AMD Responds to WSJ ‘Keys to the Kingdom’ Story(amd.com)
amd.com
AMD Responds to WSJ ‘Keys to the Kingdom’ Story
https://www.amd.com/en/corporate/wsj-response
11 comments
Earlier HN thread on the WSJ article: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20300100
Hypothetical question: Let's say a news source writes a story that tanks a company's stock price and then, over the course of time the company is able to prove the story is false and/or the news source is unable to back up the story. Can the company sue the newspaper for damages?
Oh, like Bloomberg's The Big Hack?
First thing that came to mind. As far as I know they're still claiming it was accurate.
They can claim whatever they want. But they have no proof, and there has been plenty of counter evidence.
And it certainly hasn’t been proven false
I mean they’re the ones making the claim, the onus probandi lies with them.
I completely forgot about that. Did anything come of it?
Made good money off that one :D
Interesting, can you provide more detail?
Nothing super fancy
After their stock crashed there was a small window of time where the tech crowd had concluded the claim is bullshit but the stock didn't go back up.
Checked out their financials and that seemed fine so stuck money in it and waited for it to recover
After their stock crashed there was a small window of time where the tech crowd had concluded the claim is bullshit but the stock didn't go back up.
Checked out their financials and that seemed fine so stuck money in it and waited for it to recover
My guess is that he shorted SuperMicro during that time period- that makes the most sense to me.
I'm not being my answer on any laws, but am replying with the eye of an investor.
A story or rumour affecting the short term price of a company stock, might leave little recourse to the company, as that price can return back to what it was relatively quickly. There would have been some reputation damage, but I wouldn't weigh stock price to be a good measure of that.
If the company was maybe in the middle of raising funds, say bonds from the market, or using additional shares; they would have stronger case if the false story hindered such find raising.
A company is often not affected by short-term fluctuations in its external "value".
If in the other hand, there's an investor who was adversely affected by such news, the stock price directly affects them. Perhaps they would have a stronger case.
This is my opinion based on my intuition.
A story or rumour affecting the short term price of a company stock, might leave little recourse to the company, as that price can return back to what it was relatively quickly. There would have been some reputation damage, but I wouldn't weigh stock price to be a good measure of that.
If the company was maybe in the middle of raising funds, say bonds from the market, or using additional shares; they would have stronger case if the false story hindered such find raising.
A company is often not affected by short-term fluctuations in its external "value".
If in the other hand, there's an investor who was adversely affected by such news, the stock price directly affects them. Perhaps they would have a stronger case.
This is my opinion based on my intuition.
Even if the company can prove that the newspaper engaged in libel it would be difficult to establish compensatory damages. Regardless of stock price changes, the company hasn't lost any assets. They might have a shot at getting legal fees plus some punitive damages depending on how egregious the newspaper's conduct was.
AMD in this case would likely have to meet the public figure standard of proving defamation, which would mean proving the WSJ was grossly negligent or knowingly published false claims.
They are probably not an all-purpose public figure, depending on the particular facts they could end up being considered a limited-purpose public figure. But even private figures must prove at least negligence to have a successful defamation claim.
I work in the law and I'm not 100% sure what the case law is on this but my guess is that if you could prove that they knew (or should have known) what they were publishing was false, then yes. First amendment lawyers please correct me if I'm wrong.
Yeah in general if the untrue statement was made without at least negligence then it will be protected.
> Statements made in a good faith and reasonable belief that they were true are generally treated the same as true statements; however, the court may inquire into the reasonableness of the belief. The degree of care expected will vary with the nature of the defendant: an ordinary person might safely rely on a single newspaper report, while the newspaper would be expected to carefully check multiple sources.
> Statements made in a good faith and reasonable belief that they were true are generally treated the same as true statements; however, the court may inquire into the reasonableness of the belief. The degree of care expected will vary with the nature of the defendant: an ordinary person might safely rely on a single newspaper report, while the newspaper would be expected to carefully check multiple sources.
You can generally sue for anything you feel like.
However if the press demonstrates that they followed reasonable journalistic practices and weren’t blatantly lying, they’d be fine.
However if the press demonstrates that they followed reasonable journalistic practices and weren’t blatantly lying, they’d be fine.
This is basically how Donald Trump tried to make money in the stock market in the 1980s.
>The Wall Street Journal story omits important factual details, including the fact that AMD put significant protections in place to protect its intellectual property (IP) and prevent valuable IP from being misused or reverse engineered to develop future generations of processors.
Without knowing what those protections are, I'm not sure we have learned much.
Also the US government not objecting, I'm not sure changes the gist of the story does it?
Without knowing what those protections are, I'm not sure we have learned much.
Also the US government not objecting, I'm not sure changes the gist of the story does it?
Without knowing what those protections are, we haven't learned much from either the story or the response.
The gist of the story wasn't just that a lot was shared; it was that it was shared nefariously, borderline illegally, and it was all AMD's fault and intention. It essentially painted them as mercenary traitors.
