The Programmable Data Center — Evan Conrad, SF Compute

Chris (0:00)

Nvidia is obviously like the 800-pound gorilla in the room. Why don't they, why didn't they make SF Compute?

Evan Conrad (0:06)

So our impression is that Nvidia can't make it, but benefits tremendously from it existing. The reason why they can't make it is because they would then not be independent enough for people to trade on it.

Chris (0:25)

Anyway, Evan, welcome back to Latent Space.

Evan Conrad (0:27)

Thank you so much.

Chris (0:28)

Welcome back to AIE. Actually, first time at AIE.

Evan Conrad (0:30)

I think so, yeah.

Chris (0:32)

This is a very special one because I feel like you have been working on Compute Trading, Compute Markets for a while. Now, it's like feeling of the moment.

Evan Conrad (0:42)

Yeah.

Chris (0:43)

Jump basically announced that they are getting into Compute Markets, which is why I'm excited to cluster people. You met Oliver from SemiAnalysis, who is basically initiating coverage on Compute Markets, is my read on this.

So people are going to watch your talk. I think it's very good explanation of both your origin story and why you need to exist and what the hard problems you work on. Yeah. Done in a very simple, engaging manner. I'm very jealous of your writing skills because you showed the flyer that you showed at New Reps.

Evan Conrad (1:15)

Yeah.

Chris (1:15)

I was like, it's pretty straightforward and simple and it's good.

Evan Conrad (1:19)

Yeah.

Chris (1:19)

Semi, congrats.

Evan Conrad (1:20)

Thank you. I appreciate that.

And also congrats on AIE. It seems to y'all are rolling.

Chris (1:26)

We're rolling. I just came back from the site tour for next year's AIE.

Evan Conrad (1:29)

And then for a Javits Center.

Chris (1:32)

It's the same place they do Comic Con. Okay. Wow. Which.

Evan Conrad (1:36)

Wow. Damn.

Chris (1:38)

But I think the finance focus is really hitting for folks. Yeah.

So we're going to try to split up. Like this is here, we just lump everything in finance. Like your finance, their finance, like insurance is finance. But like they're all super different. Yeah. So we'll probably break out things more minutely in future because people want to go deep on hedge fund stuff or banking or personal wealth. Yeah.

Evan Conrad (2:00)

Especially in New York.

Chris (2:03)

Yeah. Like Anthropic was like, yeah, we're all about RIAs right now.

RIAs like Registered Investment Advisors. Yes. So different from you.

Evan Conrad (2:10)

No, I'm aware of this.

Chris (2:13)

Yeah. Okay. So for listeners who don't know, we did a podcast two years ago where you talked about where SF Compute was.

Today, you're much more in this physical settlements. You talk about your back fabric. What do you call it?

Evan Conrad (2:29)

The backplane.

Chris (2:30)

Backplane, which obviously takes a lot of hardcore engineering stuff. Yeah.

Can you give a status update on where is SF Compute versus the listeners who last heard you on a podcast two years ago?

Evan Conrad (2:40)

So when we started, we were this company called Junark and then we were just trying to sublease our cluster.

We started there in the technical stack.

A way to think about it is it's like you're in a hotel and you're trying to sell that hotel room. Then somebody asks you, hey, are you going to clean my room? Then you say, oh, I guess I probably also need the hotel room as well. Or like I need the cleaning closet. And so you go get access to the cleaning closet. And then they want room service, and so you get access to the kitchen, and then they want security, and so you get access to the security closet, and you get this, and you do that, and you do this. And at a certain point, you're just running the whole hotel. And the moment you're running the whole hotel, you say, oh, wait a second. Instead my supplier on this market is somebody that looks closer to a fund or a cloud that has access, in our case, a cloud that has access to the data center, and we're going to level up. And so what we've spent the last several years doing is building the entire operating capacity of a cloud in order to offer, in order to actually deliver the compute at a reliable level. We call that physical settlement. We're taking a term from the futures market, from futures markets, from other markets, where in oil or soybeans or something, physical settlement means you get delivered to the oil and the soybeans. But in some markets, like in oil and also in power, there's like a delivery network. In oil, you have to have pipelines. If you would like the oil to be delivered to you, there has to be a way for it to get to you. Yes.