AMD: How It All Began

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[@caiocc12]

The fact that their logo is basically unchanged since inception shows how great a design it was

[@mediocreman6323]

You mean, “is” 😉

[@Varangian_af_Scaniae]

I would say it has more to do with no reactionary bosses. Put a leftoid in-charge and they change anything for whatever reason they have that day.

[@andersjjensen]

I hope you do a multipart series on AMDs history. It is truly fascinating. There are as many bold moves as there are instances of jeopardizing the company out of an insistence on treating employees like team members rather than consumables. That AMD survived from 2008 to 2014 is surreal in it's own right, and the comeback after that is even wilder.

[@glennac]

Yeah, this definitely feels like a Part I. (Hint, Hint 😉)

[@ajax700]

Jerry Sanders the 3rd, his guerrilla tactics against Intel around 1995-200x, contracting the DEC Alpha CPU design team at discount price to launch K7 and Amd64. Amd releasing the first (x86) 1 ghz CPU in great quantities, and Intel only faking to release a 1 ghz Pentium 3 in limited quantities. Those are histories that deserve to be told I think. Best wishes.

[@elzur7434]

ATI subseries 🤞

[@Napoleonic_S]

I think AMD survived largely because of anti monopoly law, strict licensing potential issue (so practically limits who can buy them) and they were in such dire situation that nobody dared to invest on them knowing how hard to make profits from the potential acquisition.

[@zodwraith5745]

@@elzur7434 He's already done an ATI history video.

[@binomial]

I got to say AMD's pro employee culture seems to be continuing. Last year I did a 3 month internship with them and I had death in the family. They told me I didn't even have to fill out paper work or take time off. It was a very good place to work.

[@italianbeans877]

What did you work on during your time at AMD?

[@Canonfudder]

Loyalty is given, loyalty is taken

[@JamesPalylyk]

Wow, Jocelyn Lleno is sill active in the industry. She was working at the San Francisco fab wiring circuits onto wafers by hand and now is in a senior position at Global Foundries in Upstate New York.

[@Asianometry]

That's so cool to hear!

[@1121494]

Global Foundries being an AMD Spin-Off Company.

[@SirMo]

She basically stayed with the same company for all her life (Considering Global Fundries is an AMD spin off). Lesson: treat your employees right, and you will get lifelong loyalty in return. Global Foundries is an AMD spin off. .

[@ajax700]

@@SirMo Not really, she went to work to many non AMD or GF companies in between according to her linkedin ha ha. What a crazy world we live in. Best wishes.

[@Kiteboardshaper]

Wow, that is so awesome!

[@microcolonel]

Didn't know AMD's logo is unchanged. From one perspective it's nothing special, but it is very easy for them to use at any scale, works well on screens, and is kind of ahead of its time, so ultimately was a great choice.

[@sudo11]

design didn't change but the color did

[@microcolonel]

@@sudo11 seems like they didn't really have a color for a long time.

[@Jabid21]

AMD doesn’t exactly have a color on the logo itself but it’s overall theme and product packaging shifted from green to red. AMD’s simple logo design is definitely scalable and long lasting Kinda reminds me of Mitsubishi that also has simple shapes and timeless logo.

[@nation5478]

i miss when design was made to be timeless instead of for trends

[@cosmicmuffet1053]

It's nice that drawing names from a bowl included the regular people and not just the prestige jobs.

[@TheGameScape]

Please never change Asianometry. I work in semiconductor distribution/recycling and your videos have peeled back the history of this industry space for me like I’ve never seen centralized before .

[@lennoxbaumbach390]

I gotta say, "Advanced Micro Devices" is a truly brilliant name for a semiconductor company. - Self-explainatory: straight to the point of what the company is all about. - Short, handy acronym that rolls off the tongue very easily. - Built-in advertising slogan: promises cutting-edge products.

