I know the founders of an AI chip company that taped out and got working chips on their first go. They got their chip done, it’s pretty solid. Chip has great perf and is super power efficient, a solid delivery. I knew they'd nail it and they did.

The SW story is a train wreck, though. The problem basically was that they couldn’t hire any good SW peo... See more

From 2012, to 2016, to 2020, google bled an incredible amount of key talent

I think that was kinda known in the valley, but not sure any media really covered it

Honestly a lot of the blame goes to Larry Page for turning the company toward G+, pushing top people toward Gundotra, the product failing quite badly, and Larry stepping back as CEO

My view of... See more

At CodeSandbox we use Firecracker for hosting development environments, and I agree with the points. Though I don't think that means you should not use Firecracker for running long-lived workloads.

We reclaim memory with a memory balloon device, for the disk trimming we discard (& compress) the disk, and for i/o speed we use io_uring (which we o... See more

I really like the approach of Netflix of 10 years ago when it was still small. They hired mature people so they could get rid of processes. Indeed, they actually tried to de-process everything. As a result, things just happened. Non-event was often mentioned and expected in Netflix at that time. Case in point, active-active regions just happened in... See more

To start with, leaders must not be afraid of their teams making mistakes. Copying from another comment: "Netflix's culture demands very strong leadership and probably works only when the company is small enough. From CEO and down, leaders in every level need to know how to set context for their teams, give enough freedom to their teams, while makin... See more

Google has turned into the "new IBM" for years now. I've worked with Google engineers and managers from different "generations". It's shocking how the newer engineers are just your average consultancy engineer with leet code practice. They have little abstracting capabilities and would be pissed-off if you use some tool/workflow that's not "The Goo... See more

I worked on Google Maps monetization, and then on Maps itself.

Monetization was a dismal failure. I don't know how well they're doing now, but Maps was a gigantic money-loser, forever. I'd be a little surprised if it didn't still lose money, but maybe less. I don't what those "pin ads" cost, but I'd bet it's way less than a search ad.

If you don't be... See more

Just want to share these relevant videos from Asianometry:

How Semiconductors Ruined East Germany

https://youtu.be/cxrkC-pMH_s

Why Europe Lost Semiconductors

https://youtu.be/5ZdmS-EAbHo

Europe’s Lost Decades in Semiconductors

https://youtu.be/PpSdytrNEBg

It's great to get chip manufacturing back to Germany after all the struggles, even if it's not cuttin... See more

A major limitation exists for spaced repetition software (e.g. Anki, SuperMemo, or other flashcard-style systems), in my experience using them for several years for long-term memory: it's neither necessary nor sufficient to use this software to learn certain topics.

Several excellent physics and math students I worked with have never used spaced rep... See more

There is an all out war for search supremacy right now between two trillion dollar companies, with one having everything to win and the other everything to lose. In those circumstances a standard VC model of buying growth does not work even if you have a huge war chest, as you will be outspent no matter how big your investors are.

As a founder of a ... See more