One View of the Berkeley Community/Culture (from a person with CS heritage)

1. One View of the Berkeley Community/Culture(from a person with CS heritage) Dave Patterson University of California at Berkeley Patterson@cs.berkeley.edu April 2001

2. Outline • Teaching Matters (really!) • Research is started (learned) in Grad Courses • Communal attitude towards new faculty • Hire and develop young lions • Being at a Great Public University • Proximity to Silicon Valley • Berkeley’s Research Goals • One Approach to Systems Research • What happened to one crop of students • Retreat Approach to Running Projects • It takes work to maintain a good community

3. Teaching Matters (really!) • Dick Karp and Manuel Blum as role models • World class researchers and teachers, grad and undergrad courses • Friendly competition via HKN ratings • Share ideas on what works, what doesn’t • Share course materials • University embraces teaching (since ~ 1985) • Raised bar for tenure • Good teachers promoted faster • Less successful teachers promoted slower + glass ceiling on how far promoted • Consider focus on teaching quality vs. surviving course workload in Fall?

4. Research is started in Courses • RISC, SPUR, RAID, NOW, IRAM, ISTORE all started in advanced graduate courses • initial investigations & discussions with real deadlines • Also, students learn how to do research in first year graduate courses • Make transition from undergraduate student to graduate researcher • First year courses: select topic from menu, do research, write paper, give talk, do poster session • Prof meets each team 1-on-1 ~3 times • Some papers get submitted and published

5. Communal attitude towards faculty hiring • Democratic, holistic approach hiring: whole faculty participates • Vs. hiring committee does everything and get to meet new hire when they arrive (and know little about them) • Three musketeers approach to hiring: what are the right hires for us to be #1 vs. how can our group win • Decision is not up to a group, but to whole faculty • Danger as increase size, groups starting to strategize vs. community discussion

6. Hire and develop young lion(esse)s • Normally hire new PhDs • Also more mature PhDs who have joint appointments • Senior faculty add junior faculty to proposals (Micro and gov’t) • Show them the ropes of research • Protect young faculty from hard committee work, good course schedule, offer advice, listen to them and follow their advice • Randy noticed large difference between Berkeley and our competing institutions in leaders among faculty • Young lion(esse)s mature into department leaders

7. Being at a (Great) Public University • UC is a miracle: what other great multicampus public university? • NRC ratings what matter (who cares about magazine?); 35/36 departments in top 10 • Berkeley also #1 producer of PhDs • We educate Californians; 7X Stanford • 20,000 undergrads, 90% Californians • Stanford 5000 undergrads, 50% Californians • Often educate 1st member of family to go to college • Vs. 4th generation to go to Ivy League school • Often immigrants: was SE Asia, now its Russia • We are a key part of the American Dream

8. Proximity to Silicon Valley • Consulting to become aware of real problems • Talks from valley people doing exciting work • Guests at research retreats • Bay Area Research Directors dinner • Sometimes help in teaching courses (especially joint teaching) • Proximity to Stanford – 30 miles between 2 of the best departments in the world • Great Book co-authors • Joint teaching and research in the future: Last year Hanrahan/Malik; next Fall Fox/Patterson

9. Berkeley’s Research Goals • Have Impact, not just count Journal Papers • Some universities have bad benchmarks • Recently realized that when goal is not impact, you rarely have impact • Produce Great Students, not # Journal Papers • Try to create projects that if I were a student, I would almost kill myself to try to join • Not all projects equally successful in research impact, but all can produce great students • One last shove: visit former students in first year to see how they are going, give advice, + give a talk that features their work and helps their visibility • As get further in career, you realize thatStudents are the coin of the academic realm

10. One Approach to Systems Research • Find an important problem crossing HW/SW Interface, with HW/SW prototype at end,(usually started in a graduate course) • Assemble a band of 3-6 faculty, 12-20 grad students, 1-3 staff to tackle it over 4-5 years • Meet twice a year for 3-day retreats with invited outsiders • Builds team spirit, advice on direction, change course • Offers milestones for project stages • Grad students give 6 to 8 talks  Great Speakers • Write papers, Finish prototype, get PhDs, jobs • End of project party, reshuffle faculty, go to 1 • 10 year reunion

11. SPUR 10 Year Reunion, January ‘99 • Everyone from North America came! • 19 PhDs: 9 to Academia • 8/9 got tenure, 4 full professors (already) • Susan Eggers in current Economist on her research • 2 Romme fellows (3rd, 4th at Wisconsin) • 3 NSF Presidential Young Investigator Winners • 2 ACM Dissertation Awards • They in turn produced 30 PhDs (1/99) • 10 to Industry • Founders of 5 startups, (1 failed, 1 acquired) • 2 Department heads (AT&T Bell Labs, Microsoft) • Very successful group; SPUR Project “gave them a taste of success, lifelong friends” • “Berkeley is on lunatic fringe on multi-faculty projects”