[@Napoleonic_S]

Uhm but it was 17th in their naming options lol, they certainly didn't think about it that way 😂

[@erlienfrommars]

It's a company name that ages very well too considering how innovative they are these days (3D stacking, chiplets, heterogeneous computing, etc)

[@lennoxbaumbach390]

@@erlienfrommars That's exactly what I'm thinking about aswell.

[@Banom7a]

and for a short while, it was Advanced Mining Device 😂

[@Henning_Rech]

And it starts with an "A" - on top of any alphabetically sorted list.

[@jaredlodico]

You're gonna hit a million subs in no time. You're a better writer and story teller than 99% of what's on TV/streaming right now.

[@jsalsman]

Wow that ad copy at 10:00 is wild. Imagine a modern day tech venture trying that instead of talking about their tech. Great video!

[@zodwraith5745]

Literally _why_ we jokingly referred to AMD as Advanced Marketing Devices for years. They didn't advertise their products because they were mostly knock-offs.

[@3800S1]

I had no idea AMD had such a great culture, a stark contrast to the horrors I've head from people that worked at Intel.

[@zodwraith5745]

That's LONG in the past. AMD now is known for being just as or more stressful to work for than Intel, which should tell you something.

[@ntabile]

That was in the 70s and late 80s.

[@3800S1]

@@ntabile Yeah I get that, times are different obvious but from people in recent times, I've heard AMD isn't too bad culture (except the RTG division, especially when Raja worked there) But lots of historical accounts say Intel was and still is a ruthless ahole company, to it's people except top management and to the general industry from get go and nothing has changed in 50+ years. That said, seems that don't even look after their top management anymore either since they kick them in the ass and churn them over like disposable items if they don't do well.

[@hankhillsnrrwurethra]

Micron is the true hellhole.

[@juliane__]

15:09 the very first impression of the building sends out a feeling of acception to everyone. Ahead of the mainbuilding, round in shape and so seemingly open in every direction the entrance speaks the founders and company philosophy. Love it.

[@zenith251]

$45,000 annual pay... That's $386,857 today. A *YEARS* salary severance. According to Glassdoor, so grain of salt, AMD's current Marketing Director is pulling $410,298/yr. Kinda feels like it should be a lot more today.

[@blink182bfsftw]

They probably get much more with stock compensation

[@hgbugalou]

I deeply miss companies with leadership that values it's employees. They certainly still exist, but at the same time, treating employees badly has become far more accepted than it should be. It's not 'just business' when you are interrupting people's lives.

[@terryfox7427]

Starts with a generous stock program for employees, transitions that into a profit sharing one and has a 'lifetime employee' system for a while. This Sanders guy seems pretty decent in my book 😀

[@timothybaker8234]

The oldest continuously operating chip fab plant in the world is a former Fairchild Camera plant here it South Portland, Maine it is now split into two plants, one owned by Diodes, the other by TI.

[@lahma69]

Man, there is so much to this story that you could literally do 10 episodes on it and that would still be leaving a lot on the table. The rivalry between AMD and Intel (or shall I say, Intel's numerous illegal and immoral legal shenanigans against AMD) is of course very interesting but even their very recent history, including their incredible comeback with Ryzen, is fascinating. I look forward to hearing you tell more of this story in the future!

[@ajax700]

Keep in mind AMD is no innocent saint. It has much less sins I think as it was the little one of the two. But they have "evil" actions, if not so many as Intel. Power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely. Intel was much more powerful much of the time, and probably still is. If AMD was the powerful one, the things would be almost surely reversed. Best wishes.

[@TheVoiceTalk]

@ajax700 This is true, of course, but we can still feel bad for AMD as the victim of intels Shenanigans. Intel literally paid companies not to use amd products. This doesn't even mention the multitude of other companies that don't exist anymore because intel crushed them.

[@waynec369]

"Why don't we all get together and start a business?" Two friends and I asked in unison. Was the worst decision I have ever made. Period.

[@tylerwhite4752]

Fun fact: Jack Gifford (one of the founders of AMD) would later go on to found Maxim Integrated, a leading analog IC company recently acquired by Analog Devices. Really cool stuff!