I admit, the original story does sound bad. But I'm also aware of how easy it is to paint such a picture, ando find it hard to believe the US Government couldn't have shut this down if it really wanted to.
The gist of the story wasn't just that a lot was shared; it was that it was shared nefariously, borderline illegally, and it was all AMD's fault and intention. It essentially painted them as mercenary traitors.
I admit, the original story does sound bad. But I'm also aware of how easy it is to paint such a picture, ando find it hard to believe the US Government couldn't have shut this down if it really wanted to.
It's also reasonable to believe that the "government" is not all on the same page. Everything can be true: some officials were happy to greenlight the tech transfer at the beginning of the process, other parts of government found out and disagreed but their hands were tied, and amidst all of that AMD leadership firmly and rationally believes that it's not being traitorous to transfer tech of Gen N when China's desperately stuck on Gen N-2 and "state of the art" used by the US is Gen N+5.
Eh, the lean of the article and the comments on the original HN thread were knocking AMD for it as if they were going against American interests by being successfully bullied by China into giving up valuable IP.
AMD is saying that a) the IP was not of the highest value or performance, and b) it's unlikely to go against American national security interests when DoC and DoJ both give explicit sign-off. Remember too that this was in the Obama era, when the likelihood of sailing the country down a river for $$$ was lower.
AMD is saying that a) the IP was not of the highest value or performance, and b) it's unlikely to go against American national security interests when DoC and DoJ both give explicit sign-off. Remember too that this was in the Obama era, when the likelihood of sailing the country down a river for $$$ was lower.
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I think you’ve got it backward. The likelihood is that the Obama administration treated China more like an ally and less as a hostile power than Trump has treated them.
Obama spent a lot of political and reputational capital on the TPP. The only purpose of TPP was to counteract China. I think it would be very surprising if they were treating China as an ally.
You have it backwards.
The two key claims by AMD -- that they only transferred lower performing technology and that all the things were blessed by US government -- were cited nearly verbatim in the WSJ story. I can't find anything in the AMD statement that adds meaningfully to the case; it's a non-rebutting rebuttal.
Whatever. If they really did unzip for the Chinese military as the WSJ claims then AMD will soon find itself competing with Chinese government subsidized derivatives of their IP and have next to no meaningful recourse with any governing authority.
Whatever. If they really did unzip for the Chinese military as the WSJ claims then AMD will soon find itself competing with Chinese government subsidized derivatives of their IP and have next to no meaningful recourse with any governing authority.
Intel did (probably forced by recent at the time $1B Qualcomm penalty in China) the very same thing with Atom IP, twice!
https://www.anandtech.com/show/8061/this-is-huge-intel-enter...
http://linuxgizmos.com/intel-invests-1-5-billion-in-chinese-...
Not only Intel gave away its CPU IP, it also "invested" $1.5B in Tsinghua Unigroup. Whats more last year they shared 5G modem IP with Unisoc, part of Tsinghua Unigroup holding.
https://www.anandtech.com/show/8061/this-is-huge-intel-enter...
http://linuxgizmos.com/intel-invests-1-5-billion-in-chinese-...
Not only Intel gave away its CPU IP, it also "invested" $1.5B in Tsinghua Unigroup. Whats more last year they shared 5G modem IP with Unisoc, part of Tsinghua Unigroup holding.
My understanding of the structure of the arrangement when I first heard about it was that it was designed to not transfer IP, but to allow China to make their own chip, in a manner of speaking, without actually having the important IP. Even ignoring national obligations, it would just be bad business to hand that over.
"AMD put significant protections in place to protect its intellectual property (IP) and prevent valuable IP from being misused or reverse engineered to develop future generations of processors."
That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if they got the IP anyway, just that wasn't the intention. AMD CEO Lisa Su made some comments a few weeks ago that the joint venture was already dead in the water and was just for one project only. I get the feeling AMD wasn't too happy about the way it all turned out.
"AMD put significant protections in place to protect its intellectual property (IP) and prevent valuable IP from being misused or reverse engineered to develop future generations of processors."
That being said, I wouldn't be surprised if they got the IP anyway, just that wasn't the intention. AMD CEO Lisa Su made some comments a few weeks ago that the joint venture was already dead in the water and was just for one project only. I get the feeling AMD wasn't too happy about the way it all turned out.
Transferring lower speed tech still could be a huge jump from what China had, the main point is architecture is hard to put a value to it. For what is known, maybe slower means lowering the hertz
Man, IC designers who work on state backed IC projects are given salaries significantly higher than that of designers at Intel and Apple.
Otherwise they would not have a single chance to bring in anybody of an anymuch high calibre to China
Otherwise they would not have a single chance to bring in anybody of an anymuch high calibre to China
> "could be a huge jump" ... "maybe slower means lowering the hertz"
This is so painfully obvious it's sad that it has to be said out loud. There is no credible information about exactly what AMD means when they claim lower performance. Nothing meaningful is said about the nature of their 'protections.' And the fact that everything was supposedly blessed by all the various US government TLAs under the Obama administration is almost a confirmation of the WSJ lede; that this was yet another backdoor sellout of US tech to China.
