AMD still hunting for a CEO, four executives turn offer down

[Emil]

Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) has approached at least four individuals asking them if they would like to become the company's next Chief Executive Officer. The four candidates in question were Apple Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook, Oracle Co-President Mark Hurd, EMC Chief Operating Officer Pat Gelsinger, and Carlyle Group Managing Director Greg Summe. All of them turned down the offer, according to people familiar with the search, who asked not to be named because the talks are private, according to Bloomberg.

Bruce Claflin, AMD's chairman, has been leading the search for a new CEO. Claflin was a manager at IBM's personal-computer division, which was sold in 2005 to Lenovo. He was also CEO of 3Com from 2001 to 2006. Frankly, if AMD doesn't find a CEO soon, we think Claflin should just take over.

AMD's next CEO will have a tough job pushing the company towards a more mobile world, just like Intel is trying to do. AMD, which was founded a year after Intel, has spent 42 years in the shadow of its larger rival. Now is the company's biggest chance to fight back, but it's also not in one of the worst positions to do so.

Back in January 2011, AMD announced that its CEO Dirk Meyer had resigned from the company. There was no official reason given for Meyer's departure, except that he reached a "mutual agreement" with the company's board. A CEO Search Committee was formed to find a replacement for Meyer and senior vice president Thomas Seifert agreed to take over steer the ship until a permanent CEO is appointed. Five months later, he's still steering.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/44290-amd-still-hunting-for-a-ceo-four-executives-turn-offer-down.html

 

[Guest]

(Waves hand in the air)
Oooh! Me, me, pick me!

 

[stewi0001]

NO, PICK ME!!!

 

[Burty117]

Guys, stand back, I only want one months pay! then i'd let you step in.

 

[Archean]

One month pay with 'severance' package ?

 

[edison5do]

I want to moth, then I`ll Quit!

 

[Wendig0]

Considering how poorly Bulldozer engineering samples have performed (assuming what I've seen is true), I really don't blame any of the execs for not wanting to pick up the pieces if it fails hard after the RTM version hits. Someone does need to step up and turn AMD around though. I miss the days of old when AMD was a real contender in the market.

 

[Guest]

Who cares about bulldozer. High end doesn't matter anymore. Who cares if get few more fps in fhd with amd cpu. APU is the future and this is where amd shows good results.

 

[Guest]

Did they try Craigslist?

 

[Wendig0]

Guest said:
Who cares about bulldozer. High end doesn't matter anymore. Who cares if get few more fps in fhd with amd cpu. APU is the future and this is where amd shows good results.

High end doesn't matter anymore? I'm guessing you're not much of an enthusiast or a gamer. If all you want to do is watch hd movies on your pc, then no you don't need a high end system, but for a gaming enthusiast having the most powerful hardware is essential.

 

[Guest]

High end doesn't matter anymore? I'm guessing you're not much of an enthusiast or a gamer. If all you want to do is watch hd movies on your pc, then no you don't need a high end system, but for a gaming enthusiast having the most powerful hardware is essential.

Console ports are fully playable at mainstream hardware, oh and cpu matters a LOT less these days.

 

[example1013]

And most games today ARE console ports.

 

[dotVezz]

I'll agree that "High End' isn't important. The most important thing is the cost/performance ratio. If there's an affordable processor with a high cost/performance ratio and it happens to be "High End", though, then I'm gonna by it.

APU's seem to be very promising, and that's why I'm still expecting good things from AMD in the future.

 

[dividebyzero]

Who cares about bulldozer. High end doesn't matter anymore. Who cares if get few more fps in fhd with amd cpu. APU is the future and this is where amd shows good results.

Actually you're only about 99% wrong. APU will invariably be a high volume, low margin dogfight between AMD, Intel and ARM. High margins are for GPU and server grade CPU. Bulldozer was developed primarily as a server part (Interlagos), and judging by the fact that AMD are now ditching their much touted VLIW GPU architecture in favour of scalar architecture* in an effort to regain marketshare in GPGPU it would seem the AMD are intent on the high margin/high selling point of enterprise SKU's.