[@rudy1197]

I worked for Jack and he really brought a lot of AMD's culture to Maxim. It was a great place to work until he passed away unexpectedly.

[@Pressbutan]

Such humble beginnings. Interesting to see the symbiosis between Intel and AMD during 8080 and then much later, 64 bit processing.

[@brodriguez11000]

Cross-licensing really helped.

[@ajax700]

Jerry Sanders the 3rd, his guerrilla tactics against Intel around 1995-200x, Nexgen Nx686, contracting the DEC Alpha CPU design team at discount price to launch K7 and Amd64. Amd releasing the first (x86) 1 ghz CPU in great quantities, and Intel only faking to release a 1 ghz Pentium 3 in limited quantities. Those are histories that deserve to be told I think. Best wishes.

[@brothergrimaldus3836]

Still rocking my 1600AF. SO GLAD they developed Ryzen when they did.

[@SirMo]

If you had bought a single share of AMD for $15.50 when they went public today the share would be worth, $266,693. Really glad you're doing a series on AMD. It's such an interesting Cinderella story that should be studied in business schools.

[@SirMo]

@Doctor Whowhotheowl There was 500,000 shares issued originally. Today there are 1'613'000'000 shares. Meaning each share back then is equal to 3,226 shares today (1613000000 ÷ 500000). This is not ideal as there was dilution, but there was also stock buybacks. So this number isn't perfect but it's the best I can do without going through each 10K since the beginning of time.. If you have 3,226 shares of AMD based on the current price of $82.67 price per share, you would have $266,693 value.

[@brodriguez11000]

Main beneficiaries there are those that bought a lot to begin with (faith in the company). Held on long term like 20-30 years (retirement investment), and reinvested dividends in buying more stock (growing the investment, and countering any fees and inflation).

[@gus473]

Thanks for a great summary of an uplifting approach to running a company, especially when things are flying off the fan! 😎✌️

[@youcantata]

I used the Am2901 ALU +Am2910 microsequencer in '80's to develop a new 16 bit bit-slice CPU (4 bit*4 AM2901) circuit and wrote microcode myself. It was arduous job. There was no CAD tools back then. I had to design the circuit by hand and write software tools for it on PDP-11 mini computer. Everyone who is really interested in computer hardware architecture should try to design new CPU with Am2900 series bit-slice chips.

[@john_in_phoenix]

I was introduced to the Fairchild 303 and series 70 around 1981. What a PITA! (The series 70, the 303 was pretty decent) FYI, we used a lot of AMD 8088s on the IBM PC/XT production line.

[@volvo09]

Awesome! I've always been a fan of AMD since I was a kid in the late 90's.

[@BobHank2]

@volvo09 - Me too! I LOVE AMD!! They're so awesome!

[@gus473]

Just wanted to say I have been a fan of Volvos since I was a kid (before you were born)! Our 1995 940, with the looks of a chest freezer but an awesome turbo 4 cyl. capable of 140 mph, got us through three kids over 19 years and more than a quarter-million miles. The guy we sold to had added another 100k miles at last report. Best car we ever owned!

[@justsomeguywithoutamustang6436]

So how does it feel sucking all those dust and debris from the 90s? Are you still functioning now?

[@christopherjackson2157]

The early history of silicon valley in the late 50s early 60s is a story worth telling...

[@alpaykasal2902]

I truly love this channel... and I think the vintage sounding text-to-speech bot you are using is so satirically good. Better than any human could deliver this content.

[@XKS99]

Lol

[@glennac]

🤭🫣

[@lahma69]

Obviously this is a joke but I guess I don't get it.. Are you implying his speech is robot-like or something? Personally, I think he does a great job!

[@alpaykasal2902]

@@lahma69 Yes, but I'm just clowning.. i love this channel and also think he does a great job... just the right amount of humor, amplified by the deadpan voice. Laughing with, not at.

