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I believe in doing this at the VP/GM level. We believe we both agree that middle management is the problem.
As far as that Intel global diversity and inclusion article, that is probably a huge part of the problem. They need to hire the best people for the job and have the same mindset. Go woke, go broke. My employees are equally distributed on pigmentation, but that was just a coincidence. We are not diverse... we share a common mission.
The shareholders should demand that Gunslinger hire the best people and remove that BS. If they continue to hire that way, they will operate inefficiently.
I've never met Huang before, but anyone who hires Bill Dally as his chief scientist must be pretty damn smart. On the other hand, PG brings along a CTO from VMWare who seems like a really smart guy, but has no fab process experience or chip design experience. ??
I believe in doing this at the VP/GM level. We believe we both agree that middle management is the problem.
As far as that Intel global diversity and inclusion article, that is probably a huge part of the problem. They need to hire the best people for the job and have the same mindset. Go woke, go broke. My employees are equally distributed on pigmentation, but that was just a coincidence. We are not diverse... we share a common mission.
The shareholders should demand that Gunslinger hire the best people and remove that BS. If they continue to hire that way, they will operate inefficiently.
The semi formula isn't simple. We are in a tough business. The fabs are fighting physics (I think some of the guys here are crazy), and the design division needs to have tiny skunk works teams, but that is what we signed up for. They don't have to be #1 at everything. Stay in the game and do your jobs. The whole is worth more than the sum of the parts. They have the complete system in the best location.
I see lots of cowards and losers beyond this forum. I started noticing it in the mid 90s. "Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right" -- Henry Ford. They need to keep their divisions, clean house and get to work, and don't listen to short sighted investors.
Note: I forgot to add sympathizers and diversifiers to my original statement. My bad.
I agree that there is a future in which Intel is #2 or lower in a range of its activities (and possibly even all of them).
What I'm less certain about is whether Intel is behaviorally capable of adjusting to that new reality. Avis famously celebrated being #2 in car rental ("we try harder"). Are there enough people in Intel who did actually sign up for the scrap that goes with no longer being #1 ?
Intel is already there. I can't think of a product line where Intel has a leadership position. Intel has also been there before, in the mid-2000s until 2008 when Nehalem put them on top again. Intel was also behind AMD on 64bit support and virtualization support.
The only place I still think of Intel as a true leader is in industry I/O standards. Without Intel there'd be no PCIe, no NVMe, no CXL, no UCIe. Intel was one of the companies that submitted the original IEEE 802 draft for Ethernet. Of course, if Intel really falls to #2 in unit sales and revenue, I suspect the days of Intel driving the industry will be over too.
What I'm less certain about is whether Intel is behaviorally capable of adjusting to that new reality. Avis famously celebrated being #2 in car rental ("we try harder"). Are there enough people in Intel who did actually sign up for the scrap that goes with no longer being #1 ?
Intel engineers are, Intel management - not so much, especially Gelsinger. He was there during Nahalem, and his rhetoric leads me to believe he thinks he's going to pull a product design rabbit out of his hat. I think that's very unlikely, especially with him in the CEO seat. Too much emphasis placed on loyalty, too little on capability.
Their skunk works groups (which they need to have) should strive for #1 in all categories, but they may be stuck at #2 due (see below). A complete solution at #2 or #3 in the US is extremely valuable, and can easily become #1 before the end of next year with the the way the world is heading right now.
What I'm less certain about is whether Intel is behaviorally capable of adjusting to that new reality. Avis famously celebrated being #2 in car rental ("we try harder"). Are there enough people in Intel who did actually sign up for the scrap that goes with no longer being #1 ?
Pay the innovators (skunk works). Who isn't going to work on that team? They have their own fab and manufacturing. The problem with that is they will try to change the manufacturing. EEs have to understand that the fab needs to focus on yield, so they may not get to be as aggressive as they would like. This is why it may be difficult to be #1. There is a tradeoff between yield, cost, and performance. Intel may be stuck at #2 on all items, but that should still be hugely profitable, especially when they lay off all their drones.
Intel should stop divesting IMO. I don't think Mr. Blue agrees with me on this topic. He has good opinions. I am interested what he has to say.
If you mean divesting businesses like Mobileye and Altera, I'm aligned with you. I think those two divestments are artifacts of PG's thinking that Intel should completely focus on CPUs. I like AMD's thinking better.
They should have kept Mobileye, their wireless division, *RAM. Definitely keep the FAB, Altera, and (we disagree here) the servers. Increase skunk works and accept decreasing performance by 10% compared to the competition. I don't think it will be a winner take all market. Globalism is dead. Expect tariffs and more regulation. They are in a good location for the new world.
They should have kept Mobileye, their wireless division, *RAM. Definitely keep the FAB, Altera, and (we disagree here) the servers. Increase skunk works and accept decreasing performance by 10% compared to the competition. I don't think it will be a winner take all market. Globalism is dead. Expect tariffs and more regulation. They are in a good location for the new world.
Servers and boards are a low margin business. Even putting those operations in a low cost geo wasn't enough to compete with Supermicro, et al. Intel just didn't have a business model for being that lean.
As for globalism being dead, that only seems vaguely correct for fabs. For the rest of semi supply chain, globalism looks alive and well, with some capabilities being brought back to rich high-cost countries for national security and feel-good purposes.
Cliff, it seems like your world only has black and white in it. Aren't there any shades of gray at all?
