Nvidia to join Dow Jones Industrial Average, replacing Intel(cnbc.com)
cnbc.com
Nvidia to join Dow Jones Industrial Average, replacing Intel
https://www.cnbc.com/2024/11/01/nvidia-to-join-dow-jones-industrial-average-replacing-intel.html
224 comments
I agree that nowadays the Dow is somewhat obsolete, but:
The DJIA is not meant to be viewed in isolation but in the context of other indexes like DJTA, the idea being that if industrial companies are doing well but the railroads or shipping aren't, it will be reflected in those respective averages diverging, hinting at deeper economic problems.
Also they adjust for stock splits now.
The DJIA is not meant to be viewed in isolation but in the context of other indexes like DJTA, the idea being that if industrial companies are doing well but the railroads or shipping aren't, it will be reflected in those respective averages diverging, hinting at deeper economic problems.
Also they adjust for stock splits now.
Even with this objective, using the share prices and not the market cap of the companies involved creates enormous skew.
For example UNH and especially GS take up the largest individual components despite not being being amongst the largest companies, giving their share movement disproportionate weight in the “index”.
Perhaps it made sense 140 years ago but today it belongs in the rubbish.
For example UNH and especially GS take up the largest individual components despite not being being amongst the largest companies, giving their share movement disproportionate weight in the “index”.
Perhaps it made sense 140 years ago but today it belongs in the rubbish.
> that if industrial companies are doing well
Except it might be very hard to tell that because it’s effectively randomly weighted.
Caterpillar almost has the same weight as MS and double that of Amazon.
Except it might be very hard to tell that because it’s effectively randomly weighted.
Caterpillar almost has the same weight as MS and double that of Amazon.
Most news reports also give the percentage change as well as the point difference. That began about 20 years ago.
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The dow was useful in pre computer times when a reborter could calculate it every few minutes. The s&p500 Is a better indicator but that took hours by hand and so was only done overnight. now that we have computers and index you want can be done in milliseconds and so the dow needs to die.
In this day and age we could skip all of that and report on the actual average of all the stocks in the exchange, instead of only a fraction.
SP500 represents something like 85% of market capitalization. Adding a few more thousand stocks would make little difference, especially when you consider how heavily correlated they are. Just compare SPY with VT -- nearly the same thing.
That may not be what you want. Fortuantly computers can calculate the mix you want. mostly traders care about the stoks they follow they just want someeindication if the unexpected movement they are seeing is the market or something they don't know.
You just described a total market fund like VTI :)
As I understand it, they don't own every stock. Right now VTI has about 3700 stocks out of the ~4300 on US publicly traded markets (excluding OTC). But it's more representative than the S&P 500 and similar.
That's right. Some extremely small companies and stocks don't meet certain liquidity or trading requirements.
Another advantage of a price-weighted stock index is that it's easier to track with a real portfolio because they don't need to rebalance as frequently. To replicate the performance of the DJIA you just have to buy one share of each stock and hold them, you only need to place trades when a company is added or removed from the index.
With a market cap weighted index you have to make more frequent trades every time a company does a buyback or issues new shares.
With a market cap weighted index you have to make more frequent trades every time a company does a buyback or issues new shares.
> you only need to place trades when a company is added or removed from the index.
Not true for a price-weighted index. If there is a stock-split, the price will change as will the weighting. AAPL split in August 2020 4 for 1. It was 11% in the DJIA before the split - and close to $500 stock price. Post-split, all DJIA tracking funds had to sell AAPL as it probably went down to 2.5% weight. Consequently, all other stocks in the DJIA were to buy. Luckily, there aren't too many dollars tracking the DJIA.
> With a market cap weighted index you have to make more frequent trades every time a company does a buyback or issues new shares.
It depends. If the index is free-float market-cap weighting then yes, there will typically be a free-float adjustment at each rebalance (typically quarterly). But if there's no free-float adjustment then you need not do anything. Though managing a fund that tracks a free-float weighted index is not really an issue - there's some operational work to do on each rebalance.
Not true for a price-weighted index. If there is a stock-split, the price will change as will the weighting. AAPL split in August 2020 4 for 1. It was 11% in the DJIA before the split - and close to $500 stock price. Post-split, all DJIA tracking funds had to sell AAPL as it probably went down to 2.5% weight. Consequently, all other stocks in the DJIA were to buy. Luckily, there aren't too many dollars tracking the DJIA.
> With a market cap weighted index you have to make more frequent trades every time a company does a buyback or issues new shares.
It depends. If the index is free-float market-cap weighting then yes, there will typically be a free-float adjustment at each rebalance (typically quarterly). But if there's no free-float adjustment then you need not do anything. Though managing a fund that tracks a free-float weighted index is not really an issue - there's some operational work to do on each rebalance.
re: up XX number of points, I haven't bothered for many years, but that sounds like NPR's "All Things Considered" or "Marketplace". Always drove me nuts too and does nothing to help people understand financial markets.
Everyone reports it this way. It used to bother me, but I think it does provide some interesting information vs the % day-to-day. Because % is relative to the previous day, number of points isn’t.
Personally I prefer the %
Personally I prefer the %
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> Just yesterday "the Dow Jones was up 100 points". Ok - no reference value, no percentage change: means nothing to me.
This always really bugged me
This always really bugged me
Maybe splits and reverse splits weren't a thing back then, so price really meant something?
How is the second point anything to do with DJIA and this news?
Intel's CEO wanted to buy NVidia 20 years ago. Unfortunately for Intel, the board of directors killed the proposal as "too expensive" at $20B. Granted no one could see the future of AI on GPUs, but think of the ROI on that investment.
Nvidia would've acquired the culture of Intel, so it wouldn't be the company it was today if that happened.
Not sure that would have mattered once LLMs emerged. NVidia's success is mostly a matter of being the only major advanced GPU player at the time when LLMs exploded onto the scene. That won't be the case for long. The big players are already heavily investing in high performance AI chips to wean themselves off a dependance on NVidia.
Nvidia was a $750B company in 2021 (pre-ChatGPT). Cause of gaming and all of pre-LLM machine learning using nvidia gpus.
And when the LLM hype dies NVDA will be the hardest to fall.
Nvidia’s success is due to a decade+ of investment into their software stack (CUDA and friends), built on a world view that more software can and should be massively parallel.
They were a key cause for LLMs being a thing in the first place.
They were a key cause for LLMs being a thing in the first place.
100%. If you ever tried to build pytorch (or tensorflow) gpu accellerated using NVidia vs AMD it was absolutely chalk and cheese for the longest time.
Nvidia/CUDA process: Download package. Run the build. It works. Run your thing- it's GPU accelerated. Go get a beer/coffee/whatever while your net runs.
AMD process: Download package. Run the build. Debug failure. Read lots of articles about which patches to apply. Apply the patches. Run the build. It fails again. Shit. OK ok now I know what to do. I need a special fork of the package. go get that. Find it doesn't actually have the same API that the latest pytorch/tf relies on. OK downgrade those to an earlier version. OK now we're good. Run the build again. Aw shit. That failed again. More web searches. Oh ok now I know - there's some other patches you need to apply to this branch. OK cool. Now it compiles. Install the package. Run the thing. Huh. That's weird. GPU accelleration isn't on.... sigh....
Nvidia/CUDA process: Download package. Run the build. It works. Run your thing- it's GPU accelerated. Go get a beer/coffee/whatever while your net runs.
AMD process: Download package. Run the build. Debug failure. Read lots of articles about which patches to apply. Apply the patches. Run the build. It fails again. Shit. OK ok now I know what to do. I need a special fork of the package. go get that. Find it doesn't actually have the same API that the latest pytorch/tf relies on. OK downgrade those to an earlier version. OK now we're good. Run the build again. Aw shit. That failed again. More web searches. Oh ok now I know - there's some other patches you need to apply to this branch. OK cool. Now it compiles. Install the package. Run the thing. Huh. That's weird. GPU accelleration isn't on.... sigh....
This. I worked in HPC between 2010 and 2013, and people were trying to compete with NVidia in the GPGPU space even back then, seeing the way the wind was blowing. Compute bandwidth, and FLOPS/watt has steadily been more and more important the last 15 years, even before AI.
