AMD beating Intel badly

[Arthur Hanson]

Intel plunging this morning, and AMD and Lisa Su are literally crushing Intel. The feeling is they need the Andy Grove DNA back and don't have any of it left.

 

[tooLongInEDA]

I don't believe the Andy Grove DNA is the solution for today's situation. That may have worked well in an era where Intel completely dominated the markets it served. But that is no longer the case today. And the competition for engineering talent is much higher today. My gut feel is that Intel culture needs to move on from Andy Grove. In some ways this is a bit like what happens to a sports team after an enormously successful coach leaves/retires - no imitator will ever be as good as the original, but there's also a fear of changing an approach which worked in the past. Man Utd (UK soccer team) after Alex Ferguson retired is a classic case. These people cast a long and not always helpful shadow.

 

[Arthur Hanson]

I don't believe the Andy Grove DNA is the solution for today's situation. That may have worked well in an era where Intel completely dominated the markets it served. But that is no longer the case today. And the competition for engineering talent is much higher today. My gut feel is that Intel culture needs to move on from Andy Grove. In some ways this is a bit like what happens to a sports team after an enormously successful coach leaves/retires - no imitator will ever be as good as the original, but there's also a fear of changing an approach which worked in the past. Man Utd (UK soccer team) after Alex Ferguson retired is a classic case. These people cast a long and not always helpful shadow.

I had a one on one conversation with a senior admin of Intel's while on vacation, and one of Andy Grove's talents was an open mind when it came to new ideas and methods, no matter who brought them, if they were well thought out. He had an open mind, and this allowed good talent to flourish no matter who it came from and he cultivated this ethos. This is just good management, and Intel has obviously lost this key ability to cultivate and use talent no matter where it came from. Andy also had very limited patience for people that wasted his time without preparation. A truly great man.

 

[blueone]

I had a one on one conversation with a senior admin of Intel's while on vacation, and one of Andy Grove's talents was an open mind when it came to new ideas and methods, no matter who brought them, if they were well thought out. He had an open mind, and this allowed good talent to flourish no matter who it came from and he cultivated this ethos. This is just good management, and Intel has obviously lost this key ability to cultivate and use talent no matter where it came from. Andy also had very limited patience for people that wasted his time without preparation. A truly great man.

Did you ever meet Grove, or have you ever worked for Intel (even as a contractor)?

 

[Arthur Hanson]

Did you ever meet Grove, or have you ever worked for Intel (even as a contractor)?

NO, but I have worked with numerous admins and some very, very senior admins and have seen them in action. They often become execution specialists and are the filter through which information flows. I have personally dealt with an admin that caused a super major corporation to change their approach in handling people and who they would fire and hire. Thanks to Semiwiki helping me upgrade my writing, I have done this on a close personal level

 

[blueone]

NO, but I have worked with numerous admins and some very, very senior admins and have seen them in action. They often become execution specialists and are the filter through which information flows. I have personally dealt with an admin that caused a super major corporation to change their approach in handling people and who they would fire and hire. Thanks to Semiwiki helping me upgrade my writing, I have done this on a close personal level

Well, I have news for you, Grove, as brilliant as he was, was also not everyone's cup of tea. Not by a long shot. His aggressive, confrontational personality shaped the working environment of the entire company. When I was there I used to be asked to regularly teach a canned class as part of "Intel University" (Intel's internal training program) called "Constructive Confrontation", which was a concept Grove himself supposedly came up with. Later he expressed some dismay that the class was still taught long after he retired; that his controversial personality shaped the company so much. Like some other brilliant CEOs (Jobs, Gates, Balmer, Musk, etc.), Grove could be intimidating and crossed some lines. Open-minded was not a term I used to hear about him; intimidating and difficult was more like it. When I was at Intel the CEOs were Barrett and Otellini, and their styles were much different. (Not necessarily better, just different.) I also remember Grove pushing his favorite peer-to-peer concept for networked client computing in the industry pretty hard, which a lot of people thought wasn't an especially good idea (me included). Nonetheless, overall, as no one can be in a job like that and run a popularity contest, Grove was a brilliant CEO. Not enough of Intel's middle management read "Only The Paranoid Survive" and internalized it. Perhaps having AMD top Intel in market capitalization will psychologically give some people a kick in the butt who really need it.

 

[Arthur Hanson]

I have had to work with many high-end people who I didn't know who they were and their power at the time. Many times we had long conversations, and people were blown away for they said these people had limited patience and must have liked what I was saying. I didn't know it then but was talking to a financial titan who said I should work for him, and I thought it was decent money. And it was years later, and I found people in that position made seven figures if they made it. I had no clue until I saw his picture on the cover of a major business magazine, grabbed the business card, and confirmed who I was talking to.