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Hermann Hauser: ‘It’s in Nvidia’s Interests to Destroy Arm’

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Re: Hermann Hauser: ‘It’s in Nvidia’s Interests to Destroy Arm’

#51

Post by kevingadd »

rvz wrote: post #15

The UK is actually the one that has ignored and destroyed ARM (and Imagination Technologies) and it has been compared to 'selling off the crown jewels' [0] to SoftBank which was welcomed by a UK government cabinet minister in 2016 as a 'big vote of confidence in British business.' [1] Actually, SoftBank got ARM at a special Brexit discount. For them, they saw it as the best deal of 2016 and for the UK, you might as w…

The withering death of Imagination Technologies isn't just bad for the UK tech industry either, IMO it slowed the progress of graphics technology, at least on mobile. I think it's inevitable that Apple would have taken all their graphics work in-house (as they did eventually) but given how successful the PowerVR chipset family was on mobile for a long time - and how robust their tech and overall design were - I suspect they could have kept doing well if the company remained well-funded and well-operated. Not only was Apple shipping their tech in phones, but Sony was shipping it in every PlayStation Vita as well.

In another world, I could imagine the Nintendo Switch running on PowerVR tech. Instead, it's an NVIDIA SoC (not a bad one, to be fair)

Re: Hermann Hauser: ‘It’s in Nvidia’s Interests to Destroy Arm’

#52

Post by klelatti »

imtringued wrote: post #23

It's this short sighted argument. If Nvidia "destroys" Arm then they just end up flushing a billion dollars down the drain. ARM's is important because it's what everyone uses. Once Nvidia destroys it nobody will use it and therefore Nvidia will gain no leverage. If anything, once Nvidia buys ARM it will have to keep it alive.

Nvidia's actions with ARM will impact two distinct parts of Nvidia's business: the Nvidia ARM based SoC / CPU business and the residual ARM IP licensing business. It is perfectly possible do something that generates greater benefits for the SoC business than the cost to the licensing business. For example, denying access to the latest ARM designs to competitors would benefit the SoC / CPU business.

Intel makes a lot more money as (a dominant) duopoly supplier of x86 than ARM will ever do licensing its IP.

So when Hauser talks about 'destroying' ARM he really means destroying the existing business model - and that will not necessarily mean flushing money down the drain. Rather it may mean making Nvidia a very profitable dominant supplier of ARM SoCs.

Re: Hermann Hauser: ‘It’s in Nvidia’s Interests to Destroy Arm’

#53

Post by thrwyoilarticle »

MaxBarraclough wrote: post #8

> would not only strike a blow to the UK’s technological sovereignty ARM is currently owned by a Japanese conglomerate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arm_Holdings

Before that it was listed on the FTSE and NASDAQ, so owned by international investors. So what?

Re: Hermann Hauser: ‘It’s in Nvidia’s Interests to Destroy Arm’

#54

Post by almost_usual »

rvz wrote: post #15

The UK is actually the one that has ignored and destroyed ARM (and Imagination Technologies) and it has been compared to 'selling off the crown jewels' [0] to SoftBank which was welcomed by a UK government cabinet minister in 2016 as a 'big vote of confidence in British business.' [1] Actually, SoftBank got ARM at a special Brexit discount. For them, they saw it as the best deal of 2016 and for the UK, you might as w…

WeWork imploding and other portfolio companies not doing as well as expected could also be influencing the sale.

Re: Hermann Hauser: ‘It’s in Nvidia’s Interests to Destroy Arm’

#55

Post by tcldr »

ArkVark wrote: post #48
tcldr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I attended a talk in the UK at Google Campus in London by Eric Schmidt. At the end of the talk there was some Q&A and one very apparently angry and frustrated member of the audience asked something along the lines of 'Do you think it's fair for Google and other big American Tech firms to keep buying up innovative and valuable British and European companies!?' Eric Schmidt immediately replied 'Well if you don't want u…

Extreme wealth is not valued in Europe. To the contrary, income (even upper-middle class income) and consumption is incredibly highly taxed. Many small and mid-sized business struggle or refuse to scale because it exposes them, their owners and management to taxes which cannot be escaped (by contrast small businesses can pay their staff in cash, and charge personal expenses to business accounts for VAT writeoffs). Al…

This could be a factor but I'm not sure that this is the complete picture.

Having lived on both sides of the Atlantic, I would say it felt much easier to start a business in the UK: Healthcare is covered, believe it or not there is less bureaucracy, there's great digital banking options that the US is only just getting its head around, etc. In Europe I always felt I had a safety net to fall back on if my business failed – not so in the US.

My own hypothesis is that the European stock exchanges aren't a particularly attractive place for an IPO. London's AIM, isn't quite the NASDAQ. The US tech stocks are now worth more than the entire European stock market according to Bank of America Global Research.

And so I think it's always in the back of a Founder's mind – not to mention their investors – that they'll have better liquidity if they're packaged as a US inc. to start with – and if not just sell to one.

Hopefully with Sequoia opening an office in London though, this will begin to change.