NVidia has continued to stay ahead because every alternative to CUDA is half baked trash, even when the silicone make sense. As a tech company, trading $$ for time not spent dealing with compatibility bugs and broken drivers pretty much always makes business sense.
NVidia has continued to stay ahead because every alternative to CUDA is half baked trash, even when the silicone make sense. As a tech company, trading $$ for time not spent dealing with compatibility bugs and broken drivers pretty much always makes business sense.
Nvidia did a lot of things right. But it sure didn't hurt that the crypto bubble gave way to LLMs with almost perfect timing. Luck favors the prepared and all that but Nvidia also would have had trouble timing market changes better.
Nvidia did ride a perfect storm of gaming + bitcoin + AI.
But AMD and others could have done the same, had they been better at riding that wave. There’s a reason it was Nvidia who won out.
But AMD and others could have done the same, had they been better at riding that wave. There’s a reason it was Nvidia who won out.
Yeah, exactly, it has never been clear that we would find a use for parallel computation outside of niches like graphics and HPC. And in fact most of the history of computing has been evidence of the opposite: useful computation has been predominantly serial in nature. But here we are now.
> half baked trash
> dealing with compatibility bugs
> broken drivers
Describes my experience trying to use CUDA perfectly.
We have a long way to go and we haven't even started yet.
> dealing with compatibility bugs
> broken drivers
Describes my experience trying to use CUDA perfectly.
We have a long way to go and we haven't even started yet.
Given that experience, think about what state the alternatives must be in!
It’s pretty bad. just when you think you can order AMD chips since there is no shortage, and use a translation layer and have a cheap AI datacenter, it turns out AMD is fumbling the ball at every step of the way
It’s interesting. They have had plenty of time and resources available to mount solid competition. Why haven’t they? Is it a talent hiring problems or some more fundamental problem with their engineering processes? The writing has been on the wall for gpgpu for more than 10 years. Definitely enough time to catch up.
Its a commitment problem IMO. NVidia stuck with CUDA for a long time before it started paying them what it cost. AMD and Intel have both launched and killed initiatives a couple times each, but abandon them within a few years because adoption didn't happen overnight.
If you need people to abandon an ecosystem thats been developed steadily over nearly 20 years for your shiny new thing in order to keep it around, you'll never compete.
If you need people to abandon an ecosystem thats been developed steadily over nearly 20 years for your shiny new thing in order to keep it around, you'll never compete.
To be fair, Cuda has improved a lot since 2014 or so. I messed up my Linux box multiple times trying to install Cuda but the last time it was just apt install and maybe setting ld library and it all just worked.
Have you tried Vulkan Compute or OpenCL? I recommend evaluating this relatively, vice compared to an ideal.
Wasn't Intel's commercial compiler also dominated HPC space around that time period? I remember back then people would use cuda and icc for hpc stuff.
I can't speak to modern hpc, since I've been out of the game for a few years but icc was absolutely the preferred compiler for almost any workload and Intel procs were the desired hardware to run on. AMD was joked about as the only reason Intel wasn't considered a monopoly at the time and that Intel would happily take wheelbarrows of cash over to AMD to prop them up, just to ensure they didn't even appear like a monopoly. But no one in the field was buying AMD procs for their workloads.
Most super computers were still Intel/IBM, but around that time is when the shift to GPU clusters started. #1 super computer spot was taken by an Nvidia cluster in 2012, but I remember other big projects were done before as well.
I believe their compilers still dominate in CPU-bound workloads.
More than a decade.
I was using it as soon as it came out in 2007 and my dinky desktop workstation was out performing the main frame in the basement.
I was using it as soon as it came out in 2007 and my dinky desktop workstation was out performing the main frame in the basement.
> a world view that more software can and should be massively parallel.
Twenty years ago I was thinking we'd be speccing machines in kilocores by now.
Twenty years ago I was thinking we'd be speccing machines in kilocores by now.
4090 has 16384 cuda cores, so there's that!
Nvidia's marketing is misleading. Those "cuda cores" are more SIMD lanes than cores. Number of SMs is a more appropriate equivalent to CPU core count.
Are you sure that isn’t what @mullingitover meant?
> Number of SMs is a more appropriate equivalent to CPU core count.
What do you mean by this? Why should an SM be considered equivalent to a CPU core? An SM can do 128 simultaneous adds and/or multiplies in a single cycle, where a CPU core can do, what, 2 or maybe 4? Obviously depends on the CPU / core / hyperthreading / # math pipelines / etc., but the SM to CPU-core ratio of the number of simultaneous calculation is in the double digits. It’s a tradeoff where the GPU has some restrictions in return for being able to do many multiples more at the same time.
If you consider an SM and a CPU equivalent, then the SM’s perf can exceed the CPU core by ~2 orders of magnitude — is that the comparison you want? If you consider a GPU thread lane and a CPU thread lane equivalent, the the GPU thread lane is slower and more restricted. Neither comparison is apples to apples, CPUs and GPUs are made for different workloads, but arguing that an SM is equivalent to a CPU core seems equally or more “misleading” when you’re leaving out the tradeoff.
I’d argue that comparing SMs to cores is misleading and that it makes more sense to compare chips is by their thread counts. Or, don’t compare cores at all and just look at the performance in, say, FLOPS.
> Number of SMs is a more appropriate equivalent to CPU core count.
What do you mean by this? Why should an SM be considered equivalent to a CPU core? An SM can do 128 simultaneous adds and/or multiplies in a single cycle, where a CPU core can do, what, 2 or maybe 4? Obviously depends on the CPU / core / hyperthreading / # math pipelines / etc., but the SM to CPU-core ratio of the number of simultaneous calculation is in the double digits. It’s a tradeoff where the GPU has some restrictions in return for being able to do many multiples more at the same time.
If you consider an SM and a CPU equivalent, then the SM’s perf can exceed the CPU core by ~2 orders of magnitude — is that the comparison you want? If you consider a GPU thread lane and a CPU thread lane equivalent, the the GPU thread lane is slower and more restricted. Neither comparison is apples to apples, CPUs and GPUs are made for different workloads, but arguing that an SM is equivalent to a CPU core seems equally or more “misleading” when you’re leaving out the tradeoff.
I’d argue that comparing SMs to cores is misleading and that it makes more sense to compare chips is by their thread counts. Or, don’t compare cores at all and just look at the performance in, say, FLOPS.
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> An SM can do 128 simultaneous adds and/or multiplies in a single cycle, where a CPU core can do, what, 2 or maybe 4?
https://images.nvidia.com/aem-dam/Solutions/geforce/news/rtx...
An SM is split into four identical blocks, and I would say each block is roughly equivalent to a CPU core. It has a scheduler, registers, 32 ALUs or FPUs, and some other stuff.
A CPU core with two AVX-512 units can do several integer operations plus 32 single-precision operations (including FMA) per cycle. Not 2 or 4. An older CPU with 2-3 AVX2 units could fall slightly behind, but it's pretty close.
That doesn't factor in the tensor units, but they're less general purpose, and CPUs usually put such things outside the cores.
I would say an SM is roughly equivalent to four CPU cores.
https://images.nvidia.com/aem-dam/Solutions/geforce/news/rtx...
An SM is split into four identical blocks, and I would say each block is roughly equivalent to a CPU core. It has a scheduler, registers, 32 ALUs or FPUs, and some other stuff.
A CPU core with two AVX-512 units can do several integer operations plus 32 single-precision operations (including FMA) per cycle. Not 2 or 4. An older CPU with 2-3 AVX2 units could fall slightly behind, but it's pretty close.
That doesn't factor in the tensor units, but they're less general purpose, and CPUs usually put such things outside the cores.
I would say an SM is roughly equivalent to four CPU cores.
Yeah I totally forgot to consider CPU SIMD. Brain fart. The other comment corrected me too, you’re both right. When I said 2 or 4, I was thinking of the SISD math pipe and not AVX instructions.
Yes, considering CPU SIMD, maybe comparing a CPU core to a CUDA warp makes some sense in some situations. The peak FLOPS rate is still so much higher on Nvidia though, that the comparison hardly makes sense. So yeah like I and the other commenter mentioned, it depends entirely on what comparison is being made.
