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Intel Honesty

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Re: Intel Honesty

#61

Post by highfrequency »

reaperman wrote: post #27
andy_xor_andrew wrote: post #6

US chip production really needs its SpaceX moment, but it seems like it will never happen, and we're left with the crumbling empire of Intel. By "SpaceX moment", I mean a startup entering an impossible market, where the barrier to entry is billions of dollars of research and manufacturing, a market dominated by industry giants from the 60s, and yet still coming out on top somehow.

> a market dominated by industry giants from the 60s The thing is, the SpaceX moment occurred because of a rare opportunity where the industry incumbents were insulated from any competition or need for innovation for ~30 years. Some domestic industries still operate in an environment somewhat like this (e.g. the steel industry), but still face modernized global competition (albeit whose effects are kept at bay via im…

Nice analysis on competitive dynamics of semiconductor industry vs. space industry in the 2000s.

> I'm not aware of any other industries which are quite as far "behind" today as space launch systems were in 2010. But if anyone else is, please mention those industries here!

Digital payments may be in a similar situation. Visa's 2% fee may seem low but from a scale and competitive standpoint it is fairly absurd - they are making 80% gross margins on $30b of revenue to do what boils down to a few API calls and some fraud repayment. I doubt that they need to do much innovation to keep that moat either (in contrast to say Apple and their 30% cut of App Store revenues - they need to constantly stay ahead of Android and Windows).

Curious to hear your take on what other industries at least come close to the space dynamics in 2010.

Re: Intel Honesty

#62

Post by bee_rider »

Maken wrote: post #53
bee_rider wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main reason there will never be a “year of Linux on the desktop” is that desktops became irrelevant before Microsoft became… whatever it is now.

Another ad company?

Yeah.

But like, also an ad company with no QA? Like Google is somewhat evil I think, but they are intensely competent in a way that Microsoft is not.

Re: Intel Honesty

#63

Post by jjtheblunt »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #33
davidw wrote: post #5

The geopolitical bit of all this is the real wild card. No one really knows what's going to happen there.

Yeah, you've got Apple, Nvidia and AMD heavily exposed to that geopolitical risk, but seemingly not willing to help lessen it by investing in US fabs. Whenever I note this people here and elsewhere say "they're smart to be fabless" but somebody's gotta run fabs and more fabs need to be run in the US and quickly. I realize industrial policy isn't in vogue these days but it might be a good idea for the future of US sem…

Apple is heavily invested in the new TSMC fab in the US east of the north end of Phoenix, last i read; not sure how arranged that marriage really is, but perhaps tax incentives for TSMC facilitated Apple plans to heavily utilize it.

(trying to find linkable articles...like this

https://www.theverge.com/2022/12/6/23497417/apple-tsmc-phoen...

) ; p.s. i wonder if only i compulsively balance lisp parens

Re: Intel Honesty

#64

Post by ripjaygn »

psunavy03 wrote: post #36
rowanG077 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll gladly take another Elon for siliconX. Hell I'd take 10. The good Elon has done in terms of his companies vastly outweigh the few bad tweets he slings into the world once in a while.

I don't get how some people struggle with the idea that he may simultaneously be a gifted businessman (in certain sectors, obviously Twitter was a disaster) and also simultaneously be a raging asshole. Bill Gates was a raging asshole. Steve Jobs was a raging asshole. Larry Ellison was a raging asshole. It's not ideal, but it also doesn't preclude success.

It's about propaganda, if they keep saying Musk didn't found SpaceX(real comments on Reddit) and keep upvoting those comments, and downvoting anyone saying he did with sources, then eventually new folks will believe that he didn't found SpaceX.

On Reddit, mods of large subreddits like /r/news are permabanning people that just post an official SpaceX response and are censoring the comments. It's wild out there.

