6 ms·
I think attributing AMD's current success to any one person is an insult to all the other employees of the company.
by osti 3y ago
I think attributing AMD's current success to any one person is an insult to all the other employees of the company.
- nightowl_games 3y agoIf it was a failure would you feel comfortable saying the buck stops with Lisa? The CEO has more power and responsibility. They receive blame for company wide problems and conversely deserve credit for company with success.
- osti 3y agoIf it was a failure I wouldn't attribute that to Lisa Su either. Because AMD's success kinda started around the time Lisa Su joined, the products they came out with at the time certainly didn't have much to do with Lisa, technology wise or strategy wise. There are definitely many cases where CEO should bare responsibility for the company's success or failure, but definitely not in the case of AMD.
- cmsj 3y agoDr Su became AMD CEO in 2014 when they were deep in the ruinously awful Bulldozer CPU architecture. The first Zen products didn't launch until 2017 - that is when their "success kinda started" at least in the CPU market. Here's a quote from Suzanne Plummer, senior director of the Zen project, in September 2015: "This is the first time in a very long time that we engineers have been given the total freedom to build a processor from scratch and do the best we can do." You could make a reasonable argument that supplying the GPUs for PS4 and Xbox One, both of which pre-date Dr Su's appointment, is their "success kinda start[ing]", but one could also argue that AMD was really the only vendor capable of providing the APUs needed.
- osti 3y agoCPU development cycle is definitely longer than 3 years, especially for a big change like that. Zen architecture design certainly started before 2014. So I think it's fair to say that she started around the time AMD became successful.
- rowanG077 3y agoZen started in 2012. But it might have been a total disaster if it weren't for Su. We simply don't know. At the very least Suzannes quote hints at Su having at least a very significant impact.
- burnte 3y agoIt's not, though. Zen didn't launch until 2017, she started in 2014. Early work began in 2012, yes, but it was on track for 3 years under her before launch, she deserves a lot of credit as leader to bring that project to fruition.
- cmsj 3y agoTechnically it was somewhat under her from its inception - she was a VP and general manager of AMD from like January 2012, months before Jim Keller was hired. I dug up an old interview from Anandtech that I'd forgotten about when I first wrote my comment above, which has this quote from Dr Su: "If I put credit where credit is due, Mark Papermaster had incredible vision of what he wanted to do with CPU/GPU roadmap. He hired Jim Keller and Raja Koduri, and he was very clear when he said he needed this much money to do things. We did cut a bunch of projects, but we invested in our future."
- burnte 3y agoThanks for the quote, that's a great leader.
- scrlk 3y ago"Designing microprocessors is like playing Russian roulette. You put a gun to your head, pull the trigger, and find out four years later if you blew your brains out." (attributed to former DEC CEO Robert Palmer)
- throwaway2990 3y agoNo. It’s not an insult. As CEO she has final say. She’s the one who says he’s or no. She’s made the right choices to get AMD where they are today.
- osti 3y agoNo, see my other comment as to why.
- throwaway2990 3y agoYour other comment doesn’t change my statement. You’re wrong. End of story.
- xedrac 3y agoI feel like the CEOs job is to surround themselves with great people and a vision, then get out of the way. Beyond that, it's more of a sales job than anything.
- williamDafoe 3y agoNot really. It was Lisa's decision to stop shipping CPUs with locked clock multipliers! She also made the decision that eight cores and 16 threads would become the industry standard for laptops and desktops! These are major strategic decisions which made her a hero to computer buyers!
- Sparkle-san 3y agoSaying yes or no seems a lot less impactful than actually doing the work. Engineers without a CEO can still create something, a CEO without engineers is basically worthless.
- throwaway2990 3y agoSure but engineers with no direction and a bunch of bad ideas is worse than a CEO without engineers. Prior to Lisa they were on a downward spiral and heading towards bankruptcy.
- cdibona 3y agoIt does ignore a ton of contributions from a ton of people, but that is the job of the CEO and cofounder. If anything I always want to know more about Chris Malachowsky, Nvidia's cofounder. Their relationship I thought was pretty special, esp in the beginning. Nothing like the woz/jobs relationship, imo.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- cmsj 3y agoYou could certainly make a good argument that Dr Su's direction/focus, as CEO, allowed successful projects to flourish into compelling products.
- laweijfmvo 3y agoJim Keller has entered the chat… /s
- phkahler 3y agoJim Keller tells people how important everyone else is to "his" success.
- jimbokun 3y agoWriting an article praising one person doesn't mean you are diminishing or insulting everyone you didn't mention in the article.
- osti 3y agoWhen your title is "someone saved the whole company", it definitely is diminishing everyone else's work, at least in the case of AMD. Like someone else mentioned here, Jim Keller always says "team work" and all when someone praises him. Microprocessor as complex as a modern consumer CPU certainly involves so many people that attributing it to any one person is just impossible. But obviously now we are getting into the topic of whether any CEO is that important to a large company. I'd like to say they aren't, but our hero worshipping culture makes it hard to break out of that mindset.