David Patterson is a Turing Award winner famous for his contributions to computer architecture. I interviewed him about his past work, thoughts on GPU/TPUs and career advice from half a century of experience.
• My ergonomic keyboard project I mentioned, you can follow along here: https://read.compose.llc/
• The Kickstarter page for it: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ryanlpeterman/compose-simple-ergonomics-beautifully-done
Podcast links:
• YouTube: https://youtu.be/Pn4ZwlEh5nw
• Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-peterman-pod/id1777363835
• Transcript: https://www.developing.dev/p/turing-award-winner-tpu-vs-gpu-vs?r=n49ky
Timestamps:
(00:00) Intro
(00:42) RISC vs CISC
(12:51) Compilers
(17:38) GPUs
(23:07) GPU vs TPU vs CPU
(32:12) Is Moores law dead?
(38:04) GPU benchmarks
(41:40) How to have a bad career
(49:59) Courage and optimism
(55:56) Advice for his younger self
(58:15) Outro
Where to find David:
• Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Patterson_(computer_scientist)
Where to find Ryan:
• Newsletter: https://www.developing.dev/
• X/Twitter: https://x.com/ryanlpeterman
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ryanlpeterman/
• Threads: https://www.threads.com/@ryanlpeterman
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ryanlpeterman
• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@ryanlpeterman
Referenced in this episode:
• AlexNet paper: https://proceedings.neurips.cc/paper_files/paper/2012/file/c399862d3b9d6b76c8436e924a68c45b-Paper.pdf
• David Patterson's “How to Have a Bad Career” talk: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rn1w4MRHIhc
• “Life Lessons from the First Half-Century of My Career”: https://cacm.acm.org/opinion/life-lessons-from-the-first-half-century-of-my-career/
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People (book): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_7_Habits_of_Highly_Effective_People
• Working (book): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Working_(Terkel_book)