Re: Intel Honesty

#65

Post by amluto »

closeparen wrote: post #50

>Their pay in the Bay Area is double tsmc in taiwan for equivalent roles in raw dollar terms but the ppp differences means your better off working for tsmc in Taiwan than intel in the Bay Area. That’s not a joke. Intel are literally incapable of attracting talent from Taiwan right now. There's some whiplash in hearing constantly how the US is a corporate-dominated oligarchy, and then also seeing trillion-dollar indus…

Some of the issues are way downstream of those NIMBYs:

Non-housing costs are quite low in Taiwan. Food and childcare, in particular, are so much cheaper than California that it’s hard to believe.

But the NIMBYs aren’t totally in the clear. Rental housing with 3+ bedrooms (for families) is severely lacking in much of the US. Maybe fire codes are to blame. Taiwan is full of very nice new high-rise development that contains units with lots of bedrooms. Wandering around those developments and the new 3-story developments in California, the ones in Taiwan are much, much, much nicer, even from the outside. The NIMBYs should take note.

Re: Intel Honesty

#66

Post by kanwisher »

ac29 wrote: post #42
cherryteastain wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The semi spacex moment already happened - it was when TSMC was founded

1987? As near as I can tell there was nothing particularly remarkable about TSMC in the 1980s or 1990s.

It was one of the first foundries that focused on external ip and not producing its own chips

Re: Intel Honesty

#67

Post by ska »

highfrequency wrote: post #61
reaperman wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a market dominated by industry giants from the 60s The thing is, the SpaceX moment occurred because of a rare opportunity where the industry incumbents were insulated from any competition or need for innovation for ~30 years. Some domestic industries still operate in an environment somewhat like this (e.g. the steel industry), but still face modernized global competition (albeit whose effects are kept at bay via im…

Nice analysis on competitive dynamics of semiconductor industry vs. space industry in the 2000s. > I'm not aware of any other industries which are quite as far "behind" today as space launch systems were in 2010. But if anyone else is, please mention those industries here! Digital payments may be in a similar situation. Visa's 2% fee may seem low but from a scale and competitive standpoint it is fairly absurd - they…

From what i can see as an admitted outsider, payment rails are more complicated than they look, and most of the crypto partisans arguments to "replace" functionality are a mix of 'ignoring that part', or 'we don't want that part anyway' + a few API calls.

Problem is, the world consuming these things mostly seems to want those parts, and can't ignore those other parts. Which seems to explain relatively low uptake.

Re: Intel Honesty

#68

Post by newsclues »

ac29 wrote: post #42
cherryteastain wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The semi spacex moment already happened - it was when TSMC was founded

1987? As near as I can tell there was nothing particularly remarkable about TSMC in the 1980s or 1990s.

Tesla and SpaceX both took time before they started generating positive cashflow.

Re: Intel Honesty

#69

Post by ska »

ac29 wrote: post #42
cherryteastain wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The semi spacex moment already happened - it was when TSMC was founded

1987? As near as I can tell there was nothing particularly remarkable about TSMC in the 1980s or 1990s.

20 years for a hardware startup to get really going isn't unusual. One of the other reasons VC likes SAAS. Hardware startups are cash intensive and slow boils, typically.

Re: Intel Honesty

#70

Post by ryandrake »

psunavy03 wrote: post #36
rowanG077 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll gladly take another Elon for siliconX. Hell I'd take 10. The good Elon has done in terms of his companies vastly outweigh the few bad tweets he slings into the world once in a while.

I don't get how some people struggle with the idea that he may simultaneously be a gifted businessman (in certain sectors, obviously Twitter was a disaster) and also simultaneously be a raging asshole. Bill Gates was a raging asshole. Steve Jobs was a raging asshole. Larry Ellison was a raging asshole. It's not ideal, but it also doesn't preclude success.

It isn't required for success, either. If Elon Musk was never born, it is likely we'd still have SpaceX and Tesla equivalents, but with a better human being at the helm. A parallel universe also exists where Microsoft, Apple, and Oracle were not founded by raging assholes. The fact that these companies are all run by jerks is a terrible coincidence, but it does not necessarily need to be so.
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