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Intel is dying and we can’t save it

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Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#91

Post by WanderPanda »

tw04 wrote: post #84

Let's all just come to a common agreement: there's no planet on which the US military allows Intel to die. Period. End of story. Having a US based company with fabrication facilities on US soil is vital to national security and will be for the entirety of my lifetime and likely my grandchildren's lifetime (if I ever have any). For all the bluster of the investors wanting to chop Intel up: they will find a swift and f…

This kind of protectionism will only worsen Intels efficiency and will drain taxpayers pockets. Why can’t people learn from all the instances where a government tried to micromanage and horribly failed in the mid/long run?

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#92

Post by dpe82 »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #71
exintelwithop wrote: post #39

I worked at Intel years ago. At that time, The ratio of excellent to useless people I experienced there was 1:40. That is way out of whack. I am certain it only got worse because all the 1/40’s I knew left. They are going to have to go and get people who have modern skillsets and mindsets and those people don’t want to live in Hillsboro. And it’s going to be expensive. And those people don’t tolerate dead weight. My…

> The ratio of excellent to useless people I experienced there was 1:40 This has to be hyperbole but the rest of your comment makes me think you're being serious. I have only worked at small companies My guess is you thought those people were useless because you didn't understand the role they played in the company. However, I'll admin again that I don't have first hand experience. I'd genuinely love to hear from oth…

Large companies can hide inefficiencies and incompetence of staggering proportion. Often there's little incentive to really improve things, but tons of bureaucracy that helps maintain the status quo or let it slide ever worse. People can only judge how good something is against their experience, so if you've only ever worked at that bigco and only known incompetence then you might not even realize anything is wrong. Meanwhile the proverbial frog slowly boils...

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#93

Post by ardy42 »

monocasa wrote: post #86
chrisseaton wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fab has lifetime of 2-3(?) years Many Intel fabs are from the early 2000s. Some are from the 90s. What do you mean 2-3 years? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_...

I think they're referring to each line as a new fab, rather than the complex of buildings they're in, which is pretty fair.

>>> Fab has lifetime of 2-3(?) years

>> Many Intel fabs are from the early 2000s. Some are from the 90s. What do you mean 2-3 years?

> I think they're referring to each line as a new fab, rather than the complex of buildings they're in, which is pretty fair.

Even so, wouldn't the 2-3 year number only apply to CPUs? Couldn't they keep the lines running making things that don't require top of the line processes, like USB controllers, etc.

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#94

Post by systemvoltage »

chrisseaton wrote: post #78
supernova87a wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>I believe it is something like a 3 millions dollars lost per minute if they are idle. I think that's overestimating, although you are right it is damn expensive. Order of magnitude I would say it's more like: Fab has lifetime of 2-3(?) years, and costs $10B to build and amortize. So every minute of idled factory capital = $6,000 in pure cost of the facility. (although, if you think of it in potential lost revenue te…

> Fab has lifetime of 2-3(?) years Many Intel fabs are from the early 2000s. Some are from the 90s. What do you mean 2-3 years? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_manufacturing_...

3 million dollars might be the cost of one FOSB (carries some 18-24 wafers) if you dropped it :)

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#95

Post by systemvoltage »

dpe82 wrote: post #92
MichaelApproved wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The ratio of excellent to useless people I experienced there was 1:40 This has to be hyperbole but the rest of your comment makes me think you're being serious. I have only worked at small companies My guess is you thought those people were useless because you didn't understand the role they played in the company. However, I'll admin again that I don't have first hand experience. I'd genuinely love to hear from oth…

Large companies can hide inefficiencies and incompetence of staggering proportion. Often there's little incentive to really improve things, but tons of bureaucracy that helps maintain the status quo or let it slide ever worse. People can only judge how good something is against their experience, so if you've only ever worked at that bigco and only known incompetence then you might not even realize anything is wrong.…

1:20 is pretty realistic. Seen with my own eyes and ears. I wasn’t the 1, I was part of the 20. Didn’t do shit all day mainly because incentives were not aligned to motivate me. I get the same salary if I put in the extra effort. So why. Knew one guy who had a vision and the stamina to push through with PowerPoint precision. He was the 1.

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#96

Post by ZephyrBlu »

MichaelApproved wrote: post #71
exintelwithop wrote: post #39

I worked at Intel years ago. At that time, The ratio of excellent to useless people I experienced there was 1:40. That is way out of whack. I am certain it only got worse because all the 1/40’s I knew left. They are going to have to go and get people who have modern skillsets and mindsets and those people don’t want to live in Hillsboro. And it’s going to be expensive. And those people don’t tolerate dead weight. My…

> The ratio of excellent to useless people I experienced there was 1:40 This has to be hyperbole but the rest of your comment makes me think you're being serious. I have only worked at small companies My guess is you thought those people were useless because you didn't understand the role they played in the company. However, I'll admin again that I don't have first hand experience. I'd genuinely love to hear from oth…

Well if you think about it, it's not that hard to imagine how it happens.

