Where Chris Lattner calls AI "mid" and George Hotz wants to knock a trillion dollars of value off of NVIDIA with tinygrad.
Preamble
IMHO: AMD's Advancing AI 2026 summit in San Francisco was free. And right now, while the firehose of free AI events and learning is still on, I'm taking every opportunity I can get my hands on. Eventually the free opportunities will slowly disappear, and this age of companies wanting us to adopt their tech and ecosystem will end. Cynical, pessimistic maybe. But think about the money spent on a two-day event at the Moscone Center. Free if you sign up. Free learning, access to vendors, tech talks, keynote speakers, food and lunch provided. That's an investment, and eventually the accountants, or the shareholders, are going to need to see a return. But I digress. This is my rundown of day one.
AMD changed my mental model
To say I'm a fish out of water at any event is an understatement. AWS, MLH, Google, and now AMD, I've tackled each one as a way to explore this brave new world, but sometimes I just don't have the context. And that's okay.
