Intel is officially RTO

[Daniel Nenni]

It is called leadership.

LBT detailed the RTO policy in an internal memo to Intel employees dated April 24, 2025, titled "Our Path Forward." This came shortly after Intel's Q1 2025 earnings report. Tan emphasized that Intel's cost structure was "well above competitive benchmarks" and that excessive remote/hybrid work had contributed to layers of bureaucracy with teams at "eight or more layers deep" and wasted too much time on administrative tasks.

LinkedIn
Yuliya Vasudev
It was our official return to the office this week at Intel Corporation and it was exciting to see everyone back - the energy was everywhere: hallway catch-ups, quick brainstorms at desks and bouncing ideas in person, spontaneous teamwork, sense of community - things you can’t replicate on screen.

The office was so alive it was even hard to find parking! And although some would say - it is limiting our flexibility - I truly believe this is a critical step in bringing back focus at Intel, with the goal of regaining its leadership position on the market.

The best part of the week for me was getting to meet our CEO, Lip-Bu Tan. Hearing his vision in person was inspiring and it reaffirmed my belief in the important role we play in shaping the future of technology. I’m excited to be part of this journey and to see Intel continue to succeed.

 

[hist78]

It is called leadership.

LBT detailed the RTO policy in an internal memo to Intel employees dated April 24, 2025, titled "Our Path Forward." This came shortly after Intel's Q1 2025 earnings report. Tan emphasized that Intel's cost structure was "well above competitive benchmarks" and that excessive remote/hybrid work had contributed to layers of bureaucracy with teams at "eight or more layers deep" and wasted too much time on administrative tasks.

LinkedIn
Yuliya Vasudev
It was our official return to the office this week at Intel Corporation and it was exciting to see everyone back - the energy was everywhere: hallway catch-ups, quick brainstorms at desks and bouncing ideas in person, spontaneous teamwork, sense of community - things you can’t replicate on screen.

The office was so alive it was even hard to find parking! And although some would say - it is limiting our flexibility - I truly believe this is a critical step in bringing back focus at Intel, with the goal of regaining its leadership position on the market.

The best part of the week for me was getting to meet our CEO, Lip-Bu Tan. Hearing his vision in person was inspiring and it reaffirmed my belief in the important role we play in shaping the future of technology. I’m excited to be part of this journey and to see Intel continue to succeed.

@Daniel Nenni

You probably know more about the job market and the supply-and-demand situation for salespeople in semiconductor companies. I looked at the LinkedIn profile of the poster your post is based on, and she seems to have limited experience in the semiconductor industry itself, aside from working 2 years and 11 months at the motherboard manufacturer Gigabyte. Is it really that difficult to find a salesperson with direct semiconductor industry experience?

Yuliya Vasudev - Intel Corporation | LinkedIn

As a Strategic Account Manager at Intel, I manage a sales pipeline of over $200M and… · Experience: Intel Corporation · Education: Stanford University Graduate School of Business · Location: Santa Clara · 500+ connections on LinkedIn. View Yuliya Vasudev’s profile on LinkedIn, a professional...

www.linkedin.com

 

[Daniel Nenni]

@Daniel Nenni

You probably know more about the job market and the supply-and-demand situation for salespeople in semiconductor companies. I looked at the LinkedIn profile of the poster your post is based on, and she seems to have limited experience in the semiconductor industry itself, aside from working 2 years and 11 months at the motherboard manufacturer Gigabyte. Is it really that difficult to find a salesperson with direct semiconductor industry experience?

Yuliya Vasudev - Intel Corporation | LinkedIn

As a Strategic Account Manager at Intel, I manage a sales pipeline of over $200M and… · Experience: Intel Corporation · Education: Stanford University Graduate School of Business · Location: Santa Clara · 500+ connections on LinkedIn. View Yuliya Vasudev’s profile on LinkedIn, a professional...

www.linkedin.com

I believe she is in support versus sales. In my experience there are two kinds of semiconductor sales people: Hunters versus Farmers and they are two very different skill sets. Hunters generally make more money so that is what you want to be. My guess is that Intel is full of farmers given the dominant position they were in. They may need more hunters now.

 

[hist78]

I believe she is in support versus sales. In my experience there are two kinds of semiconductor sales people: Hunters versus Farmers and they are two very different skill sets. Hunters generally make more money so that is what you want to be. My guess is that Intel is full of farmers given the dominant position they were in. They may need more hunters now.

Farmers?

 

[Daniel Nenni]

Farmers?

Also called account managers for existing accounts. They milk cows versus rustling new cows. Some inexperienced sales people try and milk bulls which only makes the bulls mad.

 

[lispwright]

It is called leadership.

