Cerebras Systems, which makes massive, beautiful chips for AI workloads, hit the Nasdaq yesterday. At one point, the stock was up 157%, before settling for a more muted 107% return.
On the first day, IPO pops bring out the bears and cynics for good reason. The dotcom heyday was full of them. Calico Commerce, VA Linux, TheGlobe.com: each up 300%, 605% and 697.5% on day one, respectively. Remarkable performances, long-term disasters. VA Linux, the “best” of them, lost about 98% of its value. TheGlobe.com and Calico were effectively wiped out.
What did they have in common? Low revenues, fast growth rates and a booming, booming, booming market.
So when Cerebras opened 75% above the expected IPO price, it was tempting to file it away as another overhyped stock riding the frenzy around a new technology, itself bundled in layers of hype.
What I saw instead was a sign that the market is finally starting to grasp the demand for AI inference.
I’ve been following Cerebras since 2018, when I first spoke with Andrew Feldman, the founder. Last year, and I visited their headquarters in Sunnyvale.
