亲历者详解AMD与英特尔之战内幕

    On the other hand, if the reader wants to know what it's like to be the CEO of a public corporation when it decides to go to the mattresses against a gigantic competitor; and when it simultaneously incurs debt to make a huge strategic acquisition (purchasing graphics chipmaker ATI for $5.6 billion); and when it exacerbates its resulting financial squeeze with a serious unforced error (a design flaw in Opteron's successor, the Barcelona chip); and when it narrowly averts bankruptcy by pulling off a massive restructuring (obtaining financing from Abu Dhabi investors to spin off all its chip fabrication plants into a new stand-alone company, GlobalFoundries); then this book will provide some compelling and provocative reading.

    The book does not, alas, teach many vivid lessons. The narrative flow is also tripped up by some notable omissions and unpersuasive inclusions. When Ruiz was negotiating the GlobalFoundries spinoff, for instance, he needed to address certain licensing issues with IBM. The executive he dealt with there was Robert Moffat, who, as it happened, was then having an affair with femme fatale Danielle Chiesi, who was, in turn, leaking material inside information to Galleon hedge fund manager Raj Rajaratnam. (Moffat and Chiesi later pled guilty. Rajaratnam was convictedin 2011, and has appealed.) Ruiz was never charged with wrongdoing, but the government's sentencing memorandum for Chiesi alleged that she also obtained inside information from Ruiz. Ruiz mentions none of this in the book. (In an interview he says, "The association of my name in the media with that was a terribly unfair thing to do … There was never an allegation of wrongdoing made against me by any authority, and I believe that I always acted in good faith and in the best interests of AMD. But I got dragged into a media frenzy."

    The description of Ruiz's departure from AMD is also unsatisfying. During the summer of 2008, with negotiations over the foundry spinoff stalled, Giuliano Meroni, AMD's then president for Europe, Middle East, and Africa, told Ruiz that the Abu Dhabi investors "are worried that once we do this deal, you will leave them, and they will be on their own." Meroni then suggested, as Ruiz recounts it, "If you tell them that you'll go with them -- you'll join the new foundry company -- that will end their worries." Ruiz saw that Meroni was right, offered to go to GlobalFoundries to ensure that the deal went through, and thereby saved AMD from a possible bankruptcy filing, Ruiz writes.

    In July 2008, when AMD announced its seventh consecutive quarterly loss, it also announced that Ruiz would step down as CEO, though he remained as AMD chairman. The impending Abu Dhabi deal would not become public till March 2009. Accordingly, the press wrote -- unfairly in Ruiz's view -- that AMD had "ousted" Ruiz as CEO, Ruiz recounts, when "the reality was something much more cooperative, complex, and premeditated." He suppressed "the urge to publicly fight back," he writes, remembering his father's advice: "If you argue with a fool, no one will know who the fool is."

    Still, the reader wonders why having Ruiz become GlobalFoundries's nonexecutive chairman was so pivotal to the Abu Dhabi investors' willingness to go forward. Ruiz stayed there only eight months. His departure from that company is also omitted from the book. (In an interview Ruiz says, "My work there was completed.") So had Ruiz's departure from AMD really been the selfless act that cinched the deal that saved AMD from bankruptcy? Or had Meroni just found a diplomatic way to finesse Ruiz's ouster in a way that preserved Ruiz's pride?

    The next book I'd like to read about Ruiz's tenure at AMD would be one written by Meroni.