arm ceo rene haas A unique, bird's-eye view of the tech industry. Their company's chip designs are in most of the devices you use on a daily basis, from your smartphone to your car. The SoftBank-backed company he leads is now worth about $150 billion, much more than Intel.
Earlier this week it was reported that Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger “retired” And with Intel evaluating its options for a potential spinoff or outright sale, I wanted to hear what Haas thought should happen with its longtime foe. There were reports that before Gelsinger was ousted, he had approached Intel about purchasing a majority share of the company. Also, Arm is rumored to be eyeing expansion into manufacturing its own chips, and not just licensing its designs.
Haas and I discussed all this in an exclusive interview earlier today, which will air in full in a future episode Decoder. (you can Listen to my episode about AI spending in the enterprise That also just came out.) In the meantime, I wanted to give subscribers a first look at highlights of my conversation with Haas.
The following interview has been edited and condensed:
Here's what he says about Intel's position:
As someone who has been in the industry my entire career, it's a little sad to see what's happening… Intel is an innovation powerhouse. Also, you have to do something new in our industry. There are plenty of tomes from great tech companies that don't reinvent themselves.
I think Intel's biggest dilemma is how to differentiate it from being a vertical company or a fabless company, to make it more simple. This is the fork in the road he has faced for the last decade. to pat [Gelsinger] There was a strategy which was very clear that vertical was the way to win. In my opinion, when they adopted that strategy in 2021, it was not a three-year strategy. That was a five to 10 year strategy. He has left and a new CEO has to be brought in and decisions have to be taken.
My personal bias says that vertical integration is a very powerful thing. If they can get this right, I think they'll be in a wonderful position. But the costs associated with it are so high that it may seem like a big hill to climb.
I am not going to comment on the rumors that we wanted to buy them. But I think, again, if you're a vertically integrated company and the strength of your strategy is in the fact that you have a product and you have fabs, then naturally, you have an advantage in terms of cost versus the competition. The potential is huge. When Pat was CEO, I said to him more than once, “You should license Arm because if you have your own fab, fab is all about volume and we can provide the volume.” I could not succeed in convincing him to do so.
On rumors that Arm will build its own AI chips:
If you're defining a computer architecture and you're building the future of computing, one of the things you need to pay a lot of attention to is the link between hardware and software in terms of really understanding Where the tradeoffs are being made, where the observations are being made about what the ultimate benefits to consumers are from a chip with that type of integration.
It's easier to do that if you're building something than if you're licensing the IP… If you're building something, you're much closer to that interlock, and you have the context of the design tradeoffs to make. I have a much better perspective. So, if we have to do something, this will be a reason.
On Arm's ongoing lawsuit with Qualcomm:
The current update is that it plans to begin testing on December 16, which isn't too far. I can appreciate – because we talk to investors and partners – that the thing they hate most is uncertainty. But on the other hand, I would say the principles of why we filed the claim remain unchanged.
On Sam Altman's prediction that AGI will arrive in 2025:
I know they have their own definitions for AGI and they have their own reasons for those definitions. I don't agree much about AGI vs ASI [artificial superintelligence]I wonder more about when these AI agents start thinking, reasoning, and inventing. For me, this is somewhat of a “crossing the Rubicon” moment… If you had asked me this question a year ago, I would have said it was still a long way off. Now you ask that question, [and] I'd say it's pretty close.
David Sachs on being named President-elect Donald Trump AI and Crypto Jar,
Thanks to them. I think this is a very good thing. It's quite interesting that if you go back eight years to Trump 1.0, where we were in December, when he was starting to fill out his Cabinet choices and appointments, it was a little chaotic. At the same time, there wasn't much representation from the tech world.
This time, whether it be ELON [Musk]whether it be david [Sacks]whether it be Discretion [Ramaswamy] – I know larry ellison Has been very, very involved in terms of discussions with the administration – I think that's a good thing. I think it's really good to have a seat at the table and have access to policy.