Also called death to productivity for a lot of people who have to concentrate and think hard about their work. Which is a thing when you're pushing the state of the art in fabrication (albeit a lot of that is hands on with expensive machines) and trying to compete in design with a company like AMD that's doing very well in CPUs.

It was our official return to the office this week at Intel Corporation and it was exciting to see everyone back - the energy was everywhere: hallway catch-ups, quick brainstorms at desks and bouncing ideas in person, spontaneous teamwork, sense of community - things you can’t replicate on screen.

Do you know how hard it is to concentrate when a good salesman is on the phone near you? I'm talking about a hunter, the sort who makes compelling pitches that are necessarily hard to ignore. People I like working with in small doses, my father was one.

In this context, for a lot of people RTO is just another way to shed employees without formal layoffs or regard for the quality of the work they're doing. Not going to give Intel the huge boost in quality they desperately need in domains like design and software to make their stuff usable. There's already been lots of formal layoffs of people who provide all sorts of Linux kernel support.

 

[bilau]

I might be giving out my age...

Way back when, there was an outside contractor doing technical writing for my team. He had a freshy (original) Apple Mac that he would cover with a big sign " Personal Property, Don't Touch!" when he was away. (Of course, we still would insert our floppies and type reports on it because it was indeed so much better!)

I asked him why he didn't just work at home? He said he wanted to be right next to us to better fill in the details and that he would be distracted at home!!

 

[Daniel Nenni]

I might be giving out my age...

Way back when, there was an outside contractor doing technical writing for my team. He had a freshy (original) Apple Mac that he would cover with a big sign " Personal Property, Don't Touch!" when he was away. (Of course, we still would insert our floppies and type reports on it because it was indeed so much better!)

I asked him why he didn't just work at home? He said he wanted to be right next to us to better fill in the details and that he would be distracted at home!!

The refrigerator distracts me while working at home.

I have a friend who took a CEO job at a company that made remote work permanent and it is not working which is why they have a new CEO. Unfortunately employees moved so much in 4 years it is impossible to RTO now. It seems some companies can work remotely and some cannot. Intel clearly cannot thus the RTO. Will it work? Only time will tell but changes had to be made and that is a big one.

 

[Daniel Nenni]

Do you know how hard it is to concentrate when a good salesman is on the phone near you? I'm talking about a hunter, the sort who makes compelling pitches that are necessarily hard to ignore. People I like working with in small doses, my father was one.

If they were good salesmen they would have their own office.

I went to a sales training in the 1990s and they showed the movie Glenngary Glenn Ross. It was hilarious. The ABCs of sales "Always be Closing!" and "Coffee is for closers!"

My day job is helping start-up and re-start-up companies with exits. No matter where your company is always be thinking about exits. One of the first things I do is take a close look at the sales process. It is like NCIS, first you inspect the dead body then you figure out how and why. Sales is a science. If you think otherwise you have already lost.

I consider Intel a re-start-up. LBT has said as much when he calls for a "startup mindset," "startup culture," or "startup spirit" to minimize bureaucracy and maximize innovation. I can assure you he has been doing the NCIS thing since day one, absolutely.

 

[Jure]

Nowadays many companies implement middle ground - hybrid work. From my experience, it's the best setup. This way everyone can find their sweet spot and be as efficient as possible. Imo, forcing people to work from home / office is the wrong approach. One should use regular interviews and performance metrics to reward best people.

 

[Barnsley]

Also called account managers for existing accounts. They milk cows versus rustling new cows. Some inexperienced sales people try and milk bulls which only makes the bulls mad.

This is throughout Semicon.

 

[Barnsley]

With regards working from office , surely anyone with access to Intel data cannot work from outside office?

Basic security would dictate that no?

 

[Xebec]

Intel Extrovert productivity +5%

Intel Introvert productivity -40%

 

[blueone]

With regards working from office , surely anyone with access to Intel data cannot work from outside office?

Basic security would dictate that no?

No.

 

[lispwright]

With regards working from office , surely anyone with access to Intel data cannot work from outside office?

Basic security would dictate that no?

Does Intel take precautions like putting epoxy in all USB slots of their workstations, and securing the ones needed like for a keyboard and mouse?

I believe blueone, and note they are not working inside a civilian version of a SCIF. For a lot of them the most vital information is inside their heads, these firms have long been known for taking the company's most vital information home with them every night.

For a very long time California law doesn't allow for non-competes to prevent the first bite of the apple in divulging trade secrets when moving to a new firm. We've been talking about sales people, recently California established in court it doesn't even consider customer lists to be trade secrets!

This has been the unique quality about Silicon Valley which I believe allowed it to "defeat" all other high tech regions in the US. I can attest to the chilling effect non-competes have in the Boston, I watched Route 128 die in real time after the end of the Cold War, also saw this in the D.C. area. This allowing the burying of some good concepts and technology when the original company trying to bring them to market failed.

