Top all-time · #4539
Irrational Analysis
Personal blog · irrationalanalysis.substack.comhardwareeconomics
Irrational Analysis is a personal blog at irrationalanalysis.substack.com about hardware and economics. Since 2024, 16 different Hacker News readers have linked it 20 times, most often “Hot Chips 2026: Irrational Recap”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2026-10-30, and you can follow it by feed.
Too few sampled comments (4) to say how often HN recommends it.?
Why HN links it
A Substack newsletter on the semiconductor industry, covering companies such as Arm, Cerebras, and Intel. Commenters cite its posts as analysis of chip business and leadership changes.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 4 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Engineering-Driven Investment Analysis **Opinions are authors own, do not reflect past/present/future employers, are based on publicly available information, and are #NotFinancialAdvice.**.
Most-linked posts?
- Hot Chips 2026: Irrational Recap2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2026-09-06
- [V]ery [L]ong [I]ncoherent [W]riteup2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2024-06-06
- A Background-Proof Guide on Semiconductor Foundry PDKs (Process Development Kit)2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2025-01-24
What Hacker News says?
ARM is owned by an investment bank, SoftBank. It operates kind of like Goldman Sachs. ARM is becoming a chipmaker, just like Intel. But Intels' CHIP grant is more similar to a pre-emptive 2008-era bailout of the banks (TARP), for being "too big to fail." (because it makes defense chips) https://irrationalanalysis.substack.com/p/arms-chernobyl-mom...
Comment linking /p/arms-chernobyl-moment/comment/74000764
on “Arm is canceling Qualcomm's chip design license”Submitted Tenstorrent and the State of AI Hardware Startups as a story · 224 points
HN discussionBear case on Cerebras: https://irrationalanalysis.substack.com/p/cerebras-cbrso-equ... Note: This author is heavily invested in Nvidia.
Comment linking /p/cerebras-cbrso-equity-research-report
on “100x defect tolerance: How we solved the yield problem”Submitted ARM's Chernobyl Moment as a story · 43 points
HN discussionThis author has a very interesting mail list on the semiconductor industry, and kind of predicted the new CEO: https://irrationalanalysis.substack.com/p/make-intel-great-a...
Comment linking /p/make-intel-great-again
on “Intel appoints Lip-Bu Tan as its CEO”Submitted HBM: High-Bandwidth Mistake as a story · 17 points
HN discussionMakes me think of this: > There is a pattern I keep seeing, especially in the Bay Area. So many fabulously wealthy people where it’s never enough. Never enough money. Somehow people make 500k a year and end up broke and I know families making 60k with 3 kids and they are still saving and getting by. https://irrationalanalysis.substack.com/p/its-just-money-its...
Comment linking /p/its-just-money-its-made-up
on “AI Made Me Homeless”Submitted Hot Chips 2026: Irrational Recap as a story · 13 points
HN discussionSubmitted Hot Chips 2026: Irrational Recap as a story · 4 points
HN discussionSubmitted A Background-Proof Guide on AI as a story · 3 points
HN discussionSubmitted [V]ery [L]ong [I]ncoherent [W]riteup as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted GTC 2025: Co-Packaged Optics Switching as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted A Background-Proof Guide on Semiconductor Foundry PDKs (Process Development Kit) as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Intel 4Q2024 Preview: The Piranha's Smell Blood as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Hot Chips 2024: Irrational Recap as a story · 2 points
HN discussionSubmitted Practical Parametric Yield as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted Macro, Mobile, Markets, and Mercy for Intel as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted A Guide on Semiconductor Development (2023) as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted A Background-Proof Guide on Process Development Kits as a story · 1 points
HN discussionSubmitted [V]ery [L]ong [I]ncoherent [W]riteup: Historical context on Groq as a story · 1 points
HN discussion
