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Intel CEO resigns after relationship with employee

nytimes.com

271–280 of 313 posts

Re: Intel CEO resigns after relationship with employee

#271

It was stupid of him to do. The executive suite of large companies is very Game of Thrones. Why leave a knife around for someone to stab you in the back? Of course people knew. And then they were “shocked!!” to formally find out. This is a serious thing. What if you knew about the relationship, and the other person was promoted over you? I worked at a place where 2 colleagues had an open/secret relationship. One was…

>> I guess he can always go to Oracle Why would a CEO of a microprocessor company be accepted at Oracle?

Mark Hurd, current CEO of Oracle, also had a similar incident while at HP.

Re: Intel CEO resigns after relationship with employee

#272

I'm I the only one who finds it appalling that the NY Times mentions #metoo and Harvey Weinstein as if to insinuate his consenting relationship was anything like what Weinstein did. Honestly, I get why these policies exist, but sometimes it feels heavy handed to fire somebody for having a consenting relationship at work. After all, when you work long and hard hours often times coworkers are the people you get to know…

The problem is that if you are the CEO, you don't have any "coworkers." You are in charge of everyone. No one else there is your peer.

The military has a policy that treats an affair between an officer and the spouse of someone in their unit as non-consensual. It is treated basically like statutory rape. What the spouse says is irrelevant because you can't eliminate the possibility they are basically being blackmailed into claiming it was consenting.

If you have enough direct power over someone, you can't really determine if it was mutually consenting. I think this is a root cause of a lot of the he said/she said stuff where men are all astonished that they are being accused of anything when they felt it was consenting.

In some cases, I have some sympathy for the guy who may well have not really fully understood the intimidation factor in the situation. In other cases, they clearly are happy to use their power to bully others into getting their way and, no, I'm not sympathetic to their bullshit claims.

Re: Intel CEO resigns after relationship with employee

#273

Sure, there's a policy, but who cares? People need to quit meddling in the affairs of others. If a relationship is consensual what's the issue? If we're spending a significant part of our waking hours at work, it should be a baked in assumption that at some point, some coworkers are going to end up in a romantic relationship together. Hell, the majority of my significant romantic relationships started out as consensu…

There's a few reasons. Don't forget, it wasn't just two equal coworkers: it was the most powerful man in the company. First, he agreed – it was in his contract he couldn't do it. Second, oftentimes it's hard to tell how consensual it is when there's a large imbalance of power. Was it completely consensual? Maybe. But companies have a no-tolerance policy because it's hard to tell, and you don't want managers going aro…

I thought it was reported that the actual affair occurred long ago well before he was the CEO but is only coming to light now.

This seems to be a way to oust him without having to admit that he wasn't doing a good job as CEO.

Re: Intel CEO resigns after relationship with employee

#274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Neither modern NAND (3D) nor 3D XPoint are directly dependent on planar silicon scaling.

That's true. 3D won't help with processors as much, because of heat dissipation issues, but storage will benefit. However, the planar silicon scaling is what primarily enables cost reduction for production. I expect the (total device) density to continue to increase with the 3D tech, but cost will go up with capacity increases. Maybe not linearly though, because you don't have to pay for extra packaging.

I would not rule out 3D from processors yet. Such an invention would be able to reduce die size and likely cost. Heat density is probably the real problem and may need some additional inventions.

The 3D memories will probably see some planar (x-y) scaling, they just don't need all of their scaling from it. 3D scaling will still increase bits/die area, and thus reduce $/bit. If doubling the stacking height doubles capacity but adds 30% to wafer cost with extra processing steps, its still much more efficient than 100% cost for two wafers of the previous design.

Scaling efficiency shouldn't be too dissimilar from planar scaling, at least until the next wall is hit.

Re: Intel CEO resigns after relationship with employee

#275

I'm I the only one who finds it appalling that the NY Times mentions #metoo and Harvey Weinstein as if to insinuate his consenting relationship was anything like what Weinstein did. Honestly, I get why these policies exist, but sometimes it feels heavy handed to fire somebody for having a consenting relationship at work. After all, when you work long and hard hours often times coworkers are the people you get to know…

One could make a case that an employee in a relationship with a senior manager puts them in a position where they could receive preferential treatment, while the employee’s peers may not, even if they are more skilled/experienced/credentialed/etc.

