My company builds memory ICs that sometimes sit beside the ASIC or FPGA on an HFT card. The bandwidth & latency numbers didn't surprise me, but the cost of power certainly did. No wonder customers are always crawling up our butt on power consumption.
My first job after grad school with at Harris Semiconductor. We were selling RTX processors which natively ran Forth instructions. (The architecture was completely stack-based.)
I agree that Forth is a liability today. I could see it being used as an introductory language - in junior high school, for example - but not much beyond that.
I do - an excellent point. Don't get me wrong, I love coming out there to visit. (Especially in June/July/August.) But the cost/benefit seems way out of whack unless you've already done a startup & have an inside straight to more startup $, or already have family in the area.
I live in Austin. Same concentration of crazy smart people, only with less attitude. Did I mention that you can actually buy a house here? With a chance of paying it off? And a 25 minute commute?
THIS is why 1 of every 50 cars in Austin has a California license plate.
EDIT: there's less access to VC money here. But that doesn't seem to be stopping people.