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Imagine AMD simply put that $665M into tooling and driver development. The stock probably would have doubled.

thenaturalist 2y ago
What's the difference to what they did in this acquisition? Who's gonna improve tooling and develop drivers? PhD level AI experts such as employed by Silo AI, probably, right? EDIT: For context [0], Nvidia invested billions into CUDA development way back when it was unsexy. Clearly a second mover won't need that much, Nvidia proved the market. But a billion doesn't seem like a large sum for the potential upside of AMD catching a significantly larger share of the budget going into AI - many times the value of this acquisition. 0: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/04/how-jensen-huangs-nvidia-is-powering-the-ai-revolution https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/04/how-jensen-hua...
- Workaccount2 2y ago
  Perhaps their goal is to develop an LLM and then prompt it to fix ROCm.
duxup 2y ago
I always wonder about these thought experiments. Given a few good talented people and good management ... you'd think they'd be able to put a team together, but maybe talent in this area is few / far between? To be clear, i'm not disagreeing, I really don't know, but yeah $665M, could do a lot with that.
- short_sells_poo 2y ago
  You are basically paying some premium for the fact that someone already did the hiring and built the talent pool and a cohesive team. Doing that from scratch is a multi-year project, so they basically bought a shortcut.
  - duxup 2y ago
    Yeah I get the general idea that you're paying more for the assembled team and software / experience. It's just always wonky as acquisitions generally don't seem to be 100% known quantities / outcomes. People paying big premiums for what sometimes turn out to be nothing. That package of talent and etc is handy, but also seems like sometimes it makes it harder to really know what you'll get out of it. It's an interesting dynamic.
speed_spread 2y ago
The org structure and culture dynamics of large companies like AMD makes it very difficult to achieve quality results when starting from scratch. 665M$ might well have been too much money, putting too much pressure for results for anything valuable to emerge. A 665M$ acquisition means they know exactly what they are getting, and they are getting it _now_.
- mistrial9 2y ago
  also note they paid in cash.. usually a premium in itself.
petesergeant 2y ago
> Imagine AMD simply put that $665M into tooling and driver development Feels like a company saying they're going to "spend a few weeks paying down tech debt", which generally amounts to nothing getting done. Progress happens in creative pursuit of another goal and with hard constraints, in my experience. You can fix a specific piece of tech debt while working on a product feature that's adjacent to it, and you can create some great tooling and drivers while working on a product that needs them, but just setting aside the money for greenfield development often/usually ends up with it being set alight. I have worked at least one very well-funded place where the lack of product focus and thus lack of any constraints has just led to endless wheel spinning under the guise of "research".

What's the difference to what they did in this acquisition? Who's gonna improve tooling and develop drivers? PhD level AI experts such as employed by Silo AI, probably, right? EDIT: For context [0], Nvidia invested billions into CUDA development way back when it was unsexy. Clearly a second mover won't need that much, Nvidia proved the market. But a billion doesn't seem like a large sum for the potential upside of AMD catching a significantly larger share of the budget going into AI - many times the value of this acquisition. 0: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/04/how-jensen-huangs-nvidia-is-powering-the-ai-revolution https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/12/04/how-jensen-hua...

Workaccount2 2y ago
Perhaps their goal is to develop an LLM and then prompt it to fix ROCm.

duxup 2y ago

I always wonder about these thought experiments. Given a few good talented people and good management ... you'd think they'd be able to put a team together, but maybe talent in this area is few / far between? To be clear, i'm not disagreeing, I really don't know, but yeah $665M, could do a lot with that.

short_sells_poo 2y ago
You are basically paying some premium for the fact that someone already did the hiring and built the talent pool and a cohesive team. Doing that from scratch is a multi-year project, so they basically bought a shortcut.
- duxup 2y ago
  Yeah I get the general idea that you're paying more for the assembled team and software / experience. It's just always wonky as acquisitions generally don't seem to be 100% known quantities / outcomes. People paying big premiums for what sometimes turn out to be nothing. That package of talent and etc is handy, but also seems like sometimes it makes it harder to really know what you'll get out of it. It's an interesting dynamic.

speed_spread 2y ago

The org structure and culture dynamics of large companies like AMD makes it very difficult to achieve quality results when starting from scratch. 665M$ might well have been too much money, putting too much pressure for results for anything valuable to emerge. A 665M$ acquisition means they know exactly what they are getting, and they are getting it _now_.

mistrial9 2y ago
also note they paid in cash.. usually a premium in itself.

petesergeant 2y ago

> Imagine AMD simply put that $665M into tooling and driver development Feels like a company saying they're going to "spend a few weeks paying down tech debt", which generally amounts to nothing getting done. Progress happens in creative pursuit of another goal and with hard constraints, in my experience. You can fix a specific piece of tech debt while working on a product feature that's adjacent to it, and you can create some great tooling and drivers while working on a product that needs them, but just setting aside the money for greenfield development often/usually ends up with it being set alight. I have worked at least one very well-funded place where the lack of product focus and thus lack of any constraints has just led to endless wheel spinning under the guise of "research".