The AMD Execution Thread [2007 - 2017]

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These really should be outlawed. A person should always be able to ply their trade and make a living for themselves. If you don't work for someone anymore, they should have no input on what you are able to say or do.

If someone is to be barred from working for a competitor then the former employer should be legally required to pay them full salary and benefits for the duration.

Generally these non-compete clauses also come with salary payments by the original company. I know my non-compete clause was for 1 year and was accompanied by 1 year of salary too. I wasn't complaining, 1 year paid vacation was just perfect. Better yet, I returned as a consultant for the original company during the last 4 months of that, and was essentially getting paid 3x my original salary during that time. :LOL:
 
These really should be outlawed. A person should always be able to ply their trade and make a living for themselves. If you don't work for someone anymore, they should have no input on what you are able to say or do.

If someone is to be barred from working for a competitor then the former employer should be legally required to pay them full salary and benefits for the duration.

...Not really a topic for this thread tho, I know. :)
They are deemed dubious and have been challenged in the past so only certain companies put such stringent "laws" into their contract as it can be liable to lawsuits; context being tech companies generally and not working on government/defense related type projects.
Case in point engineers move between AMD and Nvidia more often than one may expect.
The crux is how the poached engineers can use said knowledge/experience without stepping on the IP owned by the company they left, usually can mean several years before any valuable return is seen in R&D but other aspects they can improve pretty quickly; such as the driver team that now employs one of the senior-influential members from Nvidia's driver team (happened like 16 months ago I think).
 
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The qoute from Raja's letter "I feel more and more that I want to pursue my passion beyond hardware" stuck with me. This kinda means he won't be taking technical roles
 
I wasn't complaining, 1 year paid vacation was just perfect.
Yeah, but some people enjoy working, they shouldn't be forcibly denied the chance to pursue their dreams. Also, going on involuntary (or otherwise, as in your case) vacation could conceivably mean your knowledge and skills become rusty and somewhat outdated, lowering your value on the job market. (Don't get me started on treating human beings as merchandise... :LOL:)
 
Generally these non-compete clauses also come with salary payments by the original company. I know my non-compete clause was for 1 year and was accompanied by 1 year of salary too. I wasn't complaining, 1 year paid vacation was just perfect. Better yet, I returned as a consultant for the original company during the last 4 months of that, and was essentially getting paid 3x my original salary during that time. :LOL:

Regarding this, I take it you were heavily under NDAs/trade secret/IP employee agreement as well that also applied to the company you worked for along with any collaborations/joint partnerships?
Which from my experience last much longer and are much more enforceable generally in a court of law with hefty penalties, this is the route our company goes apart from notable sales personnel that are put under separate conditions along with non-compete clause 3+ months.
1 year... that I would find irritating :)
 
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I'm really wondering if there was some kind of a backroom/wink-and-a-nod type agreement between AMD and Intel about allowing Raja to go to Intel as part of the chip deal. I'm not sure if that's legal or not, but it sure seems convenient as hell timing.

Did I say, "I told y'all so!", enough times yet? I don't feel like I have... .:p
 
I'm really wondering if there was some kind of a backroom/wink-and-a-nod type agreement between AMD and Intel about allowing Raja to go to Intel as part of the chip deal. I'm not sure if that's legal or not, but it sure seems convenient as hell timing.
Why wouldn't it be legal to have staff move around? AMD transferred a whole high-speed interface team to Synopsys a while back.
On the other hand, why would AMD want to transfer someone with significant knowledge of their internals and plans for a niche chip?

If there was dealing, and Koduri is going to Intel, it seems more direct that Koduri and Intel hashed something out independently or the process was partly a pretext for such an agreement.
The limited presence in recent months and then the sabbatical could also be Koduri tidying up or documenting clearly to AMD that he wasn't carrying around any internal data or that his magic act didn't have undisclosed co-conspirators within RTG. Some earlier poached employees and their experiences in this would have informed this process.
 
Indeed.
Look back to Phil Rogers who was a major player with regards to HSA at AMD, he left in late 2015 to join Nvidia and the delay was only 1-2 months and still very active at Nvidia.
Phil's legal obligation is not to break any trade secrets/IP/NDAs he worked with while at AMD, if he did then not just him but also Nvidia would be in a very tricky situation for any technology/concepts using it and could have a massive impact (court orders requesting ceasing of said product/service being the 1st serious step eventually also leading to compensation for AMD as well).

So I cannot see any issues with Raja moving to Intel even if it did involve R&D around the software and hardware side of GPUs-CPUs.
More tricky is if he approaches certain engineers to work with him who are currently at AMD, but then from my experience this would still not be halted by AMD but would probably complain (who wants to keep expensive staff that one has just pissed off by blocking them moving) and some arrangement would be reached with Intel.
 
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I can't argue with your points, but I disagree with the basic premise that this was initiated or wanted by Raja. Too many things point to that premise being wrong to me. :(
 
What. The. Fuck. So all the PR meandering from Raja was to ward off investor worries and stock fluctuations? Is there any possibility Lisa Su & co didn't actually know about this?
 
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