12. Group Photo (in souvenir jackets) Jim Larus, Wisconsin, M/S George Taylor, Founder, ? David Wood,Wisconsin Dave Lee Founder Si. Image John Ouster- hout Founder, Scriptics • See www.cs.berkeley.edu/Projects/ARC to learn more about Berkeley Systems Ben Zorn Colorado, M/S Mark Hill Wisc. Mendel Rosen- blum, Stanford, Founder VMWare Susan Eggers Wash-ington Brent Welch Founder, Scriptics Shing Kong Si. Image Garth Gibson CMU, Founder ?

13. People I Have Worked With • Worked with 13 Berkeley faculty (so far) • RISC I,II • Sequin, Ousterhout (CAD) • SOAR (Smalltalk On A RISC) • Ousterhout (CAD) • SPUR (Symbolic Processing Using RISCs) • Fateman, Hilfinger, Hodges, Katz, Ousterhout • RAID I,II (Redundant Array of Inexp. Disks) • Katz, Ousterhout, Stonebraker • NOW I,II (Network of Workstations), (TD) • Culler, Anderson, Brewer • IRAM I (Intelligent RAM) • Yelick, Wawrzynek • ISTORE I / ROC I (Recovery Oriented Comp.) • Yelick, Kubiatowicz (+ Fox @ Stanford?) • Also papers with other faculty (Despain, Karp, …)

14. Patterson’s Projects, Faculty, Commercial Impact • Reduced Instruction Set Computer (RISC) • What: simplified instructions to exploit VLSI: ‘80-’84 • With: Sequin@UC, Hennessy@Stanford, Cocke@IBM • Direct Impact: Sun, RISC >90% embedded MPUs • Symbolic Processing Using RISCs (SPUR) • What: desktop multiprocessor for AI: ‘84 - ‘89 • With: Fateman, Hilfinger, Hodges, Katz, Ousterhout • Direct Impact: PLL => fast serial lines => Silicon Image • Redundant Arrays of Inexpensive Disks (RAID) • What: many PC disks for speed, reliability: ‘88 - ‘93 • With: Katz, Ousterhout, Stonebraker • Direct Impact:$25B/yr(EMC) 80% nonPC disks RAID

15. Patterson’s Projects, People, Impact • Networks of Workstations (NOW) • What: big server via switched network of WS ’94-’98 • With: Anderson, Brewer, Culler • Direct Impact: Inktomi + many Internet companies • Tertiary Disk (TD: a NOW subset project) • What: big, cheap, disk-NOW (for SF Museum) ’96-’99 • Direct Impact: Scale8 (big, reliable Internet storage) • Intelligent RAM (IRAM) • What: media processor inside DRAM chip: ‘97 - ‘01 • With: Yelick (and Wawrzynek) • ISTORE/Recovery-Oriented Computing (ROC) • What: Available, Maintainable Servers: HW,SW,LW • With: Yelick (and Kubiatowicz)

16. Retreat Research Style • Project Reviews with Outsiders • Twice a year: 3-day retreat@Tahoe • Faculty, students, staff + guests • Key piece is feedback at end • Can change minds of faculty • Breaks enable valuable discussion • Builds team spirit (all play&work) • Helps create deadlines • Helps with technology transfer • Always amazed of value at end • By far, most important idea to run 10-25 person project • Cost ~ 1 grad student • Visitors donate $ = 4 to 6 grads

17. Maintaining a community takes work • Informal lunches on Northside • Across disciplines with smart, interesting people • What Ousterhout misses most • Only community activity in 1977 • Faculty retreat (v.meeting), starting in ~ 1980 • Weekly Faculty lunch, by Sequin in ~ 1982 • Grad student review, started in ~ 1983 • Research retreats at Lake Tahoe, ~ 1987 • Faculty side-by-side in Soda, stairway ~ 1990 • Faculty book club, started by Katz in ~ 1995 • Sherry Hour/Great thoughts, in ~ 1998 • <<Your good idea goes here>>

18. Outline • Teaching Matters (really!) • Research is started in Grad Courses • Communal attitude towards new faculty • Hire and develop young lions/lionesses • Being at a Great Public University • Proximity to Silicon Valley • Berkeley’s Research Goals • One Approach to Systems Research • What happened to one crop of students • Retreat Approach to Running Projects • It takes work to maintain a good community