Radeon boss leaves AMD, 24 hours after AMD is inside Intel

Radeon Technologies Group boss Raja Koduri took a leave of absence, or a sabbatical, or something a couple of months ago, but has now officially departed the company.

Before we get into the letter that Koduri wrote to AMD, this news comes just 24 hours after Intel announced its new Kaby Lake G processors will have AMD Radeon Vega GPU technology inside. It's almost as if Koduri waited until that news broke, and then strategically (see: stock prices) left the company.

AMD launched their Radeon RX Vega graphics card family a few weeks ago now, and were instantly put nearly out gamers' minds when NVIDIA launched their offensive against Radeon RX Vega 56 with the new GeForce GTX 1070 Ti last week.

Raja leaving the company isn't a good sign for the future of Radeon, which is already up in the air as it is. Losing a visionary and brainiac chief architect like Koduri is a big, big deal for AMD.

He is a crazy passionate man, and I will truly miss Raja. He is one of the most genuine people in the industry, someone you can sit down with and talk about life - not just tech. I've personally spent many, many hours with Raja and he truly is one of the best human beings I know. We've talked for hours about his passion for ice cream and cricket, something I've admired and looked forward to year after year.

Raja's letter:

To my AMD family,

Forty is a significant number in history. It is a number representing transition, testing and change. I have just spent forty days away from the office going through such a transition. It was an important time with my family, and it also offered me a rare space for reflection. During this time I have come to the extremely difficult conclusion that it is time for me to leave RTG and AMD.

I have no question in my mind that RTG, and AMD, are marching firmly in the right direction as high-performance computing becomes ever-more-important in every aspect of our lives. I believe wholeheartedly in what we are doing with Vega, Navi and beyond, and I am incredibly proud of how far we have come and where we are going. The whole industry has stood up and taken notice of what we are doing. As I think about how computing will evolve, I feel more and more that I want to pursue my passion beyond hardware and explore driving broader solutions.

I want to thank Lisa and the AET for enabling me to pursue my passion during the last four years at AMD, and especially the last two years with RTG. Lisa has my utmost respect for exhibiting the courage to enable me with RTG, for believing in me and for going out of her way to support me. I would also like to call out Mark Papermaster who brought me into AMD, for his huge passion for technology and for his relentless support through many difficult phases. And of course, I want to thank each and every one of my direct staff and my indirect staff who have worked so hard with me to build what we have now got. I am very proud of the strong leaders we have and I'm fully confident that they can execute on the compelling roadmap ahead.

I will continue to be an ardent fan and user of AMD technologies for both personal and professional use.

As I mentioned, leaving AMD and RTG has been an extremely difficult decision for me. But I felt it is the right one for me personally at this point. Time will tell. I will be following with great interest the progress you will make over the next several years.

On a final note, I have asked a lot of you in the last two years. You've always delivered. You've made me successful both personally and professionally, for which I thank you all from the bottom of my heart. I have these final requests from you as I leave:

. Stay focused on the roadmap!

. Deliver on your commitments!

. Continue the culture of Passion, Persistence and Play!

. Make AMD proud!

. Make me proud!

Yours,

Raja