AMD/RTG's Raja Koduri Joins Intel

[microcode]

Man, glad I didn't buy any AMD after all. You know how it goes at companies, pareto distributions and the suchlike.

[geearf]

Companies tend to make employees sign non-compete agreements to prevent competitors from poaching key people intimately familiar with their trade secrets.

I've never seen that, and have often seen people jumping between big companies.
Are you sure it's that common?

[Helios747]

Companies tend to make employees sign non-compete agreements to prevent competitors from poaching key people intimately familiar with their trade secrets, but it seems like that doesn't apply to people on the executive level..

Not really enforceable in many states, California especially.

[jrdls]

If Intel can poach someone from AMD, I hope AMD poaches someone from Nvidia.

[GizmoChicken]

From an article on AnandTech:

I’m going to be surprised if Intel doesn’t develop a true top-to-bottom product stack that contains midrange GPUs as well – something in the vein of Polaris 10 and GP106 – but for the moment the discrete GPU aspect of Intel’s announcement is focused on high-end GPUs. And, given what we typically see in PC GPU release cycles, even if Intel does develop a complete product stack, I wouldn’t be too surprised if Intel’s first released GPU was a high-end GPU, as it’s clear this is where Intel needs to start first to best combat NVIDIA.

I suspect these "high-end" Intel GPUs will support iGVT-g, which has been under development for a few years.

[Marc Driftmeyer]

Waaaaaat?

He takes a "sabbatical" vacation after Vega just to finish off his contract details with Intel ¬¬'

OTOH, he might work as a bridge between Intel and AMD on this new chip of Intel Core+Vega+HBM2+etc, keeping the relationship close/strong

It's not Vega. It's Polaris.

[Marc Driftmeyer]

I've never seen that, and have often seen people jumping between big companies.
Are you sure it's that common?

I have. Everyone at NeXT and Apple Engineering signed non-compete clauses. We also signed that any and all IP creative works while there are the explicit property of NeXT and later Apple Inc. Only a poorly run company would not require it.

[GizmoChicken]

Not really enforceable in many states, California especially.

Generally true (with some exceptions) with regard to non-compete agreements in California. But non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) generally are enforceable in California.

Just my pure speculation, but something tells me Koduri's move involved negotiations between Intel and AMD.

[smitty3268]

This is especially fascinating coming on the heels of that announcement that Intel was going to be using AMD Polaris chips. I'm not sure what to think about that now.

All that "my family needs me so I'm taking a 3 month sabbatical" talk from Raja always sounded suspicious to me. Turns out it was complete BS - but I also wonder if Lisa Su knew from the start he was leaving and was the one who asked him to take the sabbatical as a way of smoothing the transition.

[Spooktra]

I don't see how this does not end up in at least 1 lawsuit; this guy helps to develop Vega, AMD signs a licensing deal with Intel concerning AMD's graphics technology, this guy resigns from AMD and a couple of days later it's announced that Intel has hired him in the exact same role he had at AMD. It should be obvious that this guy can now use AMD's gpu technology with Intel's products and it would be perfectly legal because the 2 companies signed a licensing agreement.

Of course it's possible that this guy going to work for Intel was part of the licensing deal...