georgeburdell wrote: post #23
themgt wrote: post #7

I’ll be honest: there is a very good chance this won’t work .... At the same time, the China concerns are real, Intel Foundry needs a guarantee of existence to even court customers, and there really is no coming back from an exit. There won’t be a startup to fill Intel’s place. The U.S. will be completely dependent on foreign companies for the most important products on earth, and while everything may seem fine for t…

If I may add my view as a formerly high-achieving semiconductor worker that Intel would benefit greatly from having right now, a lot of us pivoted to software and machine learning to earn more money. My first 2 years as a software engineer earned me more RSUs than a decade in semiconductors. Semiconductors is not prestigious work in the U.S., despite the strategic importance. By contrast, it is highly respected and r…

Honestly, I don’t think US wages make sense any longer. We have extraordinarily profitable semi companies that don’t pay more than a third of what non profitable startups are paying software engineers.

The issue seems to be one of negotiation power as the determinate of wages taken to an extreme - leading to companies taking a monopoly position, paying poorly, then falling to foreign competition due to lack of talent.

Re: US Intel

#229

Post by Workaccount2 »

jandrese wrote: post #113
marbro wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We outsourced manufacturing because it's not very profitable. The Mag 7 make 50x as much money as TSMC. Apple and Microsoft are the most profitable businesses in history.

The problem is when importance is not reflected in the quarterly profit margin.

The true place where the government should steer the ship of the market.

Re: US Intel

#230

Post by Gormo »

avidphantasm wrote: post #105

Foundries aren’t the only special case. The test should be, if we can’t afford for it to fail, it shouldn’t be left to the market. Another example? Farms. Also healthcare (expect to hear more on this front in the next few years as more and more hospitals go under, especially in rural areas).

Well, "the market" is just a descriptive model that represents the aggregated pattern of economic activity within society -- there is no "outside" of the market, and everyone, including political states, are just market participants.

Arguing against things being "left to the market" in the abstract is not sufficient to address the particular incentives that are producing undesirable outcomes, and does not offer any viable mechanism for shifting those incentives.

Specific proposals that attempt to operationalize what you're arguing here always seem to gravitate toward giving monopolistic power to a specific institution that invariably demonstrates that its own incentive structures are riskier than those in the broader market, and its failure modalities far more destructive.

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