First, you have Price's Law [0] which states that half the work is done by the square root of the number of people. This in itself already implies a lot of useless people, especially at a company the size of Intel.

You might also have whole orgs/departments where pretty much everyone is phoning it in, so that would drive it up as well.

The way I see it is the more layers there are and the more removed people at the top are from the work, the greater chance the of useless people being able to go under the radar.

[0] https://dariusforoux.com/prices-law/

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#97

Post by dpe82 »

schmookeeg wrote: post #83
MichaelApproved wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The ratio of excellent to useless people I experienced there was 1:40 This has to be hyperbole but the rest of your comment makes me think you're being serious. I have only worked at small companies My guess is you thought those people were useless because you didn't understand the role they played in the company. However, I'll admin again that I don't have first hand experience. I'd genuinely love to hear from oth…

Oh it's reality. My experience at Sony was about 1:25, but other big dumb companies I have worked for have met and exceeded the 1:40 rule. It is amazing how process generates dead weight and worthless humans and nobody seems to care. At one point I posited that Sony USA were merely a political pawn for Sony Japan. Hire a few tens of thousands of Americans, gain political capital -- and care not what they actually do…

I worked for a tiny tiny unit of Sony USA that was itself once a startup that Sony had acquired. We were 25 or so engineers with our own little profitable(ish) product in our own office in Madison, WI. I once went to HQ in San Diego and couldn't believe how many people there were doing... well, I never could quite figure out what.

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#98

Post by exmadscientist »

ChrisIsTaken wrote: post #79
CyberRabbi wrote: post #51

Intel has at least 20 more years and probably dozens of real chances to reclaim past market position and maybe even more so. Intel is a large company with a massive market cap. The bigger they are, the longer they fall. They just have so much runway and market gravity. For comparison, Apple shot itself in the foot repeatedly for at least 10 years before Steve Jobs rejoined, and it took 10 more years after that before…

Intel has a very impressive balance sheet for a failing company, it has almost no debt and is generating double-digit billions in free cash flow from almost state of the art fabs. They are still number three on process technology, and number one on volume. The fact that Intel's management have chosen to spend two decades flushing that amazing free cashflow down the M&A toilet instead of fixing their workplace culture…

Just an extended +1 here. I think you're exactly on point.

Intel is definitely in a hole (that they watched being dug below them and did nothing...), but they can get out. They have plenty of time to do so. The only real problems to overcome are their own internal culture and the sheer difficulty of single-digit-nanometer manufacturing. And the second one is easier.

Don't count them out yet. (But do laugh at them. Because they definitely deserve it, and it just might motivate them.)

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#99

Post by tw04 »

WanderPanda wrote: post #91
tw04 wrote: post #84

Let's all just come to a common agreement: there's no planet on which the US military allows Intel to die. Period. End of story. Having a US based company with fabrication facilities on US soil is vital to national security and will be for the entirety of my lifetime and likely my grandchildren's lifetime (if I ever have any). For all the bluster of the investors wanting to chop Intel up: they will find a swift and f…

This kind of protectionism will only worsen Intels efficiency and will drain taxpayers pockets. Why can’t people learn from all the instances where a government tried to micromanage and horribly failed in the mid/long run?

Who said anything about micromanaging? I simply said the government both won't let Intel fail, and won't let their assets be sold off to foreign companies.

It's easy to say "that's dumb" - but what's your alternative? If it includes "just buy CPUs from insert foreign entity" - that's a nonstarter for myriad reasons.

Re: Intel is dying and we can’t save it

#100

Post by monocasa »

ardy42 wrote: post #93
monocasa wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think they're referring to each line as a new fab, rather than the complex of buildings they're in, which is pretty fair.

>>> Fab has lifetime of 2-3(?) years >> Many Intel fabs are from the early 2000s. Some are from the 90s. What do you mean 2-3 years? > I think they're referring to each line as a new fab, rather than the complex of buildings they're in, which is pretty fair. Even so, wouldn't the 2-3 year number only apply to CPUs? Couldn't they keep the lines running making things that don't require top of the line processes, like U…

Yes, for chips that need leading edge density like CPUs.

Of course the lines stay open after that for cases you've laid out, but there's a lot of financial reasons why that needs to be basically gravy train money at that point with the lines being fully amortized and having paid for themselves many times over.

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