Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown • Hacker News Board

Re: Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

#41

Post by typon » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 6:22 PM UTC

djmips wrote: post #31

ar_lan wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pat Gelsinger was a CEO of VMware prior to Intel, COO at EMC prior to that, and CTO at Intel before that. He was never a CFO.

I think they are talking about the previous captain that pointed them at the iceberg.

Brian Krzanich was cancelled/fired for sleeping with a coworker, so the then-CFO Bob Swan was made CEO after Intel tried to hire "externally" for a year or so. After MBA'fying Intel for a couple of years, he left to a16z, a perfect place for people like him. Pat Gelsinger then joined, probably too late, to try to steer the ship back in the right direction. Intel as an organization is finished. (I worked at Intel for 5 years through these changes)

Re: Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

#42

Post by keepquestioning » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 6:23 PM UTC

spamizbad wrote: post #39

bell-cot wrote: post #33

Reports elsewhere ( https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/10/repor... ) suggest that the layoffs might be a bit concentrated in the Sales & Marketing departments. Is it just me, or do some other folks also smell "corporate bloat, which better management would not have allowed to happen"?

Might make sense: If you're selling mostly to mobile OEMs and data centers you need a completely different sales/marketing strategy that's more focused on whale hunting than building "brand awareness" to a broad consumer market.

"Intel Inside" worked..

Re: Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

#43

Post by JustSomeNobody » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 6:23 PM UTC

irrational wrote: post #27

pengaru wrote: post #17

I love how the PC market slowdown is being headlined as causal when Intel has clearly done this to themselves. Maybe if Apple's products were still "Intel Inside" Intel wouldn't be in this position.

I asked an Intel chip designer more than 10 years ago why they were not prioritizing mobile chips. He didn't have a good answer. It has been obvious for so long that everything was moving to phones, tablets, etc. The fact that Intel has no foot at all in that door is astonishing to me.

Sad thing is this has nothing to do with engineering and I'll bet a ton of those 20K employees will be engineers.

Piss poor management strikes again.

Re: Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

#44

Post by npalli » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 6:23 PM UTC

While Intel has had it's own shortcomings, the PC market is cratering [1] and Intel among others is very exposed. I was very curious about the very steep discounts on Apple Macbooks recently and thought it was due to latest versions coming out in October; but looks like there is a massive reset in shipments after the massive boom during the pandemic.

[1] https://www.gartner.com/en/newsroom/press-releases/2022-10-1...

Re: Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

#45

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 6:23 PM UTC

Kukumber wrote: post #22

Hopefully for them that includes executives and managers, they are the ones responsible of the death of that company, not the engineers Congrats to Apple and AMD for having done better Microsoft ignoring AMD in their latest Surface lineup is a hint for the people looking for answers

[deleted]

Re: Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

#46

Post by gspencley » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 6:25 PM UTC

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #32

I think this is the first major layoff announcement at a big, established tech firm I've heard this year that is anywhere near this size. I mean, there have been loads of "couple hundred" employee layoffs, and certainly a lot of hiring slowdown/freezes, but again, haven't seen anything else near this big, and the layoffs previously seem to have been concentrated in unprofitable VC-funded companies. I know Tesla laid…

I don't know a lot of the details, but everything I've heard over the last couple of years indicated that AMD was absolutely crushing Intel.

A recent laptop I purchased, as well as the last desktop I put together (~2 years ago) each have Ryzen chips. I forget the details but in addition to performance issues, didn't Intel CPUs also have some major security vulnerabilities? And was it that they were related to instruction-level performance optimizations that, when disabled to address the security vulnerabilities, led to even worse performance?

So if AMD isn't doing great at the moment either, I can't imagine how hard Intel has been hit. I don't know anyone who is buying or recommending Intel CPUs at the moment.

Re: Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

#47

Post by prottog » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 6:25 PM UTC

dozgon wrote: post #28

superchroma wrote: post #8

Damn, that's a lot of people. Wow.

I made a mistake here. I no longer stand fully by that statement. For details, consider my later reply. Original text: It is. The article does not say where this will occur. They cannot lay off people from the EU like that. It's not that easy. Unlike the US, EU countries are welfare states.

Harder to fire, harder to hire, without fail.

Re: Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

#48

Post by mattst88 » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 6:25 PM UTC

Ouch. Very sorry for those affected. I worked at Intel for >8 years, and I still have a lot of friends there.

I have little faith in Intel's management. They apparently plan to continue increasing their dividend payouts, while cutting back on investment in fabs according to https://semianalysis.substack.com/p/intel-cuts-fab-buildout-...

... and in the context of the recently-passed CHIPS Act...

I wish they'd be more of an engineering-driven bottom-up company. IMO there's a huge company culture to contend with that is primarily top-down. So much scar tissue in the company prevents changing things for the better. So many good people capable of making these sorts of changes get burned out and leave the company. Intel's compensation compared to FAANG certainly helps to push people out of the company.

Re: Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

#49

Post by hodgesrm » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 6:25 PM UTC

irrational wrote: post #27

pengaru wrote: post #17

I love how the PC market slowdown is being headlined as causal when Intel has clearly done this to themselves. Maybe if Apple's products were still "Intel Inside" Intel wouldn't be in this position.

I asked an Intel chip designer more than 10 years ago why they were not prioritizing mobile chips. He didn't have a good answer. It has been obvious for so long that everything was moving to phones, tablets, etc. The fact that Intel has no foot at all in that door is astonishing to me.

It happens. Data center computing is profitable, and Intel mastered the sales motion long ago. IBM never really got off mainframes for similar reasons. It's a variation of the Innovator's Dilemma.

Re: Intel plans thousands of job cuts in face of PC slowdown

#50

Post by mort96 » Wed, Oct 12, 2022, 6:26 PM UTC

keepquestioning wrote: post #42

spamizbad wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might make sense: If you're selling mostly to mobile OEMs and data centers you need a completely different sales/marketing strategy that's more focused on whale hunting than building "brand awareness" to a broad consumer market.

"Intel Inside" worked..

I wonder if it did? Who bought a laptop because it had an Intel CPU? I know I always bought Intel laptops because Intel laptops were the only things available, not because I have some high view of Intel as a brand. I imagine the vast majority of laptop buyers wouldn't even know what an Intel is.