Few inventions have had as much impact on the modern world as semiconductors. And few industries change as rapidly as the semiconductor industry.
Is Moore’s Law still true? What happens in AMD’s battle with Intel & NVIDIA? What is the impact of custom silicon?
All this and more as we break down AMD!
To break down the details, both behind the company and the industry, I’m joined by Jay Goldberg, a semiconductor industry consultant at D2D Advisory and Partner at Snowcloud Capital.
Show Notes
[00:00:00] – Introduction
[00:02:27] – [First question] – Where to start when it comes to understanding semiconductors
[00:04:21] – Why semiconductors were created in the first place
[00:04:57] – Key milestones and players in the semiconductor industry
[00:07:35] – What are the factors that determine who wins and loses
[00:08:37] – The semiconductor industry map today writ large
[00:12:05] – How the changing geopolitical landscape affects power in this sector
[00:14:15] – Why we can’t just throw unlimited money at this problem to solve it
[00:15:30] – Whether or not chip businesses are actually defensible and good businesses
[00:17:37] – Differences between CPUs and GPUs and how everything we do uses them
[00:22:56] – AMD’s history with CPUs and GPUs and how they’ve evolved over time
[00:26:55] – Why there is such a high barrier to enter and disrupt the chip design market
[00:31:54] – A future where we transition to specific and specialized use-case chips
[00:35:36] – Companies like Google and Apple building their own in-house chips
[00:38:55] – Other industries where this dynamic exists outside of semiconductors
[00:41:57] – The scope and economics of AMD today
[00:44:26] – What’s important to know about AMD and Intel’s capital allocation strategies
[00:47:28] – What he’d focus on if he was the capital allocator for a big chip company
[00:48:55] – One major lesson that this industry has taught him about investing
[00:50:28] – Major lessons about AMD and the world writ large that isn’t addressed yet