Intel's 120mm2 Core chip is built on a smaller process than the ARM based competition meaning there are far more transistors on that $200 chip than the one you are comparing it to. Also keep in mind that Intel doesn't need to charge $200 to make a profit. The current Atom chips are price competitive with ARM based alternatives. The Atom parts aren't quite up to par with an A15 based part yet but I think it'd be foolish to count Intel out.
The primary cost of a SoC is manufacturing. Process advantages mean that you have access to cheaper transistors that have better performance and power characteristics. The easiest way to improve the ratio of performance to anything in microprocessors has always been to make it smaller. There have been far too many words wasted on the role of instruction sets and architectures. Those things matter but that's the easy part. The hard part is getting a meaningful advantage in the manufacturing side, which is what Intel has. This is precisely why AMD is dying. They can't even undercut Intel because Global Foundries is so far behind Intel that they physically can't produce an equivalent product for less despite Intel's ~60% margins.
I think what you will see is Intel getting more aggressive in the mobile space in the next couple years because they are going to want to ensure that TSMC doesn't get a chance to catchup. TSMC is the real key to anyone threatening Intel not ARM.
Personally, I like to write ideas down as they come but prefer to let them stew there for a while. My problem is that I get excited about something initially but that excitement fades over time especially when I get to the point where I have to do something hard and/or not fun.
So generally I'll try to do one of two things:
1) Find a partner. I find it a lot easier to get going and a lot harder to quit when there's someone else going through it with you; sort of like going to the gym...
2) Pick an idea that still excites me even after sitting in my list for a while. If I'm going to go it alone, whatever it is has to be important enough to me that I still care after that initial honeymoon. This time is really valuable to me personally. I find that in the beginning I focus on potential but given some time I'll eventually come back to earth and think more about what needs to be done, all the steps, and potential roadblocks. After all that, if I'm still excited to tackle the problem, I have at least some confidence that I'll have the conviction to push through the hard times.
Fair warning, my current list is long and the number completed is still zero (abandoned projects is also zero). I have just started working on something recently though, so there is some hope. I guess this is really a long winded way of saying try to find something that you're really passionate about, don't waste time on things you aren't, and don't get discouraged if you haven't found it yet.
Right or wrong, your argument is exactly why Ballmer is still in charge and at the same time the reason many think Microsoft's future is bleak until he's not.
I certainly understand where you're coming from but obviously disagree at least partially.
There is a difference between saying that the government should invest in and fund all companies and saying that there are cases where the free market will not act in the national best interest on it's own and the government can. The underlying issue here is that oil is subsidized in the US. It's not just the tax benefits to oil companies, it's all the military spending required to maintain undisrupted oil flow from the most unstable regions in the world. We've gotten to the point where we can't just stop cold turkey; so you've got to invest some money to clean up a mess made in the past. I'd love to get to the point where all our energy choices were on a level playing field so the free market could do the work but that just doesn't seem plausible today.
It's cliche at this point, but the space program and DARPA/ARPA investments led to a lot of the technology that enabled the formation and/or success of companies like Apple and Google.
This is off topic but with regard to your some of your other points, it's completely true that the federal government doesn't have to treat it's debt the same way a household does. That doesn't mean it should spend as much as it wants, but it does mean that it can spend a little more than it brings in forever. By senior equity I meant that the government's claims to profits(taxes) are senior to other equity holders.
I don't really think you can evaluate government loans the same way you would as a private investor. The federal government has defacto senior equity in every company that is incorporated and/or operates in the US. As a private investor the only upside you get from a loan is the interest. It's not even entirely fair to use a VC type model here as the government will also reap rewards from companies that indirectly benefit from these investments.
Your points regarding state-owned companies is more a case against equity investment and a defense of the loan model. The US government isn't going to go to extreme measures to recoup a billion dollars and because it doesn't have any additional equity there's no other real incentive to prop up the companies that it has loaned money to. The free market is an extremely powerful system that is capable of remarkable things but it's not perfect and there are problems that the free market won't address on it's own (climate change being a poster boy example).
I'd don't have any particular love for public schools but k-12 is covered by government in the US. There's no reason that it couldn't or shouldn't extend down. In my view, education gets harder the older the students are. Regardless of how many years of school the public decides to fund, I think we should start as early as possible. There's a compounding effect to education; put in the time, effort, and money early and you make the future a lot easier.
