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Startups on hard mode: Oxide. Part 1: Hardware

What is tougher than building a software-only or hardware-only startup? Building a combined hardware and software startup. This is what Oxide is doing, as they build a “cloud computer.” A deepdive.

The likes of Meta, Google, and Amazon no longer use traditional racks, andhave “hyper-scaled” their servers to be highly energy efficient, easier to maintain, and with few cables. For example, we previously covered how Agoda operated 300,000 CPU cores in its data centers in 2023; at such scale investing in racks like Oxide’s could make sense. There’s a process I learned from robotics people in a previous job, called a ‘roadkill build.’ You get all the parts that will end up in the thing you eventually build, but instead of being integrated, they are all spread out across a bench with nasty cables between them, so that you can probe them, poke them, and replace them.

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