Soldato
From what I remember, the talk was RDNA 1 was in a position to be shown around the prior September, but something cropped up which pushed the entire project back, and presumably pushed significantly enough to bodge together Radeon VII to fill the gap. Hell, there's even gossip to this day (not that I can find the rumour/source where I saw it) that RDNA 1 still had some kind of bug at a silicon level which was a major contributor to all the black screen driver issues.Which goes against his claims that it was going to be shown. A gpu has to be pretty nailed down before a company is comfortable live demoing it. The way his article made it sound it was as if 5 mins before they were gonna show it they pulled the plug.
Anything that came across as a last-ditch "5 minutes beforehand" thing was either hyperbolic writing (which Adored Jim is perfectly capable of doing), an exaggeration to illustrate a point (also a failing of his) or just interpretation on the part of the reader.