Nothing can replace good parents but there's only so much that can be done to improve the general quality of parents. Given that society has a vested interest in the future of every child, I don't think it's unreasonable for government to try to do better. That doesn't necessarily mean the public school system; it could be vouchers, various incentives, etc. But just saying parents need to do it is a cop out, shortsighted, and unrealistic.
I agree. The way the laws have been interpreted are incredibly arbitrary and create way to much uncertainty. Horse racing and fantasy sports are legal because they have friends in high places. Theoretically games of skill are legal but skill seems to be a word with a vague legal definition.
I'd extend that thought and say the problem with American secondary education is American primary education; and the problem with American primary education is American pre-school education or lack there of; and the problem with American pre-school education or the lack there of is that investing in 3 year olds requires a long term outlook and patience; two things politicians and decision makers are incentivized to be deficient in.
There's no doubt that there is a lot wrong with education in general but there's also a lot of great things about it too. The value of bringing together a large number of young, intelligent people with all kinds of interests is incredible.
In terms of what's wrong and suggestions for improvement, it's hard to know where to start. One big, doable change may just be more standardized testing. The price of education is simply a reflection of the fact that employers and students overvalue degrees. This leads to this perverse effect that causes people to enroll because they feel like they have to, not because they want to. The whole dynamic just seems to create an enormous amount of problems. Tying so much economic value to a college degree drives prices and attendance up and the effectiveness and true value of education down.
I can see what you mean to some extent. The top of the line server parts are still Sandy Bridge-E. By the time Ivy-Bridge-E is out Haswell will be available on the traditional PC side.
I would actually make a different argument though. As time goes on the absolute cost of the CPU is not that important. For big data centers lowering costs is about efficiency more than cheaper hardware. So in my mind a lot of what Intel is trying to do on the Mobile side, both laptop and smartphone/tablet, will help them in the data center. If Intel can drive down both peak and idle power consumption while maintaining or even improving both single threaded and multi threaded performance, there's potential to really lower the power needed to run a data center and in turn create a lot of value.
The real question is what's the next big thing going to be? Eventually the current CPU model will give out to something else. Maybe that's something like Psi or Tesla or maybe something completely different.
What do you mean by Intel is making the wrong bet by going all-in on mobile? By mobile are you talking about smartphone/tablet or laptop? What would you do instead?
That doesn't mean it has to be that way, does it? I wasn't implying that the yc model is a replacement today, just that it perhaps could be in the future for at least some subset of people that are currently going to business school.
I completely agree but isn't this really a failing of our current world/society? Many of our best and brightest spend huge amounts of money and two years of their life just so they can have an excuse/opportunity to apply themselves in a different field. Seems like there's something wrong here, no?
I guess it depends on how you define sky high. LinkedIn is trading at 2100x earnings according to google finance. Now there are certainly times when P/E is meaningless and LinkedIn probably is one of them but for a company with no track record it should give some pause.
The question is are people investing in these companies or are they speculating about them?
I've said this before but anytime a stock is trading at an earnings multiple significantly higher or lower than average, the burdon of proof should fall on the person arguing for such a multiple.
Netflix is trading at a P/E of about 75. Right or wrong that should at least give an investor pause. There is a lot of success already baked into that price. At this type of multiple a company has to outperform already sky high expectations in order for an investor to make money(in a fully rational world). This is possible but it becomes increasingly difficult as that multiple expands.
That's pretty fascinating. I just assumed that the majority of their net wealth was in the form of MSFT shares. I'm now very curious what the other 2/3s of their net worth is held in.
I can't stand Ballmer but I don't think he's going anywhere soon. Some quick math says that Ballmer and Gates own about a third of Microsoft combined. It'd be very hard to push either of them out against their combined will.
And while I'm sympathetic to the notion that anyone would be better than Ballmer, it really is hard to find a good CEO.
The primary cost of a SoC is manufacturing. Process advantages mean that you have access to cheaper transistors that have better performance and power characteristics. The easiest way to improve the ratio of performance to anything in microprocessors has always been to make it smaller. There have been far too many words wasted on the role of instruction sets and architectures. Those things matter but that's the easy part. The hard part is getting a meaningful advantage in the manufacturing side, which is what Intel has. This is precisely why AMD is dying. They can't even undercut Intel because Global Foundries is so far behind Intel that they physically can't produce an equivalent product for less despite Intel's ~60% margins.
I think what you will see is Intel getting more aggressive in the mobile space in the next couple years because they are going to want to ensure that TSMC doesn't get a chance to catchup. TSMC is the real key to anyone threatening Intel not ARM.