Exowatt requires rethinking the solar energy system entirely. This is meant to be bolted onto an existing solar panel field that is mostly selling energy to the grid, but gets curtailed sometimes
(this is also why AMD popped 10% at open yesterday - this is a new development and talks from their 2025 "Advancing AI" event were published late last week + over the weekend)
Yeah it's still a few years behind but it's getting better. They are hiring software and tooling engineers like crazy. I keep tabs on some of the job slots companies have in our area and every time I check AMD they always have tons of new slots for software, firmware, and tooling (and this has been the case for ~3 years now).
They've been playing catch up after "the bad old days" when they had to let a bunch of people go to avoid going under but it looks like they are catching back up to speed. Now it's just a matter of giving all those new engineers a few years to get their software world in order.
They pay hardware rates to software engineers (principal engineer at the salary level of a decent fresh graduate) so I won't be too optimistic about them attracting software people that would propel them forward.
If you are what AMD needs to catch up then you can just go work for NVidia for 3x the pay. This market sucks but top tier engineers in the niche they need are not a dime a dozen.
What I said was: “it’ll likely make up for lower compensation.”
The point is, someone might join AMD because they believe in the mission, not just for the paycheck. I followed that with: “It isn’t always about the money,” which is consistent with my original comment.
The real subtext is something I care deeply about: Nvidia is a monopoly. If AI is truly a transformative technology, we can’t rely on a single company for all the hardware and software. Viable alternatives are essential. I believe in this vision so strongly that I started a company to give developers access to enterprise grade AMD compute, back when no one was taking AMD seriously in AI. (Queue the HN troll saying that nobody still does.)
If the stock goes up while they’re there, great, that’s a bonus.
Your original comment only talked about compensation and why AMD's stock might make up for lower pay. This thread tangent (starting with your comment) was about compensation and explaining why working for AMD, if your goal is to maximize profit, is dumb. Adding "well there are other reasons" after your original comment doesn't change your original comment where you had none of that context.
In the context of maximizing compensation, working for AMD is dumb. Your own comments support this.
This looks to be about the point where this exchange turned into a tit-for-spat...a really bad one. This is not what HN is for, so please avoid this in the future. I know it isn't always easy to do that, but you both violated the site rules really badly here.
"Then why is your original comment about compensation?"
I answered your very specific question, even gave you my own additional context as a friendly thing to do, and now you are going off on some sort of maximizing rant for what purpose?
This looks to be about the point where this exchange turned into a tit-for-spat...a really bad one. This is not what HN is for, so please avoid this in the future. I know it isn't always easy to do that, but you both violated the site rules really badly here.
I guess what I was politely trying to say is your original comment is misleading and pointless if your actual point is that things besides what you mentioned in your original comment are what really matter. So my point was - why make the original comment at all if it wasn't what you meant?
You don't think it's misleading to talk about how working at AMD can make you more money because of the stock appreciation, despite this being objectively incorrect due to it being a public company, when you don't think the reason to work for AMD is because of money?
Sure, agree to disagree. You have been anything but clear.
You go to work at ANY company, public, private, whatever.
You probably get stock options.
Those stock options can gain or lose value over time.
Generally, the incentive for options is that by working at the company, you're contributing to the overall value of the company, which makes those options more valuable.
I believe there’s more to choosing a company than just money. I don’t work at my own company for the paycheck. I’ve put in decades of hard work and I’m fortunate enough not to need the money. I’m driven by a bigger mission: helping AMD become a real alternative to a monopoly. Nothing more, nothing less.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear to you. But when I was, you called my comment pointless and misleading. Now you’re just making it personal in an effort to psychopathically prove I’m somehow unclear. That’s not okay. Get over yourself, go outside, touch grass, whatever. I’m done engaging with you.
You do not need to work for a public company to own stock in that company. You can work at another company and simply buy that stock and get the same benefit.
I think you should take your own advice and go outside and touch grass. Cheers.
> You do not need to work for a public company to own stock in that company. You can work at another company and simply buy that stock and get the same benefit.
You have to work for the company to truly affect change within the company. That's the point you're missing.
If you really think whatever contributions you make to AMD with tens of thousands of employees are going to move the stock price so much that it's a better investment than working somewhere else that pays 3x better, then you're the one that needs to get over yourself.