[@horkme]

Jon, one of your best videos! You rock man! We have an accelerated learning program in our elementary school and the teacher was blown away learning of your channe. Thank you for what you do and keep the videos rollin' !!!

[@georgehelliar]

I love that you still have a newsletter. I don't think I've heard anyone else talk about newsletters since pre-y2k. It's very endearing.

[@MrJohnBos]

May I suggest a video on Analog Devices, Inc. The history is fascinating.

[@michaelmoorrees3585]

The boy's from New England ! Yeah, they took their sweet time getting distributors to sell their wares. I still remember buying directly from AD well into the late 80s !

[@x2ul725]

I saved this one for time off as I knew I was going to love this one. Great video !

[@berndkemmereit8252]

Great, I was looking for a video of the beginnings of AMD.

[@TheVoiceTalk]

It's honestly a miracle AMD didn't die. They've should've gone out of buisness on like 10 different occasions.

[@pham3383]

its mirace how its core employees still going through together in the moment,i would say a "nothing else to lose " moment with zen 1,and then survive,miracle

[@103213able]

Thanks for the video great quality as always!

[@clydeblair9622]

Your presentations are the best.

[@TheChodax]

Can't wait for the next part.

[@rollinwithunclepete824]

OK, Jon! I'm waiting for the next installment. Very Interesting.

[@nirfan2020]

Very informative, thanks for uploading such content. 👍😉

[@simonhanlon7518]

My Father made 2 friends during his Apprenticeship at GEC in 1957, John Carey was one of them. They went on to work at GEC defence department where Germanium transistors were being produced. John Carey left in 59 and moved to Canada, to Fairchild them help start up AMD. My Father remained with GEC, then Marconi space and Defence for his whole working life. He worked on Polaris then Trident guidance systems and was the longest serving Englishman on the ICBM projects.

[@MrJohnBos]

I look forward to part 2 and 3 and .... Thanks

[@vzuzukin]

Your research is SO GOOD! 🏆 You have found your True Calling

[@notrocketscience1950]

Wow, who else would produce this content, great work !

[@lostaris]

Richard Ayoade must be a time traveller, there is is as in the amd advert

[@josephliu4573]

Good work. Keep it up!

[@pebre79]

Your channel is a gem & your content is par excellence!! Keep up the great work

[@PaladinA6]

Thanks for the outstanding effort.

[@pickoftheglitter]

awesome video, I enjoyed it, but I hope you will make a part II from 1980s until today, it's a fascinating history and I wish to know how it continues...

[@yuricamposklink1400]

Cheers from Brazil! Excellent channel!

[@KAlpha09]

Hope there is a part 2 on this.

[@Broken_robot1986]

Amazing work, thank you!

[@anywhereroam9698]

I really enjoy your videos. Great history lesson and entertaining.

[@cyndi5hunt]

This is a good story of one of the companies from which I’ve used chips.

[@yujishinohara1uponatime]

thks for posting, I was with Cypress Semi an engineering driven vs AMD a mkting driven at the time image

[@scottkludgedorsey4805]

Are you sure about that AM-2501 photo around 17:00? That looks like a wideband RF amplifier and not a digital counter...

[@jmontgomery7394]

Your channel remains top of my list ... look forward to every episode ... content is always superb!

[@AnanyaChadha]

such a great video, thanks!

[@kelvinnkat]

Great video! Though I should mention that at 10:40 or do it's a Greek letter micro (µ) rather than a Latin letter u at the beginning of µA741

[@m_5373]

Fascinating story!, Great video.

[@capability-snob]

The 2900 series was huge in the minicomputer space, but the 29k is imo AMD's crowning achievement. Delighfully clean programmer-friendly architecture.

[@fliptrontube]

The architecture team for the 2900 family was re-tasked in late 1984 to do the AM29000. Eventually some of that team moved to AMD Austin and worked on the K5 on-wards. (also, thanks for the compliment)

[@tomunterwegs1206]

Not related to the AMD story, but the footage at 12:03 with the warehouse forklift operator ... I would have some serious word with anyone who drives like that. He has a impaired line of sight due to the hight of the payload, a huge safety risk. Driving reverse with a free line of sight is mandatory.

