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That is the most sarcastic thing I have read in weeks. But isn't getting a software stack the exact kind of thing they need? Is there no overlap in the skills
by sqeaky 2y ago
That is the most sarcastic thing I have read in weeks.
But isn't getting a software stack the exact kind of thing they need? Is there no overlap in the skills at the purchased company and the skills needed to make the AMD software stack not suck?
- eysgshsvsvsv 2y agoYou all live in a simple world where complex systems are fixed in simple statements like software stack is all they need.
- sqeaky 2y agoWhy the personal attack? I said that I interpreted the previous comment as sarcastic so I could be called out if it wasn't. The author hasn't yet disagreed. And I think sarcasm is warranted in a space that has witnessed so many bad acquisitions. On software at AMD; if my world is so simple, please explain where I am wrong. I never said this was a simple solution, I implied there was some overlap needed skills. ROCm sucks, it has licensing and apparently use issues. It has had performance issues, and that is getting better. It isn't in a lot of the places it needs to be where it could be considered a default choice. Apparently, Silo uses AMD stuff to do ML work. Apparently, they have domain experts in this space. It seems likely that getting input from such people could positively influence the ML and hardware. Of course there will be complexity in this process. This is a 600 million dollar deal involving thousands of people (not just Silo employee, but AMD people, regulators, stakeholders, etc). I don't think anyone is implying this is simple. I only wanted to say, "This isn't obviously dumb".
- mindcrime 2y agoI'm curious about these "licensing issues" you speak of. From what I've seen, the vast majority of the ROCm components are MIT licensed, with a few bits of Apache license and NCSA Open Source License mixed in. Could you possibly elaborate on that?
- sqeaky 2y agoIt has been a while, but last time I got the ROCm drivers and some other items that I needed from them there was a really weird proprietary license. That might not be the case anymore my information might be stale.
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- baobabKoodaa 2y agoSure, there is some overlap. Is that overlap worth 665M?
- rvnx 2y agoYes, it brought instantly (at least partially) +12B USD on the valuation of AMD. This shows to investors that AMD is still in the race.
- baobabKoodaa 2y agoYeah I saw the stock market uptick, but that is a kneejerk reaction by the public markets. It's not as if the public market participants have had ample time to evaluate the merits of the acquisition, and even then, if they are right or not.
- szundi 2y agoAnyway, it seems market thinks this is a 20x value acquisition.
- drexlspivey 2y agoYou shouldn't attribute that on the acquisition. The stock went 3.8% up today but also 4% up on monday, 4.8% up last Friday 4.2% up last Tuesday etc.
- sqeaky 2y agoGoing straight by stock price isn't very valuable unless you're selling immediately. 600 million dollars is a lot, and in order for that 12 billion increase to stick around this team up needs to present a lot of value. I'm optimistic but I'm also an outsider.
- lyu07282 2y agoThat assumes that the reason AMD's software stack sucks is because of skill, not company culture, management or other reasons that won't change with this acquisition.
- throwway120385 2y agoIf it's a culture problem and the C-suite is aware of it, then one reason to buy a company with a working software stack is to percolate their culture into your company so you can be successful.
- szundi 2y agoHopefully the ceo of the acquired company gets a director role in AMD then at least, not subordinated a supposedly subpar cultured director already in AMD
- aardvarkr 2y agoI have a friend working there and it's a bunch of old curmudgeons stuck in their way. Good luck changing culture with a single acquisition
- throwway120385 2y agoThe company I used to work for is doing this to the engineering org in my current employer. It requires the leadership from the old company to be embedded in very senior positions, and it requires buy-in from the existing C-suite. There's a lot of backroom politics to change culture along with a bunch of work to prove yourselves to people who aren't involved in the backroom. There have been a bunch of points at which I didn't think it would continue but so far the original team has been pretty successful at rising. Think of it as a reverse McDonnell-Douglas.
- imtringued 2y agoI also have this impression. The software problems that are plaguing AMD are in the "less than $10 million" range, if they hired the right people to work on the most severe bugs in their GPU drivers and let them do their job.