It would be very helpful to deeply understand the truth behind this management failing. The actual players involved, and their thinking. Was it truly a blind spot? Or was it mistaken priorities? I mean, this situation has been so obvious and tragic, that I can't help feeling like there is some unknown story-behind-the-story. We'll probably never really know, but if we could, I wouldn't spend quite as much time wearing a tinfoil hat.
My guess is it’s just incompetence. Imagine you’re in charge of ROCm and your boss asks you how it’s going. Do you say good things about your team and progress? Do you highlight the successes and say how you can do all the major things CUDA can? I think many people would. Or do you say to your boss “the project I’m in charge of is a total disaster and we are a joke in the industry”? That’s a hard thing to say.
if you asked AMD execs they'd probably say they never had the money to build out a software team like NVIDIA's. that might only be part of the answer. the rest would be things like lack of vision, "can't turn a tanker on a dime", etc.