I'm not even sure where to start.
I guess way back at the beginning is a good place.
In a galaxy far far away, wait thats not it......It all started back in the 939 days, the good old days before core 2 duo. An engineer from ATI took me under his wing by the name of grayskull, I guess he saw some hidden talent or something of that sort and quicker than i realized it I was working on ATI 480 and 580 ref boards code named grouper and manta. Unfortunately the time and heyday of 939 + ATI chipsets was short lived with leaks of core 2 duo coming out. At that point in time I decided to go into hibernation.
Enter phenom II and an event hosted by some big names at least to me, Simon Solotko, Matt Davis and Sammi Makinen. At this event I met these key individuals played with a few rigs and discussed the possibility of making a return. Of course in my mind they were just being polite as I'm sure they have heard the same stories before and would forget all about me the next day. To my surprise and probably with some work they were observing on the forums I was doing I was contacted in short time and the adventure once again began.
The adventure went on and on and on, longer than i ever imagined.....AMD Austin, CES, Black Ops, My induction to the ROG team which does many events and another CES trip which turned out to be a combo trip along with a recent trip to AMD of which i was immediately wisked off to an ASUS event. The hardware changed alot and almost felt like it was being thrown at me many times, quite often I found myself just staring at a pile of new hardware wondering how I was ever going to get everything done but i plodded on like a tortoise and somehow managed it. Quite often the amount of work needing to be done was overwhelming and many times it begins to take over your life, especially with new product launches.
This adventure took many twists and turns many which albeit if your standing on the other side of the fence it looked like heaven. I can assure you it's not all fun and games, the grass is not always greener and many times roses just straight up smeel like poo. I won't go into detail but anyone that ventures down the path that i have gone down where you deal with multiple competing companies......well lets just say that you can certianly get caught in the crossfire. Remember this if only this, if you ever have the oppurtunity your integrity is at stake and it's the only thing that truly matters. If you can manage to keep your integrity and still retain your sanity it's nothing short of a miracle. Once you sacrifice your integrity you can and will get dropped by any company like a bad habit. It's been quite the roller coaster ride for sure.
The good the bad the ugly,
I was told at the very beginning that the path I was headed down would be a lonely one. This could not be more true. while I made friends along the way I made twice as many enemies, many respected me but did not like me....
I came off abrasive many times and that is attributed to my tough love teaching/helping approach. When i was growing up this is how I learned, if someone hands you something you never learn the how and the why. While my approach may be frowned upon by many those that tolerated it and actually learned something can look back and appreciate the fact that they don't need someone giving them the answers all the time.
Now the real question, why leave? I have heard rumours that I was dropped, in bad standing with companies and fortunately for me this is not the case save for intel ( I was never in good standing with them, wonder why ). I have heard other rumours that XXX company wanted to hire me. None of it's true. How could you give it all up, look at all the hardware......for me I was never in it for the hardware or the money. If someone wants change they have to reach out and grab it. I saw a defeciency in products, I reached out to companies in an effort to change/fix it.
Could I return someday? Maybe. Unfortunately it won't be anytime soon. Life is calling, the family is calling, they want me back.
My long term goal was to work my ass ofg and end up with a job with one of the manufacturers, unfortunately the oppurtunity has not arrised so I need to find something else which at that point between the family and a job something has to go and overclocking is it.
If I do anything in the near future it will just be to help AMD with a few last things.......but other than that this is preety much goodbye.
Lastly I would like to thank all the companies who trusted and believed and supported me along the way, without them there would be no me. ( god knows I can barely rub pennies together )
Corsair, AMD, ASUS, MSI, Gigabyte, Gskill to name the key players.
Reply With Quote
Originally Posted by Genghis Khan
Saaya yupp, I agree
Bookmarks