 

[swka]

Nowadays many companies implement middle ground - hybrid work. From my experience, it's the best setup. This way everyone can find their sweet spot and be as efficient as possible. Imo, forcing people to work from home / office is the wrong approach. One should use regular interviews and performance metrics to reward best people.

you would think this is no brainer. sadly, too many leaders, especially big companies, cannot or don't have the right trust in people leading groups, hence need to have the top down policy. On the other hand, many so-called leaders are hiding behind the top down policy instead of pushing for what they think is right for their group.

 

[Daniel Nenni]

Nowadays many companies implement middle ground - hybrid work. From my experience, it's the best setup. This way everyone can find their sweet spot and be as efficient as possible. Imo, forcing people to work from home / office is the wrong approach. One should use regular interviews and performance metrics to reward best people.

I would back a 3 day RTO (Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday) with Monday and Friday work from home. Would that be a middle ground? Monday is email catch-up day and Friday is the least productive day anyway?

Given the proper financial motivation of salespeople they should work 7 days a week.

 

[blueone]

For a very long time California law doesn't allow for non-competes to prevent the first bite of the apple in divulging trade secrets when moving to a new firm. We've been talking about sales people, recently California established in court it doesn't even consider customer lists to be trade secrets!

Non-compete agreements are actually illegal in California since 2024. Before that they were merely unenforceable.

I remember when "no poaching" agreements were common between companies in the US. They were often just clauses in co-development contracts. In the late 1980s I unknowingly got caught in that trap. I took a job with a company that had a business relationship with my then current employer. When I quit and moved to the new employer, the old employer sued the new employer for about 10x my annual salary, saying the development contracts they signed had no-poaching clauses. My new employer, a much larger company, still wanted to capitulate and send me (and my family) back to the old employer after I had already relocated my family, and my wife had left her job in the old location. I called my old boss and warned him about the lawsuit I would file should I be sent back, and fortunately the old employer gave in, dropped the complaint, and I worked at the new company for over a decade.

This is the kind of crap that used to go on in the US. Now it is considered illegal at the federal level (restraint of trade, antitrust, etc.), and companies have settled class action suits for damages.

 

[lispwright]

Intel Extrovert productivity +5%

Intel Introvert productivity -40%

This depends on:

1. The "emotional intelligence" of the extroverts, including those who lead almost all high tech companies today, or the high profile ones that get talked about.

2. The emotional maturity and self-restraint of the extroverts.

3. Budget of course, open offices for very earliest stage startups were a requirement back in the day when space and computing were expensive and there was nothing more than self and maybe some angel funding.

4. The actual goals of those running the company.

TL;DR: For good technical results, the extroverts have to accept and accommodate introvert energy budgets.

To even care about the technical results, the goal must include them instead of the next stage of funding or as our host points out, an exit for the founders and investors (employees don't get anything anymore, and it shows). In that case, the introverts along with everyone else are concentrated in open offices to show off to potential next round investors.

Which is almost always dumb money after SarBox in 2002. That was the final nail in the standard IPO exit, thus Silicon Valley's VCs are almost all C level financial people, A and B levels made much more money on Wall Street. Though the flood of money for AI might be attracting some A-B level people back into this game.

Two concrete historical examples:

Microsoft under Bill Gates when a blatant "secret" to its success was writing software that basically worked. You laugh, but I mean not crashing so much no one can get work done, or for WordPerfect for Windows, regularly dropping all your charts and the like to the bottom of your document. Microsoft ran full page advertisements where the picture was a closed door, introverts got their own private offices in X shaped buildings.

Apple after it succumbed to the Edifice Complex with its open office spaceship horror, the head of chip design told Tim Cook and company in no uncertain terms they weren't going to move to it.

I can back this up with my own experiences working with a bunch of great salesmen, like teaming with our closer for a final would be customer visit. Didn't get anything done the day, which is a very small price to pay for a sale.

As Paul Graham notes, if the leaders of a company use average management and technology, they tend to get average results, which is failure.

 

[lispwright]

I would back a 3 day RTO (Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday) with Monday and Friday work from home. Would that be a middle ground? Monday is email catch-up day and Friday is the least productive day anyway?

What do you gain from this loss of a quarter of the productivity of your introverts (here I'm assuming no private offices, not even cubicles today). Asynchronous email has been a thing for how many decades?

The one day a week in the office for coordination I'll absolutely spot you, although that cuts you off from a big talent pool.

Given the proper financial motivation of salespeople they should work 7 days a week.

For problem solvers, including introverts, we really do in a sense work close to 24x7. Many of us don't turn off our minds much or often, not even when sleeping, see the benzene structural ring solution that came in a dream. Many, many other examples, shower solutions are a notable category.