This is so painfully obvious it's sad that it has to be said out loud. There is no credible information about exactly what AMD means when they claim lower performance. Nothing meaningful is said about the nature of their 'protections.' And the fact that everything was supposedly blessed by all the various US government TLAs under the Obama administration is almost a confirmation of the WSJ lede; that this was yet another backdoor sellout of US tech to China.
>that this was yet another backdoor sellout of US tech to China
what does this mean? It does not seem to be something secret or illegal.
what does this mean? It does not seem to be something secret or illegal.
I'm sure the timing of this exposé (of a years-old story) has nothing to do with AMD's imminent release of a product that will seriously threaten if not outright beat Intel for years to come.
FUD
FUD
There's got to be a law or something where for a given thread there is some user who has a conspiracy theory about it.
Conspiracies, eh
https://www.agner.org/optimize/blog/read.php?i=49#49
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices,_Inc._v....
Full disclosure, I'm long $AMD ;)
https://www.agner.org/optimize/blog/read.php?i=49#49
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Micro_Devices,_Inc._v....
Full disclosure, I'm long $AMD ;)
Those say Intel was unfairly competing with AMD.
That's different from Intel conspiring with the Wall Street Journal to write negative (and maybe false) articles about AMD.
That's different from Intel conspiring with the Wall Street Journal to write negative (and maybe false) articles about AMD.
Unless I'm misunderstanding aren't you just proving the point / following the usual example of proof people give of a conspiracy?
Every conspiracy claim has some related story people point to and draw a line from.
The claim is that the article was FUD.
The fact that companies who are competitors can compete fiercely doesn't prove anything.
Every conspiracy claim has some related story people point to and draw a line from.
The claim is that the article was FUD.
The fact that companies who are competitors can compete fiercely doesn't prove anything.
Sure, saying there are ulterior motives to this story is a conspiracy theory. Without, say, video evidence of the author getting handed a bag of money by Bob Swan you're free to dismissively label it as such.
Without more information we're left with:
- Everything in the WSJ article was known years ago.
- AMD is a week away from likely taking the x86 performance crown from Intel in nearly every metric.
- The last time this happened, Intel engaged in outright illegal non-competitive behavior to preserve market share.
>It's like what Lenin said... you look for the person who will benefit, and, uh, uh... You know what I'm trying to say...
Without more information we're left with:
- Everything in the WSJ article was known years ago.
- AMD is a week away from likely taking the x86 performance crown from Intel in nearly every metric.
- The last time this happened, Intel engaged in outright illegal non-competitive behavior to preserve market share.
>It's like what Lenin said... you look for the person who will benefit, and, uh, uh... You know what I'm trying to say...
Couldn't you also argue that any bad news about say a politician that comes out would be a conspiracy too as that would be a benefit to someone...?
> The fact that companies who are competitors can compete fiercely doesn't prove anything.
The linked Wikipedia shows that Intel was convicted and fined for illegal anticompetitive measures against AMD. They were fined 1.25 billion dollars, a non-trivial sum. It is a factual statement that Intel has historically attempted to suppress AMD products through measures beyond competing on features alone.
While this does not prove the original accusation, it is supporting evidence, and makes the statement more plausible.
The linked Wikipedia shows that Intel was convicted and fined for illegal anticompetitive measures against AMD. They were fined 1.25 billion dollars, a non-trivial sum. It is a factual statement that Intel has historically attempted to suppress AMD products through measures beyond competing on features alone.
While this does not prove the original accusation, it is supporting evidence, and makes the statement more plausible.
I don't think it makes anything more plausible.
If there is zero proof of the claim, stuff that isn't proof ... still isn't proof.
I feel like using your reasoning, you could argue ANYTHING is more plausible.
If there is zero proof of the claim, stuff that isn't proof ... still isn't proof.
I feel like using your reasoning, you could argue ANYTHING is more plausible.
So basically: fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Learn your lesson, it's a conspiracy theory.
Also, calling it "fierce competition" is a mischaracterization of their actions. They have been fined by countries for these practices, and have done what they could to keep the evidence from public view. Intel deserves the suspicion they get.
Also, calling it "fierce competition" is a mischaracterization of their actions. They have been fined by countries for these practices, and have done what they could to keep the evidence from public view. Intel deserves the suspicion they get.
Do you feel your description supports means the article is FUD?
Also the Intel leak
https://www.reddit.com/r/Amd/comments/c5nb01/amd_competitive...
Someone wanted to short some AMD.
This was my impression from the beginning, but I'm glad to hear it directly from AMD.
AMD “laundered” IP through Chinese partnerships. The fact that the legal goalposts have moved since their partnership began does not absolve them of this fact. If China suddenly becomes massively more capable in X86 CPU’s, it will be obvious why