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New Intel CEO rehiring retired CPU architects

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Re: New Intel CEO rehiring retired CPU architects

#71

Post by 908B64B197 »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #9

This is an encouraging move. My secondhand understanding was that Intel was losing top talent due to pressure to pay closer to median industry compensation. Top engineers recognized they were underpaid and left the company. I've been part of a similar downhill slide at a smaller company in the billion dollar revenue range. To be blunt, once the [mediocre] MBAs start realizing that the engineers are getting paid more…

> However, being a top company in a winner-take-all market requires the top engineers. The only way to attract and retain them at scale is to offer high compensation. I'm hoping that's part of what's happening here.

Anyone remembers Blackberry?

That's pretty much what killed them. Going there typically meant you weren't good enough to get a callback from Apple.

Re: New Intel CEO rehiring retired CPU architects

#72

Post by ignoramous »

langitbiru wrote: post #25
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #9

This is an encouraging move. My secondhand understanding was that Intel was losing top talent due to pressure to pay closer to median industry compensation. Top engineers recognized they were underpaid and left the company. I've been part of a similar downhill slide at a smaller company in the billion dollar revenue range. To be blunt, once the [mediocre] MBAs start realizing that the engineers are getting paid more…

Reading all comments grilling MBAs in HN is one of my guilty pleasures. I think I need to collect them all and put them in one place.

"Calling me a moron is one thing, but accusing me of having an MBA is really too much."

-pg, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10670

Re: New Intel CEO rehiring retired CPU architects

#73

Post by corpMaverick »

langitbiru wrote: post #25
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #9

This is an encouraging move. My secondhand understanding was that Intel was losing top talent due to pressure to pay closer to median industry compensation. Top engineers recognized they were underpaid and left the company. I've been part of a similar downhill slide at a smaller company in the billion dollar revenue range. To be blunt, once the [mediocre] MBAs start realizing that the engineers are getting paid more…

Reading all comments grilling MBAs in HN is one of my guilty pleasures. I think I need to collect them all and put them in one place.

:) Why is it that MBA types always end up on top ?

My pet theory is that they just have more time to spent scheming, and influencing others. While engineers are busy trying to get shit done.

Re: New Intel CEO rehiring retired CPU architects

#74

Post by devmunchies »

langitbiru wrote: post #25
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #9

This is an encouraging move. My secondhand understanding was that Intel was losing top talent due to pressure to pay closer to median industry compensation. Top engineers recognized they were underpaid and left the company. I've been part of a similar downhill slide at a smaller company in the billion dollar revenue range. To be blunt, once the [mediocre] MBAs start realizing that the engineers are getting paid more…

Reading all comments grilling MBAs in HN is one of my guilty pleasures. I think I need to collect them all and put them in one place.

I would include lawyers and accountants in the same bucket. Those three groups tend to put innovation and design/engineering excellence low on priorities.

Re: New Intel CEO rehiring retired CPU architects

#75

Post by devmunchies »

alisonkisk wrote: post #27
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #9

This is an encouraging move. My secondhand understanding was that Intel was losing top talent due to pressure to pay closer to median industry compensation. Top engineers recognized they were underpaid and left the company. I've been part of a similar downhill slide at a smaller company in the billion dollar revenue range. To be blunt, once the [mediocre] MBAs start realizing that the engineers are getting paid more…

Steve Jobs, already legendary for avoiding paying engineers for their contributions, organized an industry-wide cartel to hold down wages, and he never had an MBA. It's a bad leadership thing, not an MBA thing.

MBA programs institutionalize that thought process.

Re: New Intel CEO rehiring retired CPU architects

#76

Post by ksec »

cma wrote: post #56
IanCutress wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The effect of Gelsinger taking the CEO role pushed a hire that was on the fence into accepting the role. It means he's having an affect already. That's what the title is meant to convey.

> The effect of Gelsinger taking the CEO role pushed a hire that was on the fence into accepting the role. That's what he says and it is probably true. But it could also be true that saying so would put him in good graces with the new CEO and he would basically be expected by everyone to say that's what pushed him over the edge even if it wasn't, so him saying so adds little new information.

I seriously doubt that. He could have just stayed retired.

If the negotiation was all smooth he would have been working with Intel by now. Remember he was retired, he doesn't need 30 / 60 days notice to anyone apart from family.

Intel needed help, but sometimes even money cant move some people. They fail to attract any talent, especially those who have already worked in Intel and knows their culture.

Having Pat meant finally shit will get done. And for most engineers, that is far more important because we all hate politics.

Re: New Intel CEO rehiring retired CPU architects

#78

Post by sradman »

In my estimation, Intel has four categories in which it is being outperformed by key competitors:

1. TSMC/Samsung - fabrication

2. AMD/Amazon-Graviton - Cloud Server

3. Apple-M1/AMD - Laptop

4. Nvidia/Amazon - Cloud ML/DL Accelerator

Intel has made giant blunders in the past (e.g. Itanium [1], Atom [2], WiMAX [3]) but I'm not sure that any of these past challenges were equivalent to the current four-front war. I would not count Intel out at this point but it will be several years before we know if they were able to right the ship.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itanium

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atom_(system_on_a_chip)

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WiMAX

Re: New Intel CEO rehiring retired CPU architects

#79

Post by aidenn0 »

lmilcin wrote: post #54
PragmaticPulp wrote: post #9

This is an encouraging move. My secondhand understanding was that Intel was losing top talent due to pressure to pay closer to median industry compensation. Top engineers recognized they were underpaid and left the company. I've been part of a similar downhill slide at a smaller company in the billion dollar revenue range. To be blunt, once the [mediocre] MBAs start realizing that the engineers are getting paid more…

I left Intel years ago to get almost 3x the salary as a software developer at... a bank. At Intel engineers are paid supposedly similar rates at similar levels and similar locations. And given my level (two levels above Senior Developer) I estimate I was paid better than at least 90% engineers. Where I worked in R&D the doors were constantly revolving and many people admitted they wait to register enough of prestigio…

I recall hearing from friends that Intel paid more for higher levels of education; having a PhD was more conducive to a high salary than years of experience. Do you know if that was true?

Re: New Intel CEO rehiring retired CPU architects

#80

Post by mediaman »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #9

This is an encouraging move. My secondhand understanding was that Intel was losing top talent due to pressure to pay closer to median industry compensation. Top engineers recognized they were underpaid and left the company. I've been part of a similar downhill slide at a smaller company in the billion dollar revenue range. To be blunt, once the [mediocre] MBAs start realizing that the engineers are getting paid more…

It's weird for me to hear all these stories about MBAs. While I'm not an MBA myself, I was in investment banking and planned to get an MBA before I left finance and did something else instead.

I regularly pay engineers more than I pay myself as a CEO (granted: I am not really interested in draining the company's coffers for my own benefit, since I have equity). It just seems obvious that, at the end of the day, so much of the business's success turns on the engineering quality of the product, of the production lines, of the efficiencies, of the final delivered product quality.

While I take time to try to understand engineering issues, I am not an engineer by training and recognize that these people are much, much better at it than I am. So it's strange to see all these MBAs -- the types of people I used to work more closely with -- simply not get it. In most industries, you simply can't paper over operational and engineering incompetence with a slick marketing plan. So you need great engineering and operational chops. For many industries, more than a slick marketing plan.

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