Yes, considering CPU SIMD, maybe comparing a CPU core to a CUDA warp makes some sense in some situations. The peak FLOPS rate is still so much higher on Nvidia though, that the comparison hardly makes sense. So yeah like I and the other commenter mentioned, it depends entirely on what comparison is being made.
A single Zen5 core can do 32 single precision FMAs per clock.
That's using SIMD, but so is Nvidia for all intents and purposes. Those "cuda cores" aren't truly independent: when their execution diverges, masking is used pretty much like you'd do in CPU SIMD.
A lot of the control logic is per-SM or perhaps per-SIMD unit -- there are multiple of those per SM. You could perhaps make a case that it's the individual SIMDs which correspond to CPU cores (that makes the flops line up even more closely). It depends on what the goal of the comparison is.
That's using SIMD, but so is Nvidia for all intents and purposes. Those "cuda cores" aren't truly independent: when their execution diverges, masking is used pretty much like you'd do in CPU SIMD.
A lot of the control logic is per-SM or perhaps per-SIMD unit -- there are multiple of those per SM. You could perhaps make a case that it's the individual SIMDs which correspond to CPU cores (that makes the flops line up even more closely). It depends on what the goal of the comparison is.
you're right
128 and 512 cores are normal now, so not that far off.
This seems to have cause and effect backwards. LLMs emerged because of Nvidia.
LLMs absolutely did not emerge because of NVIDIA. you’re the one imho who is mistaking correlation with causality.
The first transformer models were developed at Google. NVIDIA were the card du jour for accelerating it in the years since and have contributed research too, but your statement goes way too far
The first transformer models were developed at Google. NVIDIA were the card du jour for accelerating it in the years since and have contributed research too, but your statement goes way too far
I was around the space before Alexnet came out. Without NVidia the last 15 years of AI would not have happened.
Deep learning was only possible because you could do it on NVidia cards with Cuda without having to use the big machines in the basement.
Trying to convince anyone that neural networks could be useful in 2009 was impossible - I got a grant declined and my PhD supervisor told me to drop the useless tech and focus on something better like support vector machines.
Deep learning was only possible because you could do it on NVidia cards with Cuda without having to use the big machines in the basement.
Trying to convince anyone that neural networks could be useful in 2009 was impossible - I got a grant declined and my PhD supervisor told me to drop the useless tech and focus on something better like support vector machines.
I was not a PhD, but I studied both around that period in university and can confirm that neural networks were only seen as a kind of theoretical plaything. All the libraries were pushing SVMs.
I was around then too and people forget that AMD also had GPU compute APIs.
The difference is AMD killed theirs to use OpenCL and NVIDIA kept CUDA around as well.
The difference is AMD killed theirs to use OpenCL and NVIDIA kept CUDA around as well.
Just like how ROCm is supposed to be competitive today and it isn't unless you have an army of grad students to look after your data center cards.
I tried using AMD Stream and it lacked documentation, debugging information and most of the tools needed to get anything done without a large team of experts. NVidia by comparison could - and was - used by single grad students on their franken-stations which we build out of gaming GPUs.
The less we talk about the disaster that the move to opencl was the better.
I tried using AMD Stream and it lacked documentation, debugging information and most of the tools needed to get anything done without a large team of experts. NVidia by comparison could - and was - used by single grad students on their franken-stations which we build out of gaming GPUs.
The less we talk about the disaster that the move to opencl was the better.
I agree ROCm was a mess and only recently is even really usable.
That said ROCm is quite a recent thing borne out of acknowledging that OpenCL 2 was a disaster.
OpenCL 1 had a reasonable shot and was gaining adoption but 2 scuppered it.
That said ROCm is quite a recent thing borne out of acknowledging that OpenCL 2 was a disaster.
OpenCL 1 had a reasonable shot and was gaining adoption but 2 scuppered it.
Did you ever train anything past mnist on AMD? I try every five years or so and promise myself never again each and every time.
Not with Rocm since I’ve moved my personal stack to NVIDIA (for rendering) and Macs for day to day use.
I did write quite a bit of OpenCL prior to that on Intel/AMd/NVIDIA, both for training and for general rendering though, and did some work with Stream before then.
I did write quite a bit of OpenCL prior to that on Intel/AMd/NVIDIA, both for training and for general rendering though, and did some work with Stream before then.
Was it OpenCL1? That's the only one I hadn't tried out for AMD GPUs. Everything else I have and can say with absolute certainty that you spend more time fighting the hardware than you did writing code.
Cuda by comparison JustWorks^tm.
Cuda by comparison JustWorks^tm.
I think their point is that easily accessible hardware capable of supporting the research is the reason the research has come as far as it has, and I would tend to agree. At the very least, GPUs keeping the PCI ecosystem going has played a major role in allowing the specialized accelerator market to flourish.
But that could apply to any of the GPU manufacturers. CUDA made for an easier ecosystem but if it didn’t exist it would have been any of the other APIs.
The first transformer models didn’t even use CUDA and CUDA didn’t have mass ecosystem inroads till years later.
I’m not trying to downplay NVIDIA but they specifically mentioned cause and effect, and then said it was because of NVIDIA.
The first transformer models didn’t even use CUDA and CUDA didn’t have mass ecosystem inroads till years later.
I’m not trying to downplay NVIDIA but they specifically mentioned cause and effect, and then said it was because of NVIDIA.
First transformer != LLM. Imagine a world where you had to use AMD or CPUs, there would be no AlexNet, there would be no LLMs. Nvidia seeded universities with gifted hardware accelerators for a over a decade. Nvidia built the foundations for modern ML on which transformer lies, it's just one step on a long road to LLMs.
AMD had GPU compute APIs at the time as well. They also used to contribute GPUs (albeit in much smaller quantities). They just ended up killing them in favor of OpenCL which then withered on the vine.
NVIDIA absolutely contributed to the foundation but they are not the foundation alone.
Alexnet was great research but they could have done the same on other vendors at the time too. The hardware didn’t exist in a vacuum.
NVIDIA absolutely contributed to the foundation but they are not the foundation alone.
Alexnet was great research but they could have done the same on other vendors at the time too. The hardware didn’t exist in a vacuum.
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Alexnet could not have been done on AMD, nope.
Please, this is just revisionism. There’s nothing inherent to AlexNet that relied on NVIDIA hardware or even software. It was just what happened to be available and most straightforward at the time.
To say it wouldn’t have been possible on AMD is ludicrous and there is a pattern to your comments where you dismiss any other companies efforts or capabilities, but are quite happy to lay all the laurels on NVIDIA.
The reality is that multiple companies and individuals got us to where we are, and multiple products could have done the same. That's not to take away from NVIDIA's success, it's well earned, but if you took them out of the equation, there's nothing that would have prevented the tech existing.
To say it wouldn’t have been possible on AMD is ludicrous and there is a pattern to your comments where you dismiss any other companies efforts or capabilities, but are quite happy to lay all the laurels on NVIDIA.
The reality is that multiple companies and individuals got us to where we are, and multiple products could have done the same. That's not to take away from NVIDIA's success, it's well earned, but if you took them out of the equation, there's nothing that would have prevented the tech existing.
The crux of the issue is this:
> It was just what happened to be available and most straightforward at the time
AMD made better hardware for a while and people wanted OpenCL to succeed. The reason why nvidia became dominant was because their competitors simply weren’t good enough for general purpose parallel compute.
Would AI still have happened without CUDA? Almost certainly. However nvidia still had a massive role in shaping what it looks like today.
> It was just what happened to be available and most straightforward at the time
AMD made better hardware for a while and people wanted OpenCL to succeed. The reason why nvidia became dominant was because their competitors simply weren’t good enough for general purpose parallel compute.
Would AI still have happened without CUDA? Almost certainly. However nvidia still had a massive role in shaping what it looks like today.
Many people here are heavily invested in NVDA stock, which certainly clouds the judgement.
OpenCL itself is kinda fine, but the libraries never existed because every academic from postdoc up could get a free NVidia card. You literally filled a form out and they sent you it.
