I think this is an important reason, being down and hungry can do wonders for focus and quality. On the other hand doing well over many years means that wrong p

I think this is an important reason, being down and hungry can do wonders for focus and quality. On the other hand doing well over many years means that wrong people got promoted and stay around and grow a big middle management layer that is invested mostly in themselves. AMD either did well or went broke which forces management to take painful but important decisions.