Why Hardware-Software Co-Design Is AI's Real 100x: Dylan Patel of SemiAnalysis

**Dylan Patel** (0:00)
I think it's really fun inside of SemiAnalysis because we have the 90 people, and a big chunk of them are technologists, engineers across the whole supply chain. And then a big chunk is people who are formerly at hedge funds. And you see these arguments, people are like, oh, well, that doesn't matter. And then someone's like, well, but cost. And then the engineer's like, no, no, no, but this technology is the closest.
You see this organically fight it out, and we're pretty informal. And given the fact that I was a forum moderator, you can imagine what this is like.

**Shaun Maguire** (0:28)
You're enjoying it. You're enjoying it.

**Dylan Patel** (0:30)
You don't wrestle with a pig because a pig enjoys it.

**Shaun Maguire** (0:51)
We're here in the SemiAnalysis office with Dylan Patel. I'm Shaun from Sequoia, I'm a partner, Sonya Huang. Pretty insane what you've done. Semi's five years ago were not very sexy in the West. They were sexy in the East, but people here in the West had kind of forgotten about them. You did not forget about them, though. You went very long. You created probably the premier research company in the space that's been educating the world and the state of the art from very technical details to the supply chain to the bigger picture.
There's rumors that SemiAnalysis recently passed 100 million of revenue. I don't know how accurate those are, but whatever the numbers are, you guys are crushing.

**Dylan Patel** (1:30)
It's as accurate as the information is.

**Shaun Maguire** (1:34)
You never know. There's also rumors that you might start a venture fund.
I hear all the time in the ecosystem people wanting affiliation with SemiAnalysis. You've built this trusted brand and so whatever you do, it's working. It's clearly just the beginning of the journey for you. Congratulations on all of that. But how did this happen?
First question is, what is the background? How did you get to where you are now?

**Dylan Patel** (1:58)
Well, when I was a young boy and coming out of the womb, I'm just-
I grew up in a small business. My parents had a motel. We lived in the motel. We lived at a gas station. So I was selling- I joke a lot of times, the first neural network I trained was racially and visually profiling people based on, when they enter the gas station, which cigarette to pick. Basically, the cigarettes were all extruded across the top, and I was too short to actually reach them. And technically, it wasn't legal to sell cigarettes at that age, but whatever. I had to move the step stool over to the right area.

**Shaun Maguire** (2:34)
I started working in my first office before it was legal, too. It was a good experience.

**Dylan Patel** (2:37)
Well, I didn't get paid, right? It's a family business.

**Shaun Maguire** (2:39)
Same.

**Dylan Patel** (2:40)
But yeah, we had our motel, and then across the street was our gas station. So sometimes someone would walk in. And so if an old white lady with curly hair walked in, I'd move the ladder or the step stool over to where the camels are. And if different age, demographic, profession, race, etc., I would move the step stool over. And I joke this is the first neural network I trained, because if I waited for them to tell me, I'd have to move it over and then I'd step up versus just being ready. So menthols versus 100 slips and all these things. I joke this is the first neural network I trained, but I grew up in family businesses, lived in a motel, and it all really goes back to when I was like, it was my eighth birthday.
My birthday is in May, and it was April when the Xbox 360 was announced. For my birthday, I didn't ask for the Xbox, or I didn't ask for a birthday gift. My parents asked what I wanted. I asked for it for Christmas. We celebrated Christmas, but there was no way, at least at the time, I thought there was no way they would ask, would give me the Xbox 360 for Christmas. And so I got it for, asked for my birthday for Christmas. Anyways, Christmas comes around and I get it.
Fast forward a couple months, my cousin who lives in Alabama, they also lived in a motel, was gonna come over for spring break, for his spring break, and we were gonna just hang out at my house. And he's in between me and my older brother in age. Brother's a bit more jockey, so he didn't really care too much about the Xbox. He played sometimes, but didn't really care.