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Who wants to be Intel’s new CEO?

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Re: Who wants to be Intel’s new CEO?

#41

Post by Spooky23 »

tlb wrote: post #7

The term 'toxic culture' is mostly used to describe widespread harassment and bullying. 'Ossified' or 'stagnant' are more apt terms for a company that can't seem to seize new opportunities. The thing about margins is that it's a lot more fun to work in a division with high margins. Low margin businesses are grim, because every cost matters. When you can charge $5000 for the latest Xeon, you can pay high salaries and…

I worked with a guy who contracted with them in the 90s — he laughed that they flew him cross country every two weeks as a contractor to attend a staff meeting

Re: Who wants to be Intel’s new CEO?

#42

Post by danmg »

kazinator wrote: post #37
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> a phrase with no inherent concrete meaning All words and phrases are made up. None of them have an “inherent concrete meaning”. Commonly-accepted deifnitions today may have been entirely foreign a few decades ago.

Words and phrases can have a de facto inherent meaning when they are in a language shared by the speaker and listener (including a shared knowledge domain). When in spite of this shared language/domain situation, a phrase is gobbledygook, it is fair to say it has "no inherent concrete meaning".

Exactly. It's not like the author is saying, "The cat is on the red table."

Re: Who wants to be Intel’s new CEO?

#44

Post by gwbas1c »

mirceal wrote: post #31
gwbas1c wrote: post #18

I worked at Intel 2005-2007. I read the article hoping to see an independent description of the culture I observed. I hoped to see someone use words to explain something that I can't explain. The thing about Intel's culture that I observed was that it wasn't toxic at all. The worst thing that I could say about it was that it was boring, which was why I left so quickly. If anything was "toxic," it could be that some m…

At a big corporation, like Intel, we cannot really talk about just one culture. I would say that your experience can vary quite a lot based on the team you’re in and to a certain degree the org you’re in. Various people assign the ‘toxic’ label to various things. What may be ‘meh’ for one person could be ‘toxic’ to another. Also: Mandatory HR is not your friend reminder. HR is there and it’s trained to protect the co…

> At a big corporation, like Intel, we cannot really talk about just one culture. I would say that your experience can vary quite a lot based on the team you’re in and to a certain degree the org you’re in.

Slightly. Ultimately, the high-level culture is set by the execs.

> Various people assign the ‘toxic’ label to various things. What may be ‘meh’ for one person could be ‘toxic’ to another.

No, definitions are important. The word "toxic culture" has a very clear meaning; and the article does not use it correctly.

Specifically, toxic culture means an environment that leads to high stress and poor mental health. That's not what the article discussed, and it's completely appropriate to criticize. A "toxic culture" is a very serious accusation, so incorrectly using the term isn't something that falls under the "I say toe-may-toe, you say toe-mah-toe" attitude.

Re: Who wants to be Intel’s new CEO?

#47

Post by excalibur »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #23
izzydata wrote: post #15

I volunteer myself. I promise to make only the best decisions. Forever.

Can you break the laws of physics and help us get Moore's Law back on track?

Physics is raping our company. We need to make a better deal with physics.

Re: Who wants to be Intel’s new CEO?

#48

Post by TheMagicHorsey »

I worked at Intel for two years. They don't have a "toxic" culture. They are just like any other big company. Believe it or not, Google and Facebook will end up like that in 25 years too.

Big organizations get like that. There's a generation that's raised on the company Kool-Aid and they live and breathe the company slogans and they forget that reality is a different place. That's not TOXIC ... that's just the nature of human organizations.

And I mean all organizations that are large. If you ever hang out with DNC or GOP people who work for the party you'll see the same blinders. Same goes for people that work at NASA ... or in certain academic fields. They all believe certain myths internally that no experts outside their group believe.

The point about Intel being addicted to narratives that aligned with its profits is true. And Microsoft was addicted to Windows and Office narratives too before Satya Nadella.

It certainly makes you admire IBM as a company a lot more, doesn't it? They have weathered so many changes in the landscape, and they are still around.

Re: Who wants to be Intel’s new CEO?

#49

Post by dang »

magic_beans wrote: post #24
ben509 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Toxic" is one of those terms like "problematic" that rely on in-group knowledge to understand. I've often heard it in reference to masculinity; often used by feminists who have a more concrete definition in mind. And, sure you can look at any violent crime stats to see masculinity has its problems, but instead of the more reasonable claim they're making a very nasty one that's indefensible. Allusions to people being…

> Allusions to people being poisonous are particularly destructive. The phrase "toxic masculinity" isn't directed at one SPECIFIC man, so you can dry your tears.

Please don't post ideological swipes or personally nasty remarks ("you can dry your tears") to HN. It only makes things worse.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Who wants to be Intel’s new CEO?

#50

Post by Aloha »

mirceal wrote: post #31
gwbas1c wrote: post #18

I worked at Intel 2005-2007. I read the article hoping to see an independent description of the culture I observed. I hoped to see someone use words to explain something that I can't explain. The thing about Intel's culture that I observed was that it wasn't toxic at all. The worst thing that I could say about it was that it was boring, which was why I left so quickly. If anything was "toxic," it could be that some m…

At a big corporation, like Intel, we cannot really talk about just one culture. I would say that your experience can vary quite a lot based on the team you’re in and to a certain degree the org you’re in. Various people assign the ‘toxic’ label to various things. What may be ‘meh’ for one person could be ‘toxic’ to another. Also: Mandatory HR is not your friend reminder. HR is there and it’s trained to protect the co…

HR can be your friend, when the interest of the company, and your interest happen to align, which in my experience is more often than not.

But its important to recognize, that HR is only to your benefit, when interests align, the OP is right, that HR is not there to protect you, but to protect the company, sometimes protecting you however, is protecting the company as well.

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