

Technical co-founder/CTO looking for a new startup to work at - akkartik
http://akkartik.name/2008-07-01.html

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iamelgringo
Akkartik and I talked for quite a while at the reception before startup
school. He's a really nice guy and I wish him all the best in finding a new
gig.

If someone needs a CTO, I'd drop him a line.

Full disclosure: I really don't have any vested interest in this at all. Our
conversation from 4 months ago just stuck with me, and I thought I'd give him
a plug.

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jthinaka
I've known Kartik since high school. One thing's for sure, he is as sharp as a
button, and a natural born leader. I'd vouch for him...in fact I already did:
[http://www.onetj.com/tjs_kaleidoscope/2008/05/and-how-the-
do...](http://www.onetj.com/tjs_kaleidoscope/2008/05/and-how-the-dot.html)

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h0mee
I'm vouching for kartik too -- I've been in tons of technical convos with him.
He's a great guy personally and really thoughtful as a tech guy and is
definately someone you want to have on your team.

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Mapou
Why does almost every startup have to be a social web site or some other web
app? The web is surely not the only thing in the hacker universe, is it? The
biggest opportunities in computing today are in parallel programming tools and
multicore architecture and design. How come nobody seems to care about those
things?

I note that your Phd dissertation was titled, "Prefetch mechanisms by
application memory access pattern". Surely this qualifies you for all sorts of
computing projects.

~~~
paul
Parallel programming tools may make for interesting research, but that doesn't
mean that it will be a good business. In general, tools startups haven't been
terribly successful.

~~~
Mapou
I see what you're saying and I think you're probably right. But if you can
design and build a kick-ass multicore processor that blows everyone else out
of the water in terms of performance, energy efficiency and ease of
programming, it makes sense to give all your dev tools away for free. Heck,
you could even throw in an OS and a nice browser for good measure.

I realize that I'm biased since I happen to think that multicore design is the
most exciting thing out there. In my opinion, whoever solves the
multicore/parallel programming problem will dominate computing for the rest of
the century. The rest of the industry, including Intel, IBM, AMD, APPLE,
etc... would flock like migratory birds to come and worship at your feet.

~~~
paul
If you could design and build a flying car that runs on tap water, that would
be even better. Unfortunately, that's easier said than done. Competing with
Intel, AMD, etc in the processor market is also not easy -- many have tried,
and generally failed.

~~~
Mapou
Yeah, but this is a different ball game. The big players have an Achilles'
heel. They are clueless as to what the future holds for multicore processors
and they don't seem close to a solution. Parallel programming is a pain in the
ass. There is even panic in the air because the big vendors have no real idea
how to proceed. The solution is out there though. Some unknown startup may
sneak behind them and steal the pot of gold while they're busy fighting
amongst themselves.

~~~
paul
Anything is possible, but so far the flying car and parallel programming
startups have all failed :). (Moller and Peakstream come to mind)

~~~
bayareaguy
Peakstream may not have reached their "peak" but they were bought by Google
for an undisclosed sum, which was probably good timing given that larger
players are now entering that field.

[http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070605-google-buys-
pe...](http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070605-google-buys-peakstream-
inc.html)

~~~
paul
I don't know all the specifics, but I doubt that was a "successful" exit.

~~~
bayareaguy
Wasn't peakstream just a quick flip of the stanford brook gpu research?

<http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20060918-7763.html>

 _The new company is entering the public eye with $17 million in funding and a
leadership roster that includes former executives and tech guys from Sun,
VMWare, NVIDIA, and NetApp. PeakStream's Chief Scientist is Prof. Pat Hanrahan
of Stanford, who was formerly involved with Stanford's stream processing
research endeavor, the Brook project. The Brook project's work on using GPUs
as stream processors formed the foundation on which PeakStream has built their
newly announced product._