I agree the library situation for OpenCL never stood up. Khronos tried at the start but then lost steam.
It’s one of the projects I think the Khronos group mishandled the most unfortunately.
It’s one of the projects I think the Khronos group mishandled the most unfortunately.
Do they have a project that achieved success?
> The first transformer models didn’t even use CUDA and CUDA didn’t have mass ecosystem inroads till years later.
I graduated college in 2010 and I took a class taught in CUDA before graduating. CUDA was a primary driver of NN research at the time. Sure, other tools were available, but CUDA allowed people to build and distribute actually useful software which further encouraged the space.
Could things have happened without it? Yeah, for sure, but it would have taken a good deal longer.
I graduated college in 2010 and I took a class taught in CUDA before graduating. CUDA was a primary driver of NN research at the time. Sure, other tools were available, but CUDA allowed people to build and distribute actually useful software which further encouraged the space.
Could things have happened without it? Yeah, for sure, but it would have taken a good deal longer.
As someone who's intimately familiar with both cultures, I'm convinced Intel would have killed any innovation Nvidia had going for it before it had a chance to really take off.
Management at the two could not be more opposite if they tried.
Management at the two could not be more opposite if they tried.
Surely intel would have killed off CUDA
Intels 3rd wave management by MBA would have ruined nvidia way back then forcing them into something dumb and blocked all of the R&D they did since since that's what they also did at intel.
Other companies are capable of making big GPUs; they aren't the only TSMC customer. Intel themselves have perfectly fine GPUs. Their issue is that their management never allocates enough space in their chips to let them perform well.
Nvidia's advantage is that they have by far the most complete programming ecosystem for them. (Also honestly… they're a meme stock.)
Nvidia's advantage is that they have by far the most complete programming ecosystem for them. (Also honestly… they're a meme stock.)
Other companies don't have CUDA.
Nvidia will make general purpose GPUs while the AI players will make ASICS. I guess most data center will prefer GPUs so customers can run whatever AI model they need.
I think this undersells the story. NVidia's success is built on innovating and scaling for 20 years. Vastly oversimplifying it:
- CUDA conception in 2006 to build super computers for scientific computing.
- CUDA influencing CPU designs to be dual purpose, with major distinction of RAM amounts (for scientific compute you need a lot more RAM compared to gaming)
- Crypto craze driving extreme consumer GPU demand which enabled them to invest heavily into RND and scale up production.
- AI workload explosion arriving right as the crypto demand was dying down.
- Consistently great execution, or at least not making any major blunders, during all of the above.
- CUDA conception in 2006 to build super computers for scientific computing.
- CUDA influencing CPU designs to be dual purpose, with major distinction of RAM amounts (for scientific compute you need a lot more RAM compared to gaming)
- Crypto craze driving extreme consumer GPU demand which enabled them to invest heavily into RND and scale up production.
- AI workload explosion arriving right as the crypto demand was dying down.
- Consistently great execution, or at least not making any major blunders, during all of the above.
It’s more no major blunders + no real major competition, they have not consistently “executed great”, it’s dumb luck + no extremely stupid decisions.
It doesn’t mean they didn’t make a bunch of mistakes its that when they did there was no competition to to realistically turn towards, and they fixed a lot of their mistakes.
It doesn’t mean they didn’t make a bunch of mistakes its that when they did there was no competition to to realistically turn towards, and they fixed a lot of their mistakes.
You are completely ignoring the impacts of Covid and GPU cryptocurrency mining on Nvidia profits.
It could have been AMD/ATI profiting from such random events, as they were the ones that financed AI development.
It could have been AMD/ATI profiting from such random events, as they were the ones that financed AI development.
BTW, when GPUs were used for Bitcoin mining (up until year 2013, obsoleted by spacialized chips after that), AMD chips were used exclusively, because they had much better integer math performance, compared to Nvidia cards, which focused on floating point performance.
Indeed. A friend of a friend of a friend was in the room when the decision was made. The reason for not buying: Huang won't be a team player and is hard to work with.
So yes, they would have tried to integrate it into the rest of Intel.
So yes, they would have tried to integrate it into the rest of Intel.
Just look at what happened to Altera under Intel. Preacquisition it was similar in size to Xilinx. Now it's just a shadow of its former self, latest few quarters shows it in the red. The person they have in charge of it. Sandra Rivera was formerly the head of HR.
From 2019 to 2021, Rivera was Intel’s chief people officer, leading the company’s Human Resources organization worldwide.
I heard a rumor that Jensen wouldn't agree to the acquisition unless he became CEO of the combined entity.
From 2019 to 2021, Rivera was Intel’s chief people officer, leading the company’s Human Resources organization worldwide.
I heard a rumor that Jensen wouldn't agree to the acquisition unless he became CEO of the combined entity.
Intel of that era would have also required Nvidia to only fab their chips with Intel. That would have been fine initially when Intel was a process leader. But it'd have killed Nvidia for the last 10 years. AMD would have enjoyed a consistent process advantage over Nvidia.
I doubt they would have actually merged operations. The NIH at Intel is so strong that it would have virtually annihilated it otherwise.
100% on target. The Intel culture was a big contributor to Intel fall.
And the danger of Nvidia buying Intel is the same.
See also MD/Boeing
See also MD/Boeing
Nvidia buying Intel would mean some damn fast CPUs. I'd like to see that.
And most likely the death of Intel being one of the largest contributors to the Linux kernel.
Nvidia buying Intel would be doing Intel a great service.
Does nvidia contribute anything to OSS? Its drivers are closed, that much I know. Whereas intel is the top corp contributor to the Linux kernel
Can you expand on what is the Intel culture and why it would hurt growth?
Some of my favourite reading on this topic is Matt Pharr's retrospective on ISPC: https://pharr.org/matt/blog/2018/04/30/ispc-all
Second this. A great read in general and, to the extent that it’s accurate, very instructive about dysfunction at Intel.
Every big techco was the target of numerous buyout offers along the way. Yahoo! tried to buy Google and Facebook got any number of offers.
It makes sense when the growing company doesn't have a path forward (e.g. YouTube's bandwidth costs) or the price is truly crazy (e.g. WhatsApp).
It's not clear to me why Instagram sold out to Facebook for $1B.
It makes sense when the growing company doesn't have a path forward (e.g. YouTube's bandwidth costs) or the price is truly crazy (e.g. WhatsApp).
It's not clear to me why Instagram sold out to Facebook for $1B.
It was only a few years old with a 1-2 dozen employees. Social networks hadn't been monetized in the way they are today. The market thought Facebook overpaid for Instagram.
Intel involvement would have killed any initiative that would lead to what Nvidia is now.
So, the ROI would have been much, much lower.
So, the ROI would have been much, much lower.
AMD at one point wanted to buy Nvidia too.
AI wouldn’t have had a future in its current form.
Or maybe Intel would be partitioning off Nvidia like the memory unit.
Or maybe Intel would be partitioning off Nvidia like the memory unit.
Imagine where we'd (not) be if that happened. Acquisitions/consolidation kill innovation.
And if the Intel board jumped on every expensive acquisition novelty that came to the table, how does that go?
Everyday I look at stocks and wish I'd known to buy the ones that went up today.
Overall, pretty uninteresting and uninsightful, unless you have Doc Brown's DeLorean with the Mr. Fusion upgrade (BTTF II). Even then, would it actually be good if you built your own reality to such an extent? I'm sure life's weird for the UHNW's, unclear if it's actually better. We're all still stuck on the same planet, our kids and kid's kids will all face the same struggles.
Even still, today is a pretty interesting temporal location to occupy!
Everyday I look at stocks and wish I'd known to buy the ones that went up today.
Overall, pretty uninteresting and uninsightful, unless you have Doc Brown's DeLorean with the Mr. Fusion upgrade (BTTF II). Even then, would it actually be good if you built your own reality to such an extent? I'm sure life's weird for the UHNW's, unclear if it's actually better. We're all still stuck on the same planet, our kids and kid's kids will all face the same struggles.
Even still, today is a pretty interesting temporal location to occupy!
