I've always been puzzled by this whole Jim Keller situation. Is one man literally the only reason we have technological advancements in microprocessors?
Obviously not the only reason, but he appears to be a helpful ingredient in the mix with good things tending to happen with him around. No idea how much of it is due to his technical vs. management skill, but there definitely seems to be some there there.
He was an actual Microarchitect in his early career. This guy clearly has good knowledge on every aspect of microprocessor design: transistor, interconnect, process complexity, core layout & utilization, ease of design, circuit complexity, time to market, micro architectural behaviors, ISA & software patterns. From what I've seen he is really good at setting targets for the teams, especially given that he has been at multiple companies, he clearly knows what is good and what is lacking. Setting aggressive targets and motivating the team towards them. Something the previous management failed at.
In that light AMD losing him to Intel via Tesla sounds like a potential few billion dollar blunder. I wonder how difficult/expensive it would have been to prevent that.
You probably can't. He appears to like jumping into challenges such as those that AMD was facing and Intel is facing now. The jumping would seem to imply he's doing it to pursue an interesting challenge as the primary. Some personalities need that (others are obviously repelled by that risk & challenge). Lots of big corporations can afford to pay very large sums to retain him, if that were his primary consideration.
Ask HN: I'm somebody with this type of personality that likes challenges and to bounce around, but I'm not as talented and experiences as someone like Jim. What are some suggestions on how I can satisfy this while also avoiding the trap of not being somewhere long enough to gain a higher level of experience? It seems that my habits have sabotaged me and my peers have excelled in their companies to much higher positions and compensation.
Probably a good thing for the market at large though. If the current x86 duopoly ever turned into a monopoly with Intel or AMD it would not be good for consumers.