Chris Lattner: The Future of Computing and Programming Languages | Lex Fridman Podcast #131

The following is a conversation with Chris Lattner, his second time on the podcast. He's one of the most brilliant engineers in modern computing, having created LLVM Compiler Infrastructure project, the Clang compiler, the Swift programming language, a lot of key contributions to TensorFlow and TPUs as part of Google. He's served as vice president of Autopilot Software at Tesla, was a software innovator and leader at Apple, and now is at SiFive as senior vice president of platform engineering, looking to revolutionize chip design to make it faster, better, and cheaper. Quick mention of each sponsor, followed by some thoughts related to the episode. First sponsor is Blinkist, an app that summarizes key ideas from thousands of books. I use it almost every day to learn new things or to pick which books I want to read or listen to next. Second is Neuro, the maker of functional sugar-free gum and mints that I use to supercharge my mind with caffeine, L-theanine, and B vitamins. Third is MasterClass, online courses from the best people in the world on each of the topics covered, from rockets to game design, to poker, to writing, and to guitar. And finally, Cash App, the app I use to send money to friends for food, drinks, and unfortunately lost bets. Please check out the sponsors in the description to get a discount and to support this podcast. As a side note, let me say that Chris has been an inspiration to me on a human level because he is so damn good as an engineer and leader of engineers, and yet he's able to stay humble, especially humble enough to hear the voices of disagreement and to learn from them. He was supportive of me and this podcast from the early days. And for that, I'm forever grateful. To be honest, most of my life, no one really believed that I would amount to much. So when another human being looks at me and makes me feel like I might be someone special, it can be truly inspiring. That's a lesson for educators. The weird kid in the corner with a dream is someone who might need your love and support in order for that dream to flourish. If you enjoy this thing, subscribe on YouTube, review it with five stars on Apple Podcast, follow on Spotify, support on Patreon, or connect with me on Twitter, @lexfridman. And now, here's my conversation with Chris Lattner. What are the strongest qualities of Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and the great and powerful Jeff Dean since you've gotten the chance to work with each?

(laughs) You're starting with an easy question there. Um, these are three very different people. I guess you could do maybe a pairwise comparison between them instead of a group comparison.

(laughs) Yeah.

So if you look at Steve Jobs and Elon, um, I worked a lot more with Elon than I did with Steve. Um, they have a lot of commonality. They're both, um, visionary in their own way. They're both very demanding in their own way. Um, my sense is Steve is much more human factor focused, where Elon is more technology focused.