Why GPUs are hard to displace

Gavin argues GPUs' dominance, NVIDIA's advantages, and how niche ASICs can succeed by making different trade-offs.

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On this episode of Invested, Michael sits down with Gavin Baker who is the Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Atreides Management, LP. In addition to overseeing investments and research at Atreides, he is responsible for the firm’s day-to-day portfolio management. Prior to founding Atreides in 2019, Gavin was at Fidelity Investments from 1999 to 2017, most recently as the portfolio manager of the Fidelity OTC Portfolio from 2009 to 2017. He also helped spearhead Fidelity’s venture capital investing from 2013 to 2017. Prior to managing the Fidelity OTC Portfolio, he was a portfolio manager of the Fidelity Select Wireless Portfolio from 2007 to 2011, the Fidelity Select Telecommunications Portfolio from 2007 to 2009 and the Fidelity Select Pharmaceuticals Portfolio from 2002 to 2005. Gavin started his career at Fidelity as an analyst, and focused on semiconductors, pharmaceuticals, retail, consumer packaged goods and telecommunications. Gavin earned an AB in economics and history from Dartmouth College.

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KEY TOPICS

00:00 Intro

02:10 Foundation Models: From Fastest Appreciating to Depreciating Assets

05:46 The Trillion-Dollar AI Club: OpenAI, Anthropic & xAI

10:25 The “Free Agency” Talent War and Religious Belief in ASI

12:55 Weaponizing Capital and the $600 Billion GPU Question

16:30 The 30-Year “Overnight Success” of Nvidia

20:22 Cerebras, NextSilicon, and the Power of Picking Niches

23:49 TSMC, Intel, and the Semiconductor “Chocolate Cake” Problem

26:40 Why Taiwan Semi’s Lead May Be Stabilizing, Not Existential

30:48 ”Intel Made Two Crucial Errors”