Not gonna say they jumped on every one, but…McAfee, Havok(!), Infineon’s wireless business, Mobileye, etc
Yeah, McAfee..
https://youtube.com/watch?v=bKgf5PaBzyg
metadat slowly saunters off into the nearby foggy embankment, disappearing, Homer Simpson style
https://youtube.com/watch?v=bKgf5PaBzyg
metadat slowly saunters off into the nearby foggy embankment, disappearing, Homer Simpson style
> Everyday I look at stocks and wish I'd known to buy the ones that went up today.
You can’t compare yourself to the board of the premiere microchip manufacturing company (at the time). They should have more information than you and they are paid to be making more informed decisions (obviously they can be wrong too).
You can’t compare yourself to the board of the premiere microchip manufacturing company (at the time). They should have more information than you and they are paid to be making more informed decisions (obviously they can be wrong too).
Before AI Nvidia made some nice money from the crypto craze. Also, during pandemics and after, but before AI, there was a severe shortage of Nvidia GPUs.
>during pandemics and after, but before AI, there was a severe shortage of Nvidia GPUs.
you'd think that such multi-year shortage of a product would be used as an opportunity by other players to jump in and make great money. Yet that major machinery of capitalism is failing here.
you'd think that such multi-year shortage of a product would be used as an opportunity by other players to jump in and make great money. Yet that major machinery of capitalism is failing here.
Implies that 'that major machinery of capitalism' is an assumption. If it doesn't happen even under optimal conditions, you've learned something about the assumptions you've been taught as axioms.
well.. capitalism is still what made them happen, so we can still have that as an assumption.
I think the real takeaway here is the right conditions within companies can lead to breakthroughs. If a company employs the smartest engineers and gets them to work 12 hours days, it's obvious that they are going to take the lead.
I think the real takeaway here is the right conditions within companies can lead to breakthroughs. If a company employs the smartest engineers and gets them to work 12 hours days, it's obvious that they are going to take the lead.
The past few years have been pretty unfortunate for Intel, even though I think they could have been a pretty decent player in the market.
Their new Core Ultra chips have pretty okay performance and good energy efficiency, their P/E core design seems to make sense, even their entry into the dedicated graphics segment seemed like a good thing for the average consumer.
But the 13/14th gen issues were a pretty major hit, I do have an Intel Arc card that I got for a really nice price (cheaper than similar AMD/Nvidia GPUs) but it's not without its own share of issues even with pretty decently developed drivers, people seem to have taken the Core Ultra being a bit of a sidegrade pretty badly and the pricing doesn't always seem all that competitive when it comes to CPUs (even the motherboards seem more expensive when compared to AMD).
What a bummer.
That said, when it comes to the consumer segment, even AMD doesn't seem to be doing all that well, for example their net revenue for gaming is down 69%: https://ir.amd.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1224/am...
Their new Core Ultra chips have pretty okay performance and good energy efficiency, their P/E core design seems to make sense, even their entry into the dedicated graphics segment seemed like a good thing for the average consumer.
But the 13/14th gen issues were a pretty major hit, I do have an Intel Arc card that I got for a really nice price (cheaper than similar AMD/Nvidia GPUs) but it's not without its own share of issues even with pretty decently developed drivers, people seem to have taken the Core Ultra being a bit of a sidegrade pretty badly and the pricing doesn't always seem all that competitive when it comes to CPUs (even the motherboards seem more expensive when compared to AMD).
What a bummer.
That said, when it comes to the consumer segment, even AMD doesn't seem to be doing all that well, for example their net revenue for gaming is down 69%: https://ir.amd.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1224/am...
Nvidia trying to triple graphics card prices is going to hurt the rest of the gaming markets. people still want 500/1000/1500/2k rugs and if you can't get enough upgrade in that budget you wait a generation.
The "Dow Jones Industrial Index" isn't that industrial any more. Six of the companies are financial. Only about half actually run factories.
And MTV doesn't play music. The DJIA is curated slice of the American economy with a goofy weighting.
For what it's worth, they have MTV MEA running in my local gym and it plays nothing but music all the time.
This is how the dump begins. Onto the index huggers and pension funds
You are correct, this will affect both Intel and NVIDIA's stock prices, although it may already have been baked in depending how predictable this was.
Index funds are big business. Dropping Intel and replacing it with NVIDIA will cause a rebalancing of the DJIA index fund investments from Intel to NVIDIA. Yup, there is an index premium.
Index funds are big business. Dropping Intel and replacing it with NVIDIA will cause a rebalancing of the DJIA index fund investments from Intel to NVIDIA. Yup, there is an index premium.
Major index funds don't follow the DJIA. $DIA has 5% of $SPY's assets under management.
DIA has ~$35.62 billion, IYY has ~$2.5B in the DJIA. There are only 30 companies in it (~$12T total value), so it averages $1.1B per company.
But the S&P 500 index funds has somewhere around ~$2.5T invested, but that is spread across 500 companies (~$40T total valuation), so it averages $5B per company.
Thus you are correct the S&P 500 is more influential in terms of index fund reallocations, but only roughly 5x more influential.
But the S&P 500 index funds has somewhere around ~$2.5T invested, but that is spread across 500 companies (~$40T total valuation), so it averages $5B per company.
Thus you are correct the S&P 500 is more influential in terms of index fund reallocations, but only roughly 5x more influential.
The S&P 500 is cap-weighted, so the average value per company is meaningless. Nvidia is currently 7% of the index, while the smallest member is 0.01%.
Since Nvidia was already a part of the S&P 500 (and other similar indices) prior to its big run, those index investors generally profited from its rise. New flows into those funds do help prop it up, though.
The DJIA is a weird historical relic, and there's little reason for anyone to buy a fund tracking it. It's possible that those who did anyways will end up holding a tiny fraction of the bag due to this change, but it's not a big effect.
Since Nvidia was already a part of the S&P 500 (and other similar indices) prior to its big run, those index investors generally profited from its rise. New flows into those funds do help prop it up, though.
The DJIA is a weird historical relic, and there's little reason for anyone to buy a fund tracking it. It's possible that those who did anyways will end up holding a tiny fraction of the bag due to this change, but it's not a big effect.
The dow has nothing to do with index funds. The dow industrial average is price weighted. The s&p 500 is market weighted. No competent index would follow the dow- it doesn't even make sense conceptually, it has zero relation to the economics of the companies when you use price weighting, and 30 companies is a stupid low number.
There is, as far as I can tell, zero point to the dow, it's a completely useless tracker that is reported on because people talk about it because it's reported on.
There is, as far as I can tell, zero point to the dow, it's a completely useless tracker that is reported on because people talk about it because it's reported on.
This may make sense in theory but in reality is wrong. The DJIA has historically had a very close correlation to the S&P. Plus there is an inescapable psychological aspect to the Dow that is unique. When the Dow is off 1500 points it hits much differently than the S&P falling 200 points.
> inescapable psychological aspect to the Dow that is unique.
Sounds about the same as:
> that is reported on because people talk about it because it's reported on.
The unique aspect is that a randomly weighted index is just outright stupid however you look at it.
Sounds about the same as:
> that is reported on because people talk about it because it's reported on.
The unique aspect is that a randomly weighted index is just outright stupid however you look at it.
I have a feeling that is because every company in the DJIA is also in S&P, and most are very heavily weighted in S&P. Rather then companies within the DJIA doing as good as companies in the S&P.
> The dow has nothing to do with index funds
I am not sure what point you’re making but there is ~$38B invested in index funds (the ones I mention in the previous post) that track the DJIA.
Granted it is a fraction of the index funds which track the S&P 500.
I am not sure what point you’re making but there is ~$38B invested in index funds (the ones I mention in the previous post) that track the DJIA.
Granted it is a fraction of the index funds which track the S&P 500.
That’s half the story, there’s a lot of private funds that passively track as well, it just comes down to what’s the net flow due to rebalance of public + private indices. Could be a lot, could be that much
Could you please explain how do you see the proposed dump?
Index funds follow indices and to follow an index asset manager holds a weighted basket of respective stocks. If stock is excluded from the index, asset manager sell it off and that puts downward pressure on the stock price. Reverse happens if stock is included into the index.