Given that the other employees did not seek out or allow relationships with managers, their relative disadvantage can be seen as a sort of inverse sexual harassment, as they may see themselves having to put themselves in a sexual situation for the sake of career advancement, even if it’s not explicitly stated by anyone in higher management.

I think that in this case #metoo applies, since the subject is a matter of sexuality and power imbalances, although the content is far, far removed from the Weinstein scandal.

Re: Intel CEO resigns after relationship with employee

#276
post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really liked that you skipped over what that ballot initiative was. He donated in support of Prop 8, an attempt to ban same-sex marriage in California. As a former Mozilla employee, I'm pretty glad that he was ousted for his homophobia. Good riddance.

It was an opinion on marriage, a millenia-old quasi-political-religious traditional institution. The world is full of such opinions. Polygamy is illegal in 50 of 50 United states, even California. Don't slip on that edge of political wrongthink. Communism is certainly the most damaging political movement of the 20th century. Should we oust Communist sympathizers from their positions of power?

Polygamy is very different from same-sex marriage, though.

Re: Intel CEO resigns after relationship with employee

#277
post #19

So obviously relationships are bad when there's a power dynamic, and between different management levels is a common subset of this. However it feels like many people are spending more and more time at work, and it also seems cruel to say: "you cannot get to know anyone romantically during 50-75% of your waking day."

I think the CEO's $19.1 million salary is adequate compensation for the fact his seniority stops him pursuing romantic relationships at work. If it's not, maybe he should have chosen a different job.

Tell that to Melinda Gates

Re: Intel CEO resigns after relationship with employee

#278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, at least to a certain degree. You'd expect a CEO being fired over such a technicality to at least fight back, instead of fully cooperating.

If you wanted to preserve your maximum reputation score for a potential future job as a CEO... Would you want to be fired for...? A) Being a bad CEO who can't produce profits B) Having an inappropriate relationship with an employee For Mark Hurd, he was able to transition from one great job into another, CEO of Oracle, even after the embarrassment of (B).

Dunno, inappropriate relationships (especially when combined with "me too") are right now a complete career suicide/murder. Incompetent CEOs have a higher chance of ending up as CEOs somewhere else; Brian was also CEO of a long-time #1, so there are quite a few achievements under his belt. Without his demos I personally wouldn't be running multiple NUCs and having Intel Jimmy walking/talking at home.

I am more worried that the type of ousting (past inappropriate relationship, i.e. likely a few years back) signalizes a new level of sociopathy at the top, bringing a ruthless dark age to Intel, full of internal dissection and agony. I assume the investors/shareholders that had Intel as one of their crown jewels and golden geese are getting very nervous about losing profit and are throwing away any resemblance of humanness, acting as spoiled children, grabbing whatever they could.

Re: Intel CEO resigns after relationship with employee

#279

Sure, there's a policy, but who cares? People need to quit meddling in the affairs of others. If a relationship is consensual what's the issue? If we're spending a significant part of our waking hours at work, it should be a baked in assumption that at some point, some coworkers are going to end up in a romantic relationship together. Hell, the majority of my significant romantic relationships started out as consensu…

I’ve seen these relationships cause major problems. Bob had a relationship with Alice, and now couldn’t fire her because it would look like quid pro quo (not getting into details here). Alice was the worst manager I have ever worked for, and many of her direct reports were quitting without notice (including me). Even though what happened between Alice and Bob was consensual, it made it impossible for Bob to do his jo…

Blanket rules completely ignore human behavior, though. If two people want to sleep with each other, nature doesn't really care much about your rulebook (or outside opinions, which don't matter if leadership is keeping office drama in check).

It's almost a virtual certainty that at some point in time, rules be damned, employees will hook up.

Re: Intel CEO resigns after relationship with employee

#280

At a prior (Fortune 500) company the head of HR got sacked for having sex with his secretary in his office the weekend. (Security walked in on them) Poor judgment.

Phil Condit lost his CEO job at Boeing for the same reason. It was a mess -- his wife kicked him out (he was living in a hotel), Boeing fired him, and then his secretary sued him for sexual harassment.
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