Again, it isn't always about the money. 100% yes, a single individual can have a huge effect on a company and the stock price. Look at what Anush is doing and the stock price action since he started his new role.
Why you keep trying to make this personal, is beyond me. Feels aggressive and uncalled for.
You’re forbidden from shorting. Buying is completely allowed unless you are classified an insider and even then trades are open for I believe a month after quarterly results.
They pay terrible and still have legacy old guard managers. If you try to innovate on software you should look elsewhere or really make sure your manager knows what’s what
FWIW for the first time in 2+ years I managed to compile llama.cpp with ROCm out of the box and run a model with no problems* on Linux (actually under WSL2 as well), with no weirdness or errors.
Every time I have tried this previously it has failed with some cryptic errors.
So from this very small test it has got way better recently.
*Did have problems enabling the WMMA extensions though. So not perfect yet.
Oh I'm sure you are right its operator error, but I'd always have some issue installing rocm and getting the paths right or something. This is the first time I've managed to install rocm following the commands exactly and then compile llama.cpp without having to adjust anything.
BTW, this kind of dev experience does really matter. I'm sure it was possible to get working previously; but I didn't have the level of interest to make it work - even if it was somewhat trivial. Being able to compile out of the box makes a big difference. And AFIAK this new version is the first to properly support WSL2, which means I don't have to dual boot to even try and get it working. It's a big improvement.
You can blame the user for not using the tools correctly or the manufacturer for making difficult to use tools that aren’t straightforward or don’t work in various non happy path conditions (ie unreliable installers).
For example, to this day installing MSVC doesn’t make a default sane compiler available in a terminal - you have to open their shortcut that sets up environment variables and you have to just know this is how MSVC works. Is this a user problem or Microsoft failing to follow same conventions ever other toolchain installer follows?
Yes I'd agree with that. There is so much demand for inference which is maturing rapidly that even if a lot of the "R&D" is done on NVidia cards because of their (vastly, let's be fair) software stack, if AMD is competitive on the inference side (and perhaps more importantly have shorter lead times) then doing the inference on AMD is still an enormous market.
I suspect we will (or already are?) at a point where 95%+ of GPUs are used for inference, not training.
Just check eBay. If you want it to turn out good, it’s best to go and see. If we’re talking about $1200 parcels, it costs more to vet than to buy. Just look it over and judge the best you can on the information you can gather, and accept the 30 percent risk that it won’t be what you expected in some way or another. Or, go there. Not worth paying a title agency or any of that crap. Be sure of any tax burden (easily researched) and what the annual taxes, if any , will be.
Do you have more advice for finding land to buy other than using ebay?
I've been looking for a while for a few acres of unimproved/secluded/wooded land within an hour or two drive away from me here in Kansas, mostly just for bushcrafting or tooling around. The only place I really know to check is Zillow, and while there are a few listings in my distance range, they're typically upwards of $10k/acre. I just checked ebay and saw parcels priced much closer to what I'd expect for unimproved land out in the middle of nowhere, but I couldn't find any in my middle of nowhere, just several states away.
I'm pretty sure there's tons of completely unused land all over the place here that people would be willing to get rid of for cheap, but I have no idea how to find those people. I've considered just going to every small town within an hour of me and posting a "will buy" ad on whatever bulletin boards I'm allowed to post stuff on, but for now I'm still holding out hope that there's a better way. Tips?
An absurd amount of land is held by people that don't even know it. They aren't looking to sell generally. Lots of inherited and placed in trusts over generations.
Use q public, or whatever is in your area and search for land recently acquired by an estate. Pretty much that means the owner died, there was no clear line of inheritance do typically a distant relative or random person is selling the estate. Try to buy it.
The other is legal notices and government bid sites. You can buy tax owed land, laws vary by state.
Well, the trick to finding it cheap is to not look for anything/anywhere specific, so I doubt I can help with that. It’s not that I am good at it, it’s that when I’m momentarily bored, I’m not in a picky mood. If it’s cheap and I can imagine a life there, no matter how humble, and it makes me smile, then my wife is probably going to be asking me questions I don’t have good answers for and I’m going to have to work on a reasonable explanation that doesn’t sound like I’ve finally gone off the deep end.
It’s pretty much all eBay for me or local equivalents in other countries. So many rabbit holes.