[@aussietaipan8700]

It would be great to have a follow up video on the rise of AMD to 2023. Love your work mate.

[@lilblackduc7312]

I really enjoyed this! Looking to Part 2...🇺🇸 😎👍☕

[@ah244895]

You left us hanging, now we have to listen to more AMD episodes....😂

[@geneballay9590]

another grrrreat video, and what a conclusion "after reaching the Company's 1980 sales goal, AMD CEO Jerry Sanders draws a slip of paper from a bowl containing the names of all company employees and 21 year old Josie Lleno, a recent Filipino immigrant making less than $4 / hour on the graveyard shift, struggling to support an extended family, wins $1,000 / month for 20 years for the purchase of a $250,000 house in California (worth ~ $50 million today).

[@1pierosangiorgio]

great great video! can I help you do one on Digital Equipment Corporation, my father was an executive there, starting in the late 1960's and until the end of the company and I met almost all the key people there.

[@Umski]

Loving the history and the next part 👍 - my introduction to AMD was deciding on a S7 K233 over Intel back in the late 90s when I built my first PC - I always had a soft spot for the underdog 😊

[@jmtradbr]

AMD. When the "copycat" ends being the one who set the standard for the future with the AM64.

[@JunaidHasan23]

I could feel the deep quote at 20:46.

[@Banditxam4]

AMD is beating Intel at the end and finally we have real competition

[@me0101001000]

But who will take on the behemoth that is TSMC?

[@andersjjensen]

@@me0101001000 TSMC is in part owned by it's own clients. Continuing to push semiconductor technology has gotten exponentially more expensive each generation, so I honestly think that TSMC will eventually become a client owned state licensed monopoly. That is, TSMC will forever be barred from entering any other market than chip manufacturing and advanced packaging and will have a maximum allowable profit margin in exchange for servicing every chip design company in the world.

[@goa141no6]

Are you sure? zen 4 is a botch so bad they resorted to make zen 3 again (58003d), their GPU division is on flames, and the only winner they have is servers. Although those console contracts are juicy but profit wise are ok.

[@andersjjensen]

@@goa141no6 I don't know where you get your info but they certainly don't match neither Intel's nor AMDs earnings reports.

[@quantuminfinity4260]

@@goa141no6I have absolutely no preference for AMD or intel over each other, if you look at the performance metrics from almost any perspective with any objective mindset, you cannot possibly say zen 4 was so botched they made it twice, at worst its performance was at least at parity with Intel’s equivalent generation, and in many cases exceeded Intel’s value proposition even in gaming performance, the X3D variant, while not really more cost-effective, did supersede Intel’s offerings at the time in single threaded gaming performance in the vast majority of games by a very appreciable amount. They have gained a massive amount of marketshare back from Intel over the past several years at a pretty consistent rate, ever since first GEN ryzen, which did have quite a few issues even all the way through third GEN. But as of now they are doing absolutely fantastic. They’re highest end GPUs leave some to be desired, but their mid tier offerings are still extremely compelling value propositions, and even on the high end it’s not so bad for them because of just how out to lunch in Nvidia’s pricing is for the significant majority of gamer budgets.

[@hinz1]

AM2501 is 4bit binary counter chip, not some RF amplifier module..... ;-)

[@leonas9843]

Their road wasn't filled with roses and sunshine. Respect to them.

[@explodingrabbit51]

8:06 gem of a comment on the quote. Also Johnathan Lovelace Sr is in fact NOT related to Ada Lovelace.

[@mr_beezlebub3985]

They make some pretty advanced micro devices.

[@rnb250]

Loved this!

[@dereksimpson7959]

Thanks!

[@xyz24601]

These AMD ads look very interesting, I'm curious if they are kept on internet and would other companies have similar stuff?