That’s what common sense makes you think, reality is big money needs someone to sell into their NVDA stock and this is how they do it.
Just look at what happens to the stocks every time they get added or removed from the index, the complete opposite of common sense.
Liquidity is held by funds. Funds (some of them pensions) have rules where to allocate. They just follow these rules and allocate. Now this change will change the allocation to Nvidia. Investors can tap into this liquidity. The $$$ are then transferred from the funds (some of them are pensions, uh I mentioned that) to the investors.
AI bubble then burst. Funds are “adjusted” and someone is not getting his pension.
AI bubble then burst. Funds are “adjusted” and someone is not getting his pension.
Pumping a big momentum trade and selling it upon index rebalance is a classic buy side trade
Index huggers already own plenty of Nvidia (and Intel)? SP500 and total stock market funds have 4-7% in Nvidia at this point
The symbolism here is pretty nice.
Long time ago Nvidia tried to make it's own x86 CPU but was threatened with lawsuits by Intel. Now Nvidia can buy Intel for a song.
There's no way in hell Nvidia could buy Intel. There's more in this world than just money.
That's a really silly thing to say, in the sake of "buying" a company, nothing matters more then money lol
Maybe at small scales, but at larger scales, absolutely not. Among big strategically important companies, the barrier to acquisitions is not money, but regulatory approval, and I think there's no way regulators around the world will allow Nvidia to buy Intel.
Is there an example of a company which could have gotten a new lease of life after acquition was denied a regulatory approval and then the company failed?
Intel is not on the brink of bankruptcy, though. Unless things change drastically Nvidia would have a much harder time trying to buy them than they did with ARM.
We unless you have enough money to actually bribe the FTC and the European Commission (and equivalent in China and UK) then no, there are things that matter about as much or more than money.
To boards, investors, and other parasites, money is the only thing that matters.
Sure, but in reality money will only get them so far. Regulators will not allow Nvidia to buy Intel.
Just buy the patents and stuff. You wouldn't want to infect a working company with the Intel disease.
I wonder how bad "worked as a manager at Intel" poisons a resume.
I wonder how bad "worked as a manager at Intel" poisons a resume.
Certainly less than the HN sewing circle (yourself included) would think. People that actually know what they’re doing tend to make more informed and nuanced decisions than beating on their chest and yelling “Intel bad!”
I have Nothing against anyone who does the best they can in a bad situation.
Observing Intel, my feeling has been that "best you can" has been "bail out" since just after the PPro. The company has worked hard to waste a whole generation of talent and possibility. It took immense effort.
Anyone who looks at that performance and says "I was proud to be part of that" is not someone who will be happy working beside me, anyway.
Observing Intel, my feeling has been that "best you can" has been "bail out" since just after the PPro. The company has worked hard to waste a whole generation of talent and possibility. It took immense effort.
Anyone who looks at that performance and says "I was proud to be part of that" is not someone who will be happy working beside me, anyway.
I don’t know - there are a couple of companies that are a red flag on a resume.
Some companies get results, and some specialize in Powerpoint and politics. It all comes down to the managers in charge.
Would you hire a VP/manager that spent too much time at IBM or similar? How long can you work there without getting infected?
Some companies get results, and some specialize in Powerpoint and politics. It all comes down to the managers in charge.
Would you hire a VP/manager that spent too much time at IBM or similar? How long can you work there without getting infected?
I was recently looking at Intel’s performance during the dotcom bubble and then burst
If Google is the new Microsoft, is AMD the new Intel?
If Google is the new Microsoft, is AMD the new Intel?
I wonder if they have enough clout to change DJIA -> DJAI ?
Only if they can make it French too
Isn't Intel still the primary supplier of server CPUs? (as well as windows?)
They're taking a beating, but I feel like every few years we hear an "intel has fallen behind", and then they dust themselves off and are at the top again.
Though Nvidia can charge a huge premium for GPUs, those machines still need a CPU (if I'm wrong, please correct me).
Is anyone building ARM based servers? It looks like Intel has fought back against the Arm on Windows battle, and possibly won with their newest power saving Ultra 2s.
Do they really need to beat Nvidia?
They're taking a beating, but I feel like every few years we hear an "intel has fallen behind", and then they dust themselves off and are at the top again.
Though Nvidia can charge a huge premium for GPUs, those machines still need a CPU (if I'm wrong, please correct me).
Is anyone building ARM based servers? It looks like Intel has fought back against the Arm on Windows battle, and possibly won with their newest power saving Ultra 2s.
Do they really need to beat Nvidia?
Nvidia makes cpus. A ton of their server grade and network gear has arm cpus. my company almost exclusively buys amd cpus. With apple doing their own arm cpus, its doesn't leave a large market for intel.
> doesn't leave a large market for intel.
And yet Intel still had 3/4 of datacenter the market by volume at least a few months ago…
Of course they are struggling with maintaining their margins.
And yet Intel still had 3/4 of datacenter the market by volume at least a few months ago…
Of course they are struggling with maintaining their margins.
I would agree with you if Intel didn't have a PE ratio of over 100. Nvidia is only at 66 and i thought that was high.
Intel has a high PE because they its barely profitable (in fact they operate at a loss currently). Nvidia because investors expect it to continue growing at an extremely fast pace. These are fundamentally different (even if they had the same PE it wouldn’t be comparable).
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DJIA is not taken very seriously outside of mainstream media it seems. The news loves to quote big drops or increases to the DJIA due to the index being price weighted. “Wow the news is saying the DJIA dropped 1000 points today! That’s huge.” Nah, that’s like 2%
This seems like another media opportunity about a nothing burger event for an index that has lost relevance, when other indices like the S&P 500 and QQQ have already incorporated NVIDIA a while ago. They’re just playing catch up.
This seems like another media opportunity about a nothing burger event for an index that has lost relevance, when other indices like the S&P 500 and QQQ have already incorporated NVIDIA a while ago. They’re just playing catch up.
This could be very wrong, but I thought DJIA is relevant mostly due to WSJ? Most publications care about S&P 500, but in WSJ they always quote DJIA first (for obvious reasons) and maybe mention S&P 500.
The Dow Jones corp used to own the index and the newspaper prior to the mid 2000s. Now, News Corp runs the WSJ and the index is mostly owned and run by S&P. So there is a historical connection and probably some legacy ownership today.
> DJIA is not taken very seriously outside of mainstream media it seems
AFAIK its only real utility is if you want to make very long term comparisons over the years against old values of itself, where its long baseline may be valuable compared to other metrics that don't stretch as far.
Everything else is just flim-flam for getting views/clicks or comforting very old viewers with something that is a familiar staple.
AFAIK its only real utility is if you want to make very long term comparisons over the years against old values of itself, where its long baseline may be valuable compared to other metrics that don't stretch as far.
Everything else is just flim-flam for getting views/clicks or comforting very old viewers with something that is a familiar staple.
Do any index funds track it?
Quite a few, pretty much every major ETF provider should have one. I recall Vanguard not, and a quick google seems to confirm that. I do wonder why?
The one I know of off the top of my head is DIA.
The one I know of off the top of my head is DIA.
The dow is price weighted. Vanguard, being a sort of non profit, probably doesn't want people investing in an obviously horrible index that should have gone away decades ago.
They don't care about people investing in losing bets. But they care about wasting resources on running stuff that does not sell. And not having a plus followed by big number and percentage sign in column next to name is bad seller.
In the end how funds are marketed and presented is important part to understand. Also it is better for them to sell actively managed fund with bigger number on it than index with negative one.
In the end how funds are marketed and presented is important part to understand. Also it is better for them to sell actively managed fund with bigger number on it than index with negative one.
> I recall Vanguard not, and a quick google seems to confirm that. I do wonder why?
It’s a crappy price weighted benchmark with 30 stocks invented over 100 years ago, that’s why Vanguard doesn’t offer a fund.
The largest DJIA ETF is small potatoes, SPY’s average daily volume is higher than DIA’s total assets under management.
VOO tracks the S&P 500 and VTI tracks the US total market, both of these are much better, more diversified options for equity investing.
