When I read that SiFive is working on custom silicon, my first thought was to wonder what would happen if custom hardware and custom programming languages co-evolved together, instead of languages adapting to old hardware that's adapted to older programming languages.

.. and here he is talking about compilers. I might have to keep an eye on SiFive in addition to Oxide.

There are some other people talking about him not staying long at places. In this talk he mentions how he intended to stay at UIUC for one year and got 'nerd-sniped' into staying for 5 years building LLVM. After an experience like that, I could see how someone might feel claustrophobic and tend to take any opportunity on offer - if it's interesting enough.

"Recent" seems relative