Ugh, I feel bad for all my former coworkers. Pat was supposed to be the returning savior of Intel and now I'm hearing rumors he might not last through 2024 at this rate. The thing is, even if Pat goes down, Intel is too big to fail for the US from a national security POV. While TSMC is starting to build more fabs in the US, they're doing it kicking and screaming, and the funding in the Chips & Science Act is just a drop in the bucket for now. I fully expect more semiconductor industrial policy from the US gov in the next 10 years. It's a good time to be in semiconductor policy at Intel, SIA, etc. etc.
Intel Cuts Employee Pay to Maintain Quarterly Dividend
261–270 of 293 posts
Re: Intel Cuts Employee Pay to Maintain Quarterly Dividend
#262Earlier quoted context omitted.
> paying workers less than market value of the goods they produce Have you ever owned a business? If employees got paid the value they produce, why would any business bother to exist? If you want to get paid the value you produce: start a co-op; join a co-op; start contracting; or become a founder. Stop whinging, and do something about it. So many employees choose to work for a business - it is a transaction where th…
Note that I didn't make any moral judgment on the matter, or any specific suggestions on how to fix it. I merely pointed out what the arrangement is explicitly - yet all the replies are, essentially, saying "this is fine" (or, at least, "this is the best that we can do"). Fair enough, but let's at least be explicit about what's on the table, and let's not pretend that the resulting distribution of produced wealth is…
I answered why I think your original statement is nonsensical, yet this new reply goes off on other tangents. Plus you appear somewhat hypocritical to me: you are complaining about the fruits of capitalism, but yet you chose to move from the USSR to the USA and work at Microsoft!! You also appear to write a lot on politics, which is definitely something Hacker News discourages on the site (and here I am engaging with you, sorry). Edit: I am just saying that idealistic political clichés are usually meaningless. Capitalist businesses and the consequences are a compromise, and I agree it would be nice if we could make better compromises, and it is worthwhile trying to. My personal definition of engineering is: compromises with reality.
Re: Intel Cuts Employee Pay to Maintain Quarterly Dividend
#263Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had high hopes for Pat, but I think the institutional investors have been getting to him.
Pat did something similar at vmware. Froze hiring, promotion, raises, 401k matching, etc, etc. for a year, got himself an 80% pay raise for how well the company did, unfroze all that and fled to Intel. (The kicker is that vmware didn't compensate for the lost money and matching in the next evaluation cycle.) I'm shocked that it has taken him this long to nickle-and-dime Intel's remaining employees to keep his pockets…
How did VMware fare?
Re: Intel Cuts Employee Pay to Maintain Quarterly Dividend
#264Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think you're being hyperbolic, or you haven't worked in many companies. Intel isn't a great place to work (despite their corporate value claiming it is), but by most accounts, Amazon is much worse unless you really like a place with cutthroat corporate politics. And "corporate greed"? Doesn't that describe every American corporation? All the big tech companies are laying off right now (except maybe Apple). And nepo…
> Intel isn't a great place to work (despite their corporate value claiming it is), but by most accounts, Amazon is much worse unless you really like a place with cutthroat corporate politics. I used to work at Intel. Some data points: When the news about how bad Amazon's culture was (e.g. people crying at desk), my thoughts were "This sounds like Intel." When you talk to Amazon employees, most say "Every team is dif…
I feel like 90% of Intel's problem this last decade is not really understandding SW/tooling. It's what fated Itanium/Larrabee not to mention their whole SSD effort.
Re: Intel Cuts Employee Pay to Maintain Quarterly Dividend
#265Earlier quoted context omitted.
I meant workstations, laptops, servers, etc. My org has 1000s of endpoints and 10s of servers across multiple campuses. All of it running Intel.
Then your org is over paying for mediocre HW, at least for servers, arguably also for laptops (Dev machines for sure) At least for the last two years.
I can count on one hand the number of devs we have. We're not a software tech company. vPro is a standard for device management here.
Re: Intel Cuts Employee Pay to Maintain Quarterly Dividend
#266Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sure, and that's been the problem with the last couple of CEOs before Pat, but Pat came in expressly saying he was going to take the long view. I suspect that he's visited been by some large institutional investors who don't take the long view.
If he did the right thing he’d have to take an 80% TC cut instead of 25%… stock needs to fall at least 50% from here of dividends are gone.
He should go further than 80% and take the average Intel engineer's salary until things turn around.
Re: Intel Cuts Employee Pay to Maintain Quarterly Dividend
#267Earlier quoted context omitted.
The vast majority of engineers at Intel are not what you described. Most are CS/EE bachelors or masters that could go to dozens of other companies shipping hardware.
Former Intel employee here. This may be true for their design folks, but the largest portion of the company is related to the fab, and there aren't many jobs for those folks. Moreover, the alternatives (TSMC, Samsung, etc) suck as much as Intel.
I too am ex-Intel. The majority of employment opportunities are in the fab but that’s mostly manufacturing and technicians. It’s not mostly PhDs with no breadth knowledge which is what the original comment was seeming to imply.
Re: Intel Cuts Employee Pay to Maintain Quarterly Dividend
#268Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm seeing plenty of intel folks move easily into other areas. I don't think this is true. We hired a test automation engineer who worked on the fab side at my last employer. They transitioned pretty well until a PCBA and server integration testing role.
If he was a test automation engineer, he likely had transferable skills. Many/most of the fab folks have almost no programming skills, and are PhDs in things like chemistry[1], etc. Now some of them do take the initiative and learn SW skills, or data analysis properly, and switch due to that. But the majority of them feel stuck. They have a heavy workload and do not feel they have time to learn new skills. [1] For a…
Got it. I agree now, having seen many resumes from former Intel roles that match this pattern.
Re: Intel Cuts Employee Pay to Maintain Quarterly Dividend
#269Earlier quoted context omitted.
In 2021 Pat Gelsinger made $179 million dollars[1]. But his salary was $1.1 million. So him taking a 25% cut in his salary is pretty much nothing. [1] https://www.crn.com/news/components-peripherals/intel-ceo-pa...
This common assertion is false. See my earlier comment here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34584450
Your comment only says that it was mostly in RSU, and since the stock had been going down it will likely be worth 1/3 by the time it vests.
Even so, 25% of 1.1m is pretty much negligible, certainly compared with the 5% normal employees get cut
Re: Intel Cuts Employee Pay to Maintain Quarterly Dividend
#270Earlier quoted context omitted.
“Gets the workers it needs” Clearly it doesn’t, since Intel couldn’t even save itself during a chip shortage when prices were sky high. They’re getting smoked by AMD and TSMC, in terminal decline much like the mismanaged Motorola of old. It certainly doesn’t have the leadership it needed, so if anyone should have their pay cut, it’s the fat cats at the top who financialized the company a la GE and ran it into the gro…
Sounds like the mistakes in those regard were bad strategic decisions not inability to attract talent.
They're related problems, but yes, I would lay most of the blame at the VP level and above.