
John Hennessy named chairman of Alphabet/Google - teklaperry
https://www.spectrum.ieee.org/view-from-the-valley/at-work/tech-careers/from-stanford-university-president-to-chairman-of-alphabetgoogle
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luckydude
This guy is one of my heroes, I could not be happier. Go him. The H&P book on
computer architecture is a book that changed my life. He is like Knuth except
that I understand what he says. The Knuth stuff, I get it, it's profound, but
I never got it. It was too hard. H&P, they laid it out in ways that I could
understand. I'm not stupid but I'm not that smart, I really loved that book,
it was written in a way that not so smart people get it.

If there was a way I could say "go you", yeah, I want to do that. He's a great
guy, has done great work, go him.

And all that said, I bet this is not a "go him" job, I bet he makes a
difference, maybe a huge one, maybe not so huge, but I bet he makes a
difference. Let's come back in 5 years, I bet he will have made stuff better.

~~~
timb07
I too loved "Computer Architecture: A Quantitative Approach", and read it all
the way through before the semester even started.

Each chapter had a pithy quote at the start, and my favorite was the excerpt
from the EDSAC instruction set:

Z -- Halt and Ring Bell: Stop the machine and ring the warning bell

~~~
gargarplex
Can you recommend a book that would serve as a useful prerequisite to CA: AQA?
Based on your recommendation, I flipped through the first few pages on Amazon,
but it felt a lot like Algebra 2 without knowing Algebra 1.

~~~
torinmr
At my university CA: AQA was used as the text for the second course in
computer architecture. The first course in computer architecture used this
book: [https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Organization-Design-
Fourth-A...](https://www.amazon.com/Computer-Organization-Design-Fourth-
Architecture/dp/0123747503/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_14_t_2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=E214BA3CMPK44D3AAGXQ).

If you do get around to reading CA: AQA, you can follow along with this
Coursera course (it's taught by the professor I had when I took it at
Princeton, and he does a great job teaching it):
[https://www.coursera.org/learn/comparch](https://www.coursera.org/learn/comparch)

~~~
gargarplex
I don't have enough patience for courses. I sort of scan the material for what
I really need or want to learn and ignore what's not interesting to me. I can
make consistent A's with the benefit of Adderall, but I don't feel comfortable
with that.

Your recommendation was very useful and interesting to me, and I bought the
paperback. I was surprised that it was cheaper to buy a used paperback than to
rent it via Kindle for a month.

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Steeeve
Hennessy was an incredible steward at Stanford, and I'm 100% sure that he will
be a difference maker at Alphabet. I don't see him taking the position if he
didn't have an incredible vision for the future that he could drive.

The intro to this video talks a bit about his accomplishments as president.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApTQ1bfKXyY](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ApTQ1bfKXyY)

This video is probably more in line with the interests of the community here
(Stanford Seminar - Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders: John Hennessy of Stanford
University):

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB3oAg0wuYg](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tB3oAg0wuYg)

I was in the audience when he announced the launching of the Knight-Hennessey
scholarship. It was an incredible speech. He was always an incredible
fundraiser, but putting together a $750M fully endowed scholarship program is
a heck of a way to say goodbye to the university.

~~~
thomasahle
> I don't see him taking the position if he didn't have an incredible vision
> for the future that he could drive.

How much influence does a chairman really have on the the vision though? Isn't
that more of the CEO's business?

I suppose the board picks the CEO, but that spot doesn't appear to be changing
anytime soon.

~~~
fsloth
"How much influence does a chairman really have on the the vision though?
Isn't that more of the CEO's business?"

In an ideal situation the chairman can function as the intellectual sparring
partner of the CEO. Not many can do that, as some things cannot be discussed
outside of the company personnel, and going downwards in the chain of command
always has this gradient of authority which can function as an intellectual
inhibitor.

~~~
walshemj
The Chair also acts in the last resort to sack the CEO if the company is going
off the rails - soothing which the Chair at HP should have done a few years
ago.

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yeukhon
His CV page [1] is clean and quite up-to-date. Not sure if he handles the edit
himself or not, but I find the page's design clean compared to a lot of the
professors' out there. I just think it's interesting to mention here.

[1]:
[https://web.stanford.edu/~hennessy/cv.html](https://web.stanford.edu/~hennessy/cv.html)

~~~
contras1970

        <html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml"
        xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"
        xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word"
        xmlns:m="http://schemas.microsoft.com/office/2004/12/omml"
        xmlns:mv="http://macVmlSchemaUri" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
    
        <head>
        <meta name=Title content=cv.html>
        <meta name=Keywords content="">
        <meta http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=unicode">
        <meta name=ProgId content=Word.Document>
        <meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 14">
        <meta name=Originator content="Microsoft Word 14">
        <link rel=File-List href="cv_files/filelist.xml">
        <link rel=Edit-Time-Data href="cv_files/editdata.mso">
        <!--[if !mso]>
        ...

~~~
oh_sigh
I wonder if Google is going to offer incentives for him to switch to Google
docs, like free 100mb quota upgrade on his Google account

~~~
bitmapbrother
Whoa, pump the brakes there. Nooglers need to earn that upgrade.

