[areddyyt]

We were waiting for a Bitnet-based software and hardware stack, particularly from Microsoft, but it never did. We were essentially nerd-sniped into working on this problem, then we realized it was also monetizable.

On a side note, I deeply looked into every company in the space and was thoroughly unimpressed with how little they cared about the software stack to make their hardware seamlessly work. So, even if I did go to work at some other hardware company, I doubt a lot of customers would utilize the hardware.

[danjl]

I recommend getting a job at NVIDIA. They care deeply about SW. It is a great place to learn about HW and the supporting SW. There is much to learn. Maybe you will learn why you are unimpressed with their SW offerings. For me, the hard part was the long lead time (8+ years) from design to customers using the product. One of the things that always amazed me about NVIDIA was that so many of the senior architects, who have no financial need to keep working (true for more than a decade), are still working there because they need the company to do what they love.

[areddyyt]

I think there is a comment somewhere here where I comment on NVIDIA, but I think NVIDIA is the best hardware company for making good software. We had a very niche software issue for which NVIDIA maintained open-source repos. I don't think NVIDIA's main advantage is its hardware, though; I think it's the software and the flexibility it brings to its hardware.

Suppose that Transformers die tomorrow, and Mamba becomes all the rage. The released Mamba code already has CUDA kernels for inference and training. Any of the CSPs or other NVIDIA GPU users can switch their entire software stack to train and inference Mamba models. Meanwhile, we'll be completely dead in the water with similar companies that made the same bet, like Etched.