Samsung's shock
There are major leadership changes at Samsung Electronics this week, according to an internal memo I obtained. CEO of North America ks choi is out and has been replaced uni jong33 year veteran of the company. dave das Formerly co-head he now oversees the entire mobile business Brent Yu Going to Brazil to drive sales there. And Shane Higbee Now runs the following divisions: Home Entertainment, Displays and Digital Equipment. There were several other reshuffles at the C-level, but those are the highlights.
Samsung has been Restructuring across the board There have been layoffs in Choi's division for several months now and at the end of September, so this week's news isn't really a surprise. Perhaps the company has not yet announced this news externally because its Korean investors will be meeting in the US next week (a company representative had no comment as of press time).
“Our sales are down, especially in consumer electronics,” a company insider told me. “My guess is that we are not meeting our targets quarter-on-quarter and so that [Choi] Had to go.”
“You've probably evolved over the last eight years. he also has.”
it was fascinating to be in the audience at the dealbook summit for the first public interview jeff bezos Have done over the years. Although I probably should have expected it, I was still surprised by how loudly he screamed donald trump And his fanaticism for Blue Origin, Elon Musk,
Another part of the interview that stood out was when Bezos said he's spending a lot of time at Amazon, “95 percent” of which is focused on AI. Amazon announced this week NOVA family of foundational AI models Re:Invent on AWS – A Project I read this newspaper first earlier this year.
Amazon is clearly still leading the AI race, but it seems to have closed meaningful ground with Nova. If anything, this week shows how quickly the AI race is still changing. It feels like any big player could leap forward at any time. Even if you're an AI skeptic, it's pretty exciting.
somewhere
- It's an early Christmas for big tech's M&A teams: As expected, TikTok lost on appeal And there's still the threat of sanctions from the US next month, unless it somehow wins a Supreme Court victory, which seems incredibly unlikely. My sources say that, inside TikTok, leadership is maintaining radio silence from troops about today's news. It now seems highly likely that Trump – possibly with Musk's involvement – will push for some kind of deal. I can see Amazon, Google (especially considering I'm hearing search ads will be a big focus for TikTok next year), Microsoft (yes, maybe) again), Meta, and some other players would have placed the bid if they knew it would pass antitrust scrutiny.
- “not with a bang but a whimper.” While watching I remembered that line from TS Eliot Sam Altman Lower the bar for AGI This week on DealBook. OpenAI is apparently getting ready to announce that AGI has been reached next year so that it can officially become the next mega-profitable, possibly ad-driven commercial entity that it is already becoming. Contractually, saying it has reached AGI lets the company keep future profits, Making it a more attractive investment opportunity And not as dependent on Microsoft. This makes perfect business sense. It is deeply reprehensible to even say after beating the drums that the advent of AGI will change the world forever.
job board
Some other notable job changes this week:
- Alvin BowlesHead of Meta Advertising Sales for the US, Canada and Latin America announced He was leaving after nine years to “explore new challenges”.
- Rob Wittoff join again Coinbase will lead its platform team. Meanwhile, Coinbase marketing head kate roach joined in OpenAI as its first CMO.
- Alexander Kolesnikov, xiaohua zhaiAnd lucas bear Left Google DeepMind to start OpenAI's Zurich office. During this time, Behnam NishapurCo-head of the Blueshift “Reasoning” team inside Google DeepMind, joins Anthropic. And the three leaders of NotebookLM, a rare and viral zero-to-one product from Google, has left To have your own startup.
- Snap's first partnership hiring, juan david borreroLeaving after 11 years.
more links
- from a google researcher Adopt OpenAI's o1 reasoning model,
- Fog CEO aiden gomez's essay on “Where enterprise AI is going.”
- Stanford's Latest AI Index Report,
- wired Interview Tim CookAnd he confirmed that Apple is considering investing in OpenAI and working towards more lightweight AR glasses.
- Coming to a Presidio Mansion near you: A AI-powered security system literally called Sauron,
- The Democratic Party created an official account on Bluesky and It worked as you expected,
- About a new gadget I wrote: Xreal One “AR” Glasses,
- Two standout features of my coworkers that are worth your time: josh dzieza But What does it really mean to fall in love with an AI chatbotAnd sarah jeong But Getting drunk in South Korea under martial law,
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