It’s a crappy price weighted benchmark with 30 stocks invented over 100 years ago, that’s why Vanguard doesn’t offer a fund.
The largest DJIA ETF is small potatoes, SPY’s average daily volume is higher than DIA’s total assets under management.
VOO tracks the S&P 500 and VTI tracks the US total market, both of these are much better, more diversified options for equity investing.
100%. It’s a good example of how the media wants to entertain, not inform.
The DJIA is a price-weighted index and doesn’t track dividends, yet is somehow supposed to reflect investor sentiment.
The DJIA is a price-weighted index and doesn’t track dividends, yet is somehow supposed to reflect investor sentiment.
> It’s a good example of how the media wants to entertain, not inform
It’s a good example of the media being split into two populations. The free media, which is filler for ads. And media one pays for. The financial press isn’t really headlining this story; it’s on CNBC.
It’s a good example of the media being split into two populations. The free media, which is filler for ads. And media one pays for. The financial press isn’t really headlining this story; it’s on CNBC.
the media wants to entertain, not inform
The media wants to not go bankrupt. It’s the customers that decide whether and how that’s possible.
The media wants to not go bankrupt. It’s the customers that decide whether and how that’s possible.
> The media wants to not go bankrupt.
I’d say that depends. Many media organizations operate without profits — or even incurring losses — in order to serve the public good, promote an ideology, engage in activism, spread misinformation, etc.
I’d say that depends. Many media organizations operate without profits — or even incurring losses — in order to serve the public good, promote an ideology, engage in activism, spread misinformation, etc.
spread misinformation? which major media operations are operating at a loss how for the public good (discounting state run) and how?
The Guardian has turned a profit in maybe 4 of the last 30 years.
> spread misinformation?
Yes, several state-run and private media organizations operate without profits or at a loss in order to spread misinformation.
> which major media operations are operating at a loss how for the public good (discounting state run) and how?
Sorry, I was unable to properly understand your question.
In any case, I never said the organizations that are not primarily concerned with chasing profits are “major” ones. I believe that applies best to lesser-well-known entities, like those who live on social media or the blogosphere. Though there are some instances of major state-run companies, even on TV and on the radio, that operate in a similar fashion.
Also, I am surely not equating the spread of misinformation with serving the public good — these are just distinct objectives that may be sought by media organizations, rather than avoiding bankruptcy.
Yes, several state-run and private media organizations operate without profits or at a loss in order to spread misinformation.
> which major media operations are operating at a loss how for the public good (discounting state run) and how?
Sorry, I was unable to properly understand your question.
In any case, I never said the organizations that are not primarily concerned with chasing profits are “major” ones. I believe that applies best to lesser-well-known entities, like those who live on social media or the blogosphere. Though there are some instances of major state-run companies, even on TV and on the radio, that operate in a similar fashion.
Also, I am surely not equating the spread of misinformation with serving the public good — these are just distinct objectives that may be sought by media organizations, rather than avoiding bankruptcy.
As one example, the Chicago NPR affiliate, WBEZ, acquired the Chicago Sun-Times as what was widely described as a "no-cash" deal.[1] A rather more truthful description is that WBEZ was paid $61 million (largely through philanthropic support) to take over a long-ailing newspaper, as described by the city's other long-ailing paper, the Chicago Tribune:
"Chicago Sun-Times becomes nonprofit newspaper with $61 million in backing as WBEZ merger closes"
<https://www.chicagotribune.com/2022/01/31/chicago-sun-times-...>
Of newspapers operating at a loss or as philanthropies, there are the Baltimore Banner,[2] The Guardian,[3] and ProPublica,[4] which all operate as non-profits, relying on a mix of advertising, subscriptions, and philanthropy. The privately-held, for-profit Washington Post is a for-profit paper that's operated at a loss for years, and this before losing ~10% of its subscribers due to recent editorial decisions.[4][5]
There are numerous propaganda institutions (usually labeled as "think tanks") promulgating various ideologies or interests, with the Atlas Network being amongst the largest and most influential:
<https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Atlas_Network>
________________________________
Notes:
1. See for example the WSJ's coverage: "Chicago Public Media to Acquire Chicago Sun-Times, Creating a Nonprofit Local-News Powerhouse" <https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/chicago-public-media-to-acq...> archive/paywall: <https://archive.is/LP3Q6>.
2. A non-profit newspaper established in 2022: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baltimore_Banner>.
3. A slightly dated take on 2016 turmoil at The Guardian: "Everything you need to know about the Guardian’s giant bust-up" (2026-5-18) <https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/fueding-and...> and Wikipedia's entry on the Scott Trust Limited which underwrites the paper: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Trust_Limited>.
4. ProPublica was established as a 501(c)(3) in 2007, with funding from the Sandler, Knight, MacArthur, and Ford foundations, along with the Pew Charitable Trusts, Carnegie Corporation, and Atlantic Philanthropies: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProPublica>.
5. "The Washington Post publisher disclosed the paper lost $77 million last year. Here’s his plan to turn it around" (2024-5-23) <https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/23/media/washington-post-will-le...>
6. "Washington Post cancellations hit 250,000 – 10% of subscribers" (2024-10-29) <https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/oct/29/washington-pos...>
"Chicago Sun-Times becomes nonprofit newspaper with $61 million in backing as WBEZ merger closes"
<https://www.chicagotribune.com/2022/01/31/chicago-sun-times-...>
Of newspapers operating at a loss or as philanthropies, there are the Baltimore Banner,[2] The Guardian,[3] and ProPublica,[4] which all operate as non-profits, relying on a mix of advertising, subscriptions, and philanthropy. The privately-held, for-profit Washington Post is a for-profit paper that's operated at a loss for years, and this before losing ~10% of its subscribers due to recent editorial decisions.[4][5]
There are numerous propaganda institutions (usually labeled as "think tanks") promulgating various ideologies or interests, with the Atlas Network being amongst the largest and most influential:
<https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Atlas_Network>
________________________________
Notes:
1. See for example the WSJ's coverage: "Chicago Public Media to Acquire Chicago Sun-Times, Creating a Nonprofit Local-News Powerhouse" <https://www.wsj.com/amp/articles/chicago-public-media-to-acq...> archive/paywall: <https://archive.is/LP3Q6>.
2. A non-profit newspaper established in 2022: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Baltimore_Banner>.
3. A slightly dated take on 2016 turmoil at The Guardian: "Everything you need to know about the Guardian’s giant bust-up" (2026-5-18) <https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/fueding-and...> and Wikipedia's entry on the Scott Trust Limited which underwrites the paper: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Trust_Limited>.
4. ProPublica was established as a 501(c)(3) in 2007, with funding from the Sandler, Knight, MacArthur, and Ford foundations, along with the Pew Charitable Trusts, Carnegie Corporation, and Atlantic Philanthropies: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProPublica>.
5. "The Washington Post publisher disclosed the paper lost $77 million last year. Here’s his plan to turn it around" (2024-5-23) <https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/23/media/washington-post-will-le...>
6. "Washington Post cancellations hit 250,000 – 10% of subscribers" (2024-10-29) <https://www.theguardian.com/media/2024/oct/29/washington-pos...>
That’s just a different set of customers (“patrons”).
No.
For most of the listed orgs, it's a different business organisation (not-for-profit rather than shareholder-based), the organisations aren't intended to run an operating profit, and the content is available to far more than just those who pay directly for access.
Mind that in the case of ad-supported print media, the principle customers (the advertisers) weren't identical with the set of readers. But access was largely limited to those who subscribed directly, bought a newsstand copy, or could access a copy obtained by either method. In either case the operation was generally intended to run a profit.
There have also been free papers, either supported entirely by advertising (frequently "entertainment weeklies"), or published as propaganda organs for a given organisation, frequently religious or political.
For most of the listed orgs, it's a different business organisation (not-for-profit rather than shareholder-based), the organisations aren't intended to run an operating profit, and the content is available to far more than just those who pay directly for access.
Mind that in the case of ad-supported print media, the principle customers (the advertisers) weren't identical with the set of readers. But access was largely limited to those who subscribed directly, bought a newsstand copy, or could access a copy obtained by either method. In either case the operation was generally intended to run a profit.