------
dmoy
So now both H & P working at Google? (Though I don't know enough about
corporate board stuff to tell if chairman is "working for")

~~~
cbHXBY1D
Pretty crazy! Hopefully they get Patterson to work on some novel computer
architectures. TPUs are very cool but they are not for consumers.

~~~
jlebar
I know what you mean, but e.g. every time the Google Assistant talks to you,
the consumer, you're using TPUs.

[https://deepmind.com/blog/wavenet-launches-google-
assistant/](https://deepmind.com/blog/wavenet-launches-google-assistant/)

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deanCommie
Weird.. In a time when people are extra tuned to the relationship between
technology and society and whether just because we can build something, should
we (information bubbles, etc), it's strange that Alphabet would pick someone
so out of touch with their impact to the long tail of humanity.

At least that's the impression I got of Hennessey from Malcolm Gladwell's
podcast [http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/06-my-little-
hundred-...](http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/06-my-little-hundred-
million)

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kev009
I'm glad he got his books updated with the RISC-V editions before this

~~~
davidkuhta
Haha, while I'm happy for him and excited for what this means for Alphabet, I
had the same thought. Something tells me this guy would be able to juggle a
new edition nonetheless

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gxs
>>RISC pioneer John Hennessy’s side hustle gets serious

I couldn't help but get a chuckle out of the subtitle.

One day I hope my side hustles involve helping to run an $800B company.

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baldajan
I have no issues with John Hennessy, but I’m surprised they didn’t give the
chairman position to Larry Page, who’s CEO and a Co-Founder. I wonder what’s
preventing him from taking over full control...

~~~
samfisher83
Paige and Brin have enough voting power to pretty much make any major
decision.

~~~
polskibus
How much power exactly? Or do they own some special shares that don't need
majority to rule?

~~~
zerocrates
Together they control over 50% of the voting power. They both own substantial
amounts of Class B shares, which aren't available to the public and carry 10
votes per share.

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erikpukinskis
What’s going on with Schmidt? Was this planned?

~~~
alphonsegaston
Most likely he was cast aside so Google can cozy up better with the Trump
administration. Schmidt was close with the Clinton campaign, which Trump
himself noted when they met:

[http://www.siliconbeat.com/2017/12/22/time-right-eric-
schmid...](http://www.siliconbeat.com/2017/12/22/time-right-eric-schmidt-
leave-alphabet-chairman/)

~~~
Aloha
I think this conceptually holds as much water as a colander.

Schmidt has been on his way out for a couple years - it appeared to have been
part of a planned transition.

~~~
somecontext
For some context, this article in the New York Times presents essentially the
same theories/discussion: [https://nytimes.com/2017/12/21/technology/eric-
schmidt-googl...](https://nytimes.com/2017/12/21/technology/eric-schmidt-
google-alphabet.html)

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MrBingley
Does this mean good things for RISC-V?

~~~
senatorobama
Nope. That's Patterson.

~~~
cbHXBY1D
Yep. And as someone engaged in the RISC-V community, I've seen zero evidence
of Google involvement outside of Patterson. Normally if they had something
brewing, you would start to see signs on the forums, email, or Github.

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flormmm
Amazing and Awesome. Congrats.

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jacksmith21006
Great choice.

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mathattack
Is this a conflict of interest?

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justchilly
Correct me if I'm wrong but didnt Hennessy, while President of Stanford, agree
to give away university-owned page rank IP to Google for $1mm (a company he
was conveniently personally invested in) thereby lining himself up for massive
personal gains at the expense of the University?

~~~
esmi
It was reported that Standford made more than $300M off their shares and they
get yearly royalties. I think they did ok on that deal.

[https://www.mercurynews.com/2010/12/21/stanfords-ideas-
gener...](https://www.mercurynews.com/2010/12/21/stanfords-ideas-
generate-65-1-million-in-revenues/)

~~~
puzzle
That makes it "only" the second most profitable Stanford patent ever. If they
had only waited a little longer before cashing out...

~~~
narrator
Create more value than you capture.

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godelmachine
Is he not the author of the famous book - Computer Architecture : A
Quantitative Approach by Hennessy Patterson?

~~~
theDoug
Indeed the same.

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singularity2001
victory of the meritocracy! if only this principle was applied to politics (no
flags please)