Being able to integrate GPU with CPU will no doubt be benificial for a combined co-processor, whether it be mobile, desktop or enthusiast- the trick is to pour funding in development of software that will take advantage of the architecture. Welcome to parallelization AMD, Intel and Nvidia were probably wondering when you'd show up.

* An architecture pioneered by Nvidia with G80 (8800GTX) five years ago, and part of the reason that Nvidia posts a healthy profit even when desktop/mobile part sales wane.

[Bonus content: PC Per looks at AMD's Southern Islands -and beyond-architecture]

 

[hahahanoobs]

I hate all these people that think the GPU and gaming are the deciding factor when buying a computer. this is a damn tech site, not a gaming site ffs.

AMD is mixing old shiit (CPU) with new shiit (GPU on-die). not really much to get excited about at this point for anyone already using a discrete graphics card. It's a better IGP, nothing more... oooh but its better than what Intel has though you say. really? you're a graphics company and Intel is a CPU company and this gets you excited?

Sad.

 

[hahahanoobs]

AMD bought a graphics company to beat a CPU companys' IGP.

Yay?

 

[Guest]

Kid take a chill pill. AMD is slower, but not like thousand times slower so your gaming argument is invalid. AMD bought ati to compete with nvidia not intel's igp u dumb kid and they are doing pretty well. Your statement "AMD is mixing old shiit (CPU) with new shiit (GPU on-die)" just shows u are freaking fanboy, thats all. All the money is in the affordable mainstream and mobile stuff and this is where amd is aiming.

 

[PinothyJ]

That is one hell of an ugly building AMD have themselves there…

 

[PinothyJ]

Guest said:
Kid take a chill pill. AMD is slower, but not like thousand times slower so your gaming argument is invalid. AMD bought ati to compete with nvidia not intel's igp u dumb kid and they are doing pretty well. Your statement "AMD is mixing old shiit (CPU) with new shiit (GPU on-die)" just shows u are freaking fanboy, thats all. All the money is in the affordable mainstream and mobile stuff and this is where amd is aiming.

It depends what you are doing: I spend a lot of time compiling maps for source games, something that required full CPU workload on all of my six (1090T) cores. The money I would have had to spend to get an equivalent hex-core chip from Intel to match the same speed would be more than four times as much (hyper-threading is not going to help in such a situation).

So in terms of one versus the other it all depends on what you do to which will translate as a better option to you.

…

 

[dividebyzero]

Did they try Craigslist?

It's an open call.
Fill it out.
Send it off.
You too can bore an auditorium full of tech-press with a slide deck at Computex!
[Application form]

 

[DDG4005]

This isn't good. Why would four candidates turn down the offer? Maybe they know something we don't know.

 

[dividebyzero]

The problem is likely that the candidates know what we know.
The new (assuming they don't become a CEO-less company) CEO is going to a figurehead- a wind-up toy (or chip implanted?) that is there to be both the public face of AMD's primary investors vision, and the fall-guy if things don't pan out.

Does anyone think it a co-incidence that both AMD and Globalfoundries have both axed their CEO's, and that their Abu Dhabi owner/investor has started installing their own people ?
Maybe the candidates aren't happy at the thought of being the interim CEO until the arabian peninsula boys finally acquire full control of AMD....which admittedly would only be likely if AMD's share price dropped considerably.

BTW: Has anyone noticed that while AMD has just released two "game changing" (their words not mine) platforms in Zacate/Ontario/Brazos and Llano/Sabine/Lynx, and due to release their next CPU architecture (Bulldozer)...that their share value is falling since the announcements ?

Probably just co-incidence..............

 

[princeton]

ddg4005 said:
This isn't good. Why would four candidates turn down the offer? Maybe they know something we don't know.

They know that AMD is falling behind. There's no reason to buy an AMD cpu anymore because intels next gen Core i series beats them out in pretty much every segment.