There have also been free papers, either supported entirely by advertising (frequently "entertainment weeklies"), or published as propaganda organs for a given organisation, frequently religious or political.
Late add for clarity, on last 'graph:
Free papers might be either for-profit (ad-supported) or not-for-profit (propaganda). Ultimately there's a rather blurry line between advertising and propaganda: both are messaging modes in which the publisher is more interested in distribution than the reader.
Free papers might be either for-profit (ad-supported) or not-for-profit (propaganda). Ultimately there's a rather blurry line between advertising and propaganda: both are messaging modes in which the publisher is more interested in distribution than the reader.
Or it's a time-honored way, neutral, way to communicate the impact of business news. YMMV, in my experience not based not on facts, but how willing I am to catastrophize things in order to make things I don't like simple to blame on someone.
> nothing burger event for an index that has lost relevance
This argument has been around since time immemorial. The right way to think of it is more like a country club or a who's who, rather than a survey or a directory.
As for the news at hand, it's really more about Intel than Nvidia. Sic transit gloria mundi.
This argument has been around since time immemorial. The right way to think of it is more like a country club or a who's who, rather than a survey or a directory.
As for the news at hand, it's really more about Intel than Nvidia. Sic transit gloria mundi.
Intel hasn’t been in the country club for 10+ years.
If you exclude its pre-Athlon Nvidia-like era, Intel's market cap earlier this year was only ~20% below its 2020ish peak.
It has engineers. It might yet surprise. Nvidia hasn't proven it can turn a ridiculous amount of capital into a matrix-multiplication moat.
It has engineers. It might yet surprise. Nvidia hasn't proven it can turn a ridiculous amount of capital into a matrix-multiplication moat.
Nobody should take Dow Jones Industrial Average seriously. It's only relevant because it's been around for 139 years. It only tracks arbitrarily selected 30 large companies and it's not even weighted by market cap.
It was made this way because 139 years ago we didn't have computers and someone had to manually calculate the average.
It was made this way because 139 years ago we didn't have computers and someone had to manually calculate the average.
So you can just replace underperforming/flailing companies and still call it an average?
Yes that's how it's always worked
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_components_of_the...
According to this, the original DJIA was 11 stocks, comprising 9 railroad companies, 1 steamship company, and 1 telegraph company. Capital was deployed very differently 140 years ago.
It was and wasn't.
Those were the telecoms, transport, and infrastructure companies of their day. They connected the industrial and agricultural output of the United States in much the way Apple, Amazon, Boeing, Verizon, and Walmart (all current components of the DJIA) do today.
That said, yes, it's interesting to watch how the components and industrial sectors represented change over time.
The first DJIA proper (26 May 1896) featured cotton oil, sugar, tobacco, gas & coke (coal), cattle feed, electrical utility, lead, railroads, leather, rubber, and a holding company (trust) largely engaged in utilities and transportation, and dropped later the same year, along with US Rubber. Changes to the average have been a consistent feature to its origins.
Think of those which aren't directly comparable to modern concerns (e.g., oil & gas, electric utilities) as raw materials (mining and ag), transport and logistics, and food (or feed).
Those were the telecoms, transport, and infrastructure companies of their day. They connected the industrial and agricultural output of the United States in much the way Apple, Amazon, Boeing, Verizon, and Walmart (all current components of the DJIA) do today.
That said, yes, it's interesting to watch how the components and industrial sectors represented change over time.
The first DJIA proper (26 May 1896) featured cotton oil, sugar, tobacco, gas & coke (coal), cattle feed, electrical utility, lead, railroads, leather, rubber, and a holding company (trust) largely engaged in utilities and transportation, and dropped later the same year, along with US Rubber. Changes to the average have been a consistent feature to its origins.
Think of those which aren't directly comparable to modern concerns (e.g., oil & gas, electric utilities) as raw materials (mining and ag), transport and logistics, and food (or feed).
Its not a market average, its an average of members curated by an arbitrary set of rules.
Many exist.
This is how it has always been.
Many exist.
This is how it has always been.
DJIA is kind of a joke index. SP500 is much better.
The Dow Jones index serves a different purpose: it's meant to be easy to update without the use of a computer. It's easy to update and publish the index since the math is a lot easier, and doesn't involve pulling in hundreds of quotes and trying to tabulate a weighted average.
It's not that useful now that we have computers, but in the early 1900s it was a reasonably good approximation of a market cap using fast math.
It's not that useful now that we have computers, but in the early 1900s it was a reasonably good approximation of a market cap using fast math.
Index funds didn't exist until 1975 while the Dow was formed in 1896. So I suppose it didn't really matter if the Dow was tracking things well, it wouldn't have impacted your investments.
It was still useful to have a general idea of how stock markets were valued, particularly in light of the events on and about 29 October 1929, a/k/a Black Tuesday. Valuation of equities markets themselves has a profound impact on the monetary and financial systems as a whole.
On which point, John K. Galbraith's The Great Crash: 1929 (1954) remains an excellent history of those events (and notes the DJIA's value frequently), as well as a general primer on equities and investments, and how they may go wrong.
On which point, John K. Galbraith's The Great Crash: 1929 (1954) remains an excellent history of those events (and notes the DJIA's value frequently), as well as a general primer on equities and investments, and how they may go wrong.
I love that so many people keep saying this so confidently yet if anyone bothered to look they’d see that the correlation between the two is nearly perfect over any timeframe including the past five years
Yes, it is entirely symbolic and has been for decades. The only purpose it really serves is differentiating those who know a little bit about stock markets and those who don't. It's annoying that serious media outlets continue to publish it, alongside valid indexes, implying that it has anywhere near the same level of legitimacy. Also, I don't like it.
May I know why you consider it a joke? I obviously have no much clue about it all
If you want to estimate the stock market, would you rather:
1. sum 500 of the biggest companies by size (price * n shares).
or
2. have WSJ editors select 30 companies by any criteria they see fit, but you don't get to see the size of the companies, only the share price.
1. sum 500 of the biggest companies by size (price * n shares).
or
2. have WSJ editors select 30 companies by any criteria they see fit, but you don't get to see the size of the companies, only the share price.
Note that the DJIA also changes constantly over time (as discussed elsewhere in this thread), as do the weights assigned to the individual companies constituting it.
The way that the DJIA changes isn't the same as an index of, say, the n most highly capitalised equities might (Fortune 5, 10, 20, S&P 500, etc.).
The way that the DJIA changes isn't the same as an index of, say, the n most highly capitalised equities might (Fortune 5, 10, 20, S&P 500, etc.).
Wonder how much DJIA had to give to get them to list.
May I suggest a merger of intel with Boeing?
Two back-in-the-day engineering driven future-forward companies and today run into the ground by Quarterly Reports And Nothing Else Matters culture and meandering around.
They'd be a lovely cultural fit.
Two back-in-the-day engineering driven future-forward companies and today run into the ground by Quarterly Reports And Nothing Else Matters culture and meandering around.
They'd be a lovely cultural fit.
I've been assuming that Intel will eventually catch up, because that's the world we grew up in, but that's not going to happen, is it?
Symbolic of the times. The new wizzy guy edges out the old school lumbering giant.
For some value of “new”, anyway. I remember attending a talk on how GPU programming was cool and how GPGPU was the next big thing—in the mid 2000s, as a middle schooler. I don’t believe CUDA was a thing yet (looking at Wikipedia, the first release might have been several months later?), instead Cg and NV_fragment_program4 were the new hotness.
Eh, not really? Nvidia is 31 years old, that's hardly new or wizzy. Sure, Intel is a bit older at 56, but I feel like Nvidia has been around more than long enough.
A cautionary tale for Nvidia to not become the next Intel.
Does that mean it's gonna top...
Ok so why switch?
> Intel shares were down 1% in extended trading on Friday. Nvidia shares rose 1%.
Riveting
Riveting
But worse, how we talk about the index, even today on radio and TV, in terms of nominal points up or down is completely ridiculous. Just yesterday "the Dow Jones was up 100 points". Ok - no reference value, no percentage change: means nothing to me. And we wonder why we are financially illiterate in this country.