[@Vineet_thatweneed]

Yess amazing research

[@samiraperi467]

Intersil still exists, but is owned by Renesas. They make tons power controllers and such. Your PC's motherboard might have their chips.

[@peterrmansii]

My first PC in 1992 was a AMD 386 DX 40 mhz

[@imrevadasz1086]

AM2900 isn't a full processor itself, it's bitslice chips that you can use to build a microprogrammed CPU from a set of those chips. At my university, they were still that series as an example for a microprogrammed CPU in 2010, and we even had to write microprogram instructions for such a CPU in the practical part of the course. The AM2900 was one of the standout AMD products.

[@MenkoDany]

Damn, that house story

[@metagen77]

Ohh Internet deerman upload!!!

[@moosa53]

Hey just a question, you showed a pic of Manilla's manufacturing space. Whereas you mentioned that it was in Penang, Malaysia. Two different countries countries btw

[@DavidHalko]

I suspect he knew that, since each were correctly identified. I thought the same thing, but the clip art was correctly referenced, even if it was during the time of mentioning the other location. I bet the producer could not find an original image of the correct facility!

[@Rentta]

Would you do episode of Cyrix ?

[@ChrisNoonetheFirst]

That house is prolly worth around $2M, not $50M

[@ChrisNoonetheFirst]

@@xfcreator439 No.

[@cyeungko]

oh this is gonna be good. Finally doing a video on a tech comeback company

[@babumohan4549]

yes.well said sir

[@ntabile]

The AMD Manila plant was bought by Amkor Anam now Amkor Technology in the late 80s. That was my first job in Semicon related industry.

[@ntabile]

Funny, that on my 3rd job is with Intel Makati, assemblying the Pentium 1 chips.

[@acolyte1951]

AMD could hire a director to make a movie about them to increase popularity, appeal, and sales hehe

[@El.Duder-ino]

Truly fascinating story of the AMD company. Its founder Jerry Sanders built an inspiring and future proof company philosophy, that serves as a role model and inspiration for many companies even today. This is a real and valuable proof that even a simple ideas can flourish thx to hard work and belief of a view can steer the others on their side. AMD today is an important player and living legend.

[@Medik_0001]

What is the image you use at the start of your videos? Is it Taiwan?

[@DelfinoGarza77]

Oh I wanted a k6-2 so bad but I waited for an Athlon 500 and then I overclocked it to 750mhz.

[@dan2800]

5:00 that's just intel moment right there

[@neuroflare]

The ORIGINAL team green. :P

[@cs5842]

Thankyou.

[@AaronSchwarz42]

Wow, that's an inspiring history of AMD & its values of treating its people right with a positive moral workplace philosophy in practice // really amazing !

[@yuglesstube]

Your show is first rate!

[@rabidbigdog]

Perhaps in the next episode you can slip in the circa 1974 Am2900 series bit-slice processors which were used .... everywhere .... by everyone.

[@brodriguez11000]

Data books the size of phone books just for that part.

[@CrunchyF123]

20+ years of using amd cpu's for me (using ryzen now) partly due to my annoyance with intel adverts and their little binging sound played in every pc ad that had intel inside ! but mainly due to cost and long term upgrade paths that did not require a new motherboard and memory for every cpu upgrade !

[@PainterVierax]

TBF we had to wait until AM2+ and AM3 to have that upgrade path and until AM4 to have a large compatibility during 5+ years. Before that there was SlotA/Socket A for K7, then socket754/939/AM2 for K8. APUs were a mess though, with FM1 incompatible with FM2 and FM2+, then incompatible with AM4. Memory is less of an issue with Intel, as they've made some arch compatible with two DDR gen to ease transition (eg. skylake and alderlake) whereas AMD dropped that after K10 (I know there was Excavator gen but as 28nm APUs it wasn't really a viable desktop option and DDR4 wasn't available on FM2+, like DDR3 wasn't on AM4).

[@brodriguez11000]

Not hiding things like virtualization and ECC behind a market differentiation wall like Intel helped as well.