George Hotz
IPHONE HACKER VS. THE WORLD
THE DEAL
Hotz unlocked the iPhone as a teenager, cracked the PlayStation 3 until Sony sued, then argued self-driving cars and neural networks should be hackable outside the incumbents.
AT A GLANCE
- EDUCATION
- Carnegie Mellon University · Computer science · attendedCarnegie Mellon University
THE ARCHIVE
History · cartoons · headlines
THE TIMELINE6 sourced events
HE CRACKED THE IPHONE AS A TEEN. SONY SUED. HE KEPT GOING
Hotz unlocked the iPhone as a teenager, cracked the PlayStation 3 until Sony sued, then argued self-driving cars and neural networks should be hackable outside the incumbents. comma.ai and tinygrad are the same thesis in corporate form.
Aug 24, 2007
THE TEENAGER UNLOCKS THE IPHONE
Hotz demonstrated a hardware method for unlocking the original iPhone so it could operate on T-Mobile instead of only AT&T.
SOURCES: WIREDreported
Jan 2011
HE CRACKS THE PLAYSTATION 3 AND SONY GOES TO COURT
Hotz published code and tools for jailbreaking the PlayStation 3, prompting Sony to sue him under anti-circumvention and related claims.
SOURCES: WIREDreported
Apr 11, 2011
THE SONY WAR ENDS IN A SETTLEMENT
Sony and Hotz settled the PlayStation hacking lawsuit, with Hotz agreeing to a permanent injunction involving Sony products.
SOURCES: WIREDreported
2015
THE HACKER STARTS A SELF-DRIVING-CAR COMPANY
Hotz founded comma.ai to build driver-assistance technology outside the traditional automotive stack.
SOURCES: comma.aifirst-party
Sep 14, 2018
HE HANDS OFF THE CEO JOB TO GO BACK TO RESEARCH
comma.ai announced that Hotz was moving from CEO to Head of Research while continuing as founder.
SOURCES: comma.aifirst-party
Nov 10, 2020
NOW HE WANTS A TINY DEEP-LEARNING STACK
Hotz's tinygrad project emerged as a deliberately small neural-network framework aimed at making the software layer beneath machine learning easier to understand and control.
SOURCES: tinygradfirst-party
MORE CARTOONS1 original cartoons