Jim Keller: Moore's Law, Microprocessors, and First Principles | Lex Fridman Podcast #70

Jim Keller is a legendary microprocessor engineer, having worked at AMD, Apple, Tesla, and now Intel. He's known for his work on the AMD K7, K8, K12 and Zen microarchitectures, Apple A4, A5 processors, and co-author of the specifications for the x86-64 instruction set and HyperTransport interconnect.

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OUTLINE:
0:00 - Introduction
2:12 - Difference between a computer and a human brain
3:43 - Computer abstraction layers and parallelism
17:53 - If you run a program multiple times, do you always get the same answer?
20:43 - Building computers and teams of people
22:41 - Start from scratch every 5 years
30:05 - Moore's law is not dead
55:47 - Is superintelligence the next layer of abstraction?
1:00:02 - Is the universe a computer?
1:03:00 - Ray Kurzweil and exponential improvement in technology
1:04:33 - Elon Musk and Tesla Autopilot
1:20:51 - Lessons from working with Elon Musk
1:28:33 - Existential threats from AI
1:32:38 - Happiness and the meaning of life

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[lexfridman]

I really enjoyed this conversation with Jim. Here's the outline:
0:00 - Introduction
2:12 - Difference between a computer and a human brain
3:43 - Computer abstraction layers and parallelism
17:53 - If you run a program multiple times, do you always get the same answer?
20:43 - Building computers and teams of people
22:41 - Start from scratch every 5 years
30:05 - Moore's law is not dead
55:47 - Is superintelligence the next layer of abstraction?
1:00:02 - Is the universe a computer?
1:03:00 - Ray Kurzweil and exponential improvement in technology
1:04:33 - Elon Musk and Tesla Autopilot
1:20:51 - Lessons from working with Elon Musk
1:28:33 - Existential threats from AI
1:32:38 - Happiness and the meaning of life

[soumyarooproy]

Jim's super cool and also very respected in the industry. He was a big inspiration for me early on in my career. I was a fairly junior CPU performance engineer at AMD when Jim joined AMD in 2012 (he'd worked at AMD earlier in his career too). I worked on the Zen program, which was being led by Jim. I saw him at my gym one morning, deadlifting 275 lbs (or maybe more) and I went up to him and introduced myself. He was super friendly and continued to be so whenever I'd run into him. We'd exchange our personal bests in lifting. IIRC, he was in his mid 50's then. Given the similarity in our backgrounds (CPU design) and his professional achievements and his amazing discipline, it was a no-brainer for me to aspire to be like him.

[olekkuvppl]

Oh my god Silicon Ronin himself.

Silicon Ronin has no home. He goes from impossible task to next impossible task and builds his miracles.

Jim is a man of focus, commitment, sheer will... something you know very little about. I once saw him design a FPGA in a bar... with a pencil, with a fucking pencil.

Then suddenly one day he asked to leave. So I made a deal with him. I gave him an impossible task. A job no one could have pulled off.

To make AMD competitive again and he succeeded . The architecture choices he made that day laid the foundation of what we are now.

[temprd]

Could watch this one on a loop indefinitely. So many good tidbits in here.

[spacekidastro]

This guy's really well spoken on things and he stands on what he says, great interview👌🏽

[psychotogether]

These Lexures are nothing short of amazing. Don’t change anything. Your voice is yours.

[hoolerboris]

New video is out. I've never heard of the guest. His field is microprocessors, which I've never thought of as something interesting.
Turns out to be one of the wisest humans I've listened to and possibly the best hour and a half of listening experience I've had in my life. Jim is incredibly insightful about technology, science, and just the human condition in general. Thanks Lex for making stuff like this possible.

[deesmods]

Jim's work has changed so many peoples lives, including mine.

[jato]

Best podcast I have heard in a while. A very refreshing guest!

[ShiroKage]

One thing that's incredible is that Jim doesn't "err" or "umm" at all, or almost at all. It's crazy how present all the stuff he's taking about is in his mind.

[andrewm]

I like how Jim isn't afraid to make Lex question his entire career

[KabzieMusic]

This is a man at the cutting edge of his field.

[samerm]

What an incredible cocktail of a personality! Humble and down to earth, while seamlessly savage and large as a star at the same time.

[keybraker]

Jim is an absolute legend. Cool, thoughtful, smart and humble.
I need more Keller in my life.

[YinnonHaviv]

IMO, this is definitely one of the best interviews by Lex. I found Jim Keller to be a version of Elon Musk with improved communication skills and more grounded/effective approach to projects. Thank you Jim for the insights and Lex for facilitating the interview, it was truly fascinating.

[hrishabhrajput]

Thanks Lex! I am a big fan of Jim Keller. I somewhere heard that the microprocessor industry is just this guy competing with himself. He is hired by different companies to beat the processor he had built previously at other company.

[micosair]

This is the guy behind the Ryzen series of processors which brought AMD back from the dead.

[brandonb]

i've listened to many of these while at work in headphones, but this one in particular happened to resonate with me in a special way... thanks for being awesome

[rubenpinamonti]

I've watched this whole interview 3 times already; this man has me mesmerized.
What truly wondrous intellect and wisdom.

[remixisthis]

Love the way he thinks and talks. No bs, straight to the point, and able to apply first principles and analogies immediately. Always locked in sharp thought. Makes the conversation better by challenging Lex with no ego