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Comment by GuB-42 | Hacker News Reader

A very one-sided article. Blames everything on Intel without even considering that maybe Habana Labs was just better at getting the founders rich from the acquisition then at making AI processors. And maybe Intel management noticed that all wasn't going as planned and tried to intervene, which may have made things worse.

Sure, Intel have quite a history of failures, especially for the last decade or so. But I would like to think that even Intel can be smart enough not to mess with things that work, so maybe things didn't work and Intel management (unsuccessfully) tried to save it. It is actually a very common scenario: branch doesn't perform as well as expected, upper management tries to do something, it doesn't work, people blame management but don't mention that without intervention it would have also failed. Of course management is to blame, but it is not just because of them.

Another point of view would be interesting.

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I worked for another ML-related startup Intel acquired around the same time, and nothing in this article sounds biased or exaggerated to me. "Pursuing multiple competing AI strategies without fully committing to any" is a reasonable description of what was going on. We found it very difficult to get anything done, and everyone quit after the retention bonus period was over.

The article is -- if anything -- generous to Intel. The unvarnished truth (which I have heard from several different Intel insiders) is quite a bit less flattering, and shouldn't be surprising: Intel's failures at this point are fractal.

(If the article has a failing, it's that it's somehow trying to hang the failure of Habana inside of Intel on Avigdor, which is absurd.)

What parts have you heard from them? I'm curious what they'd add or change to this article/this retelling

Back in 2019 I looked at what Habana was doing and had a conversation with their CTO. My impression was they had competent technical execution and a good understanding of some of the areas where other chip efforts have stumbled (software stack especially). I expressed at the time that I hoped they would remain independent, and if they sold not to Intel, but of course I don't begrudge the team cashing out for the right price.

Given Intel's string of failures with nearly everything outside their core competency (and in the past decade stumbling even there), I don't understand giving them the benefit of the doubt in this. What at Intel would have changed between all their failures, Habana Labs and the following failures that would make Habana Labs not their fault?

name an intel acquisition in the last decade that has worked out.

MobilEye?

They bought it for $15bn in 2017 and sold out some stake in it at a valuation of $17bn in 2021. Without looking at the overall economy of the time, that doesn't look wildly successful?

They didn't kill it, which is a win I suppose, but it sounds like it just carried on as it's own pace?

i remember some articles in israeli press that intel was messing up mobileye plans/execution/pipeline/etc

Normally, the valuations tend to drop after Intel acquires them (see Altera and I think McAfee as well). At least this one didn't drop.

Sometimes there is just a one point of view. Sometimes you have a company that keep fucking up consistently for several decades.

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