Re: Hermann Hauser: ‘It’s in Nvidia’s Interests to Destroy Arm’

#56

Post by DrScientist »

ChuckNorris89 wrote: post #47
DrScientist wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few observations from person experience of working in small startups, and large companies. Being part of companies that were sold, and being both ends of attempted takeovers, all in comparison to what I've seen in US companies. 1. In terms of sensible investment, what I've seen is that success breeds success - one success creates wealthy individuals with experience that can lead or by part of the next round. 2. UK…

>2. UK markets are quite conservative, cautious and by and large dominated by people who don't understand science and technology, compounding the problem. Haha, me laughing then crying in underpaid German conservatism that dwarfs the British one. You guys don't know how good you have it. Brexit aside, London is still Europe's biggest tech capital by a long shot and devs there can make way more than anywhere in Europe…

I think software is a little different than other tech/science companies.

Typically they need less upfront investment ( unless you go the buy customer route a la Uber etc - but the jury is out on whether they will ever pay back their investors ), and can grow much quicker and so are less constrained by institutional investors.

London is certainly very good for things like Fintech which employs a lot of software people on good salaries in London. But then city investors understand Fintech.

My experience is mostly hard science tech, rather than software per se.

I'd consider quite a lot of the software 'tech' companies to really be business model innovation companies rather than 'software' innovations ( ie software that's really hard to write ). The tech bubble classic example in London was lastminute.com - a holiday clearing house website - who's founders didn't understand the technology side.

One technical area the UK is strong in is ML - Googles deepmind started in London, and machine learning for Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft all worked on up the road in Cambridge. Again seeded by small companies bought by larger foreign companies.

Re: Hermann Hauser: ‘It’s in Nvidia’s Interests to Destroy Arm’

#57

Post by SXX »

shmerl wrote: post #43
SXX wrote: post #33

People who say that Nvidia "gonna destroy ARM" know nothing about Nvidia. All their history Nvidia live on lock-in integrations and for profiting from that they need ARM alive and thriving. A lot of open source folks might hate it, but Nvidia is R&D heavy company. Every year they come up with many new proprietary technologies that help them to keep perceived leadership and also keeps everyone locked-in into their tec…

Company which is heavily pushing lock-in shouldn't be allowed to buy ARM, since it can cause too much damage by it. Lock-in is not a driver of innovation, it's a brake on it.

I talked with you on several different platforms over years and I'm also a bit of open source zealot. But the deal is: reason why Nvidia able to keep their lock-in going for decades is because they actually do invest a lot into R&D and take risks.

There simply very few companies that doing it. Big reason why Intel and AMD have their open source teams is because that's give them edge against Nvidia. All we see from Nvidia competitors is just reimplementation of the same tech Nvidia already had, but once AMD have some good tech they keep it proprietary too.

ARM space is already locked-in and fully-proprietary company (Apple) have leadership. I don't see how Nvidia getting into competition can make it any worse.

Re: Hermann Hauser: ‘It’s in Nvidia’s Interests to Destroy Arm’

#58

Post by AgloeDreams »

ArkVark wrote: post #48
tcldr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I attended a talk in the UK at Google Campus in London by Eric Schmidt. At the end of the talk there was some Q&A and one very apparently angry and frustrated member of the audience asked something along the lines of 'Do you think it's fair for Google and other big American Tech firms to keep buying up innovative and valuable British and European companies!?' Eric Schmidt immediately replied 'Well if you don't want u…

Extreme wealth is not valued in Europe. To the contrary, income (even upper-middle class income) and consumption is incredibly highly taxed. Many small and mid-sized business struggle or refuse to scale because it exposes them, their owners and management to taxes which cannot be escaped (by contrast small businesses can pay their staff in cash, and charge personal expenses to business accounts for VAT writeoffs). Al…

That article is incredibly insane and use of it clearly invalidates any other statement you made here.

It even goes as far to basically blame the poor for their own poverty. It makes zero consideration for the higher health care costs or general cost of living differences between America and Europe (for example: The average European does not need to own a car, does not need expensive heating or extreme cooling, and their healthcare costs are far cheaper) The most notable bit is healthcare, as the hilarious math says 'well the CHIP benefits save them X thousands of $ vs out of pocket costs!' (Because healthcare costs WAY more in the US) but the purchasing power index is not biased in that category so it accounts the same.

Might I add that the author's main book is about proving the bible is true and that the earth is 7000 years old from a 'I think it is true so here are my mental gymnastics ' perspective.

Re: Hermann Hauser: ‘It’s in Nvidia’s Interests to Destroy Arm’

#59

Post by ativzzz »

ethbr0 wrote: post #32
Gravityloss wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think Paul Graham went to the UK once to try to find technology investors. Once. (Can't find that essay right now.)

Speaking to something I have little experience with, but 'old, @&$@-you money isn't adventurous' would seem to apply.

Makes sense. If I had old f you money, I'd be more concerned about preserving it for multiple generations than growing it significantly.

Re: Hermann Hauser: ‘It’s in Nvidia’s Interests to Destroy Arm’

#60

Post by coldtea »

Ygg2 wrote: post #18
coldtea wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm pretty sure Hermann Hauser is aware of this, since he co-found and later sold ARM. He doesn't consider the Japanese conglomerate owing ARM a blow to the UK's technological sovereignty, but he does for Nvidia.

Didn't he complain about Japanese conglomerate owning ARM as well?

Less strongly. But Softbank etc were also less heavy handed than an Nvidia would be...
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