How to Fix Intel?

This is how I would have advised the CEO of intel, if I was still working there, and if the Andy's culture was still the main culture at Intel.
Excuse my accent... It takes time to get used to it ;)
This is not an Intel communication, The information inside this video is ok to be used by any 3rd party company, including Intel.
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[MrNadirzenith]

This happens to all big business. My company had the best engineers in the world in fields of optics, mechanical, electrostatics. We developed improvements that were never put in our hardware because we already owned market share according to the MBAs. MBAs then fired our engineers and went into software. We now put our logo on outsourced horrible hardware and we have no software in demand. MBAs destroy companies. Just look at the auto industry.

[MrQhngo]

I spent 20 years at Intel and I can't disagree. The worst managers that I had at intel were those with MBAs degrees.

[someusername]

Current engineer here....I could rant for an hour also about how fucked the company is. My biggest peeve is the fact that mid/upper level management are absolutely never held accountable...ever. Fail at every objective and set the company on fire? Here's another promotion. Second, the company pretty much only rewards powerpoint warriors. Even people who are technically good and powered the company 10 years ago are just coasting nowadays because there's so little reward for putting in effort. I'm not joking, you can "get by" by replying to a couple of emails per day, calling into some meetings (and being muted the entire time), etc. Third: holy hell the company overvalues the shit out of "external experience". Leave the company for 2 years and you can come back making 30%+ more than you did when you left. They give you raises in such small increments that it's not uncommon for a new hire to be making 90% of what someone with 10 years experience makes. Again: "fuck it I'm just going to do 3 hours of work per week and collect my paycheck".

[Steve-Richter]

Reading the WSJ article today, nov 7. The top technical people at intel are Indians? Could that be the problem in that Indians do not collaborate well with other ethnicities in the workplace?

[JeremySaldate]

Right on, François! I completely agree.

Sadly, I've divested myself of all Intel stock since leaving, after witnessing the major errors in execution enacted especially during the BK era. The board made a critical mistake in choosing BK over Dadi as CEO. The culture Dadi & Mooly inspired within their teams was starkly different to what has propagated throughout the company since. Intel as a brand can definitely recover, but they need to take decisive actions, including attempting to lure key talent back to the company.

[darkalman]

"The chose to have a culture of leaders instead of a culture of winning"
In other words the company is too top heavy, hiring professional executives with MBAs instead of promoting engineers that actually know what they are working on.
Sounds exactly like the company I last worked for, and exactly the reason I don't work there anymore.

[asoto]

Hey Francois, could I get a copy of these slides? I work at Intel (obligatory disclaimer regarding any comments on business or technology topics, please know that I am expressing my own views and not those of the company to which I am currently employed). I would like to reference them in my next 1:1 with my manager.

[vladmihai]

Nice work! Hope some Intel guys will push this through, because this is as relevant feedback as it can get.

[pattiknuth]

I worked at a company where the engineers decided a single state-of-the-art microprocessor would do the job. The MBAs said no, we needed to use an antiquated processor. Why? Well, because we had a lot of them in stock and needed to deplete them. We had to design a multiprocessor system to do the job. But, we did deplete the supply. Of course the multiprocessor design was so expensive, so complex, we wound up dropping the product line.

MBAs ruin companies.

[sjkwon]

I completely agree. Intel & IBM's issues are not technical. It is 50% people issues.

[BartGasiewski]

I joined Intel at the start of HSW doing PnP as part of PostSi Validation. This was very insightful and reinforces some concerns I had, thank you.

[JonMasters]

I enjoyed this François. You did good.

[rfengr]

Is it true that management fired many of the senior engineers, claiming they were no longer needed as their processes were mature?

[storiestellr]

Intel board should receive Andy Grove’s book - with a note: ‘Mandatory Reading’

[tropicalday]

The MBA problem. The only thing an MBA might be able to innovate is a pivot table on a spreadsheets. This seems to be the path of all tech corporations. It's more the rule than the exception. They can point out big numbers over small number. They fail to understand if you have the right products their small numbers have a way of eating the large ones.

[andrey]

31:55 Regarding QPI/UPI vs. MMUs, I'm not sure how beneficial would the latter be in a high core count system. You rarely have VMs pinned to a single core, which is where the MMU design you describe would save a lot of inter-core communication. If you have multiple cores allocated for a VM or allow the VM to migrate between cores (which is expected in oversubscription case), you immediately want all involved cores to have a synchronized view of the VM memory. I suppose, you could restrict the cores that may serve the VM (e.g. set CPU affinity), which would reduce the amount of communication with cores that are not in that restricted set. But at this point it is not as trivial a solution as it seemed initially, and it's not obvious it would be efficient in practice.

[TheUmbrella]

Nice presentation Mr. Piednoel! One addition though. What intel needs to primarily get back in line is their manufacturing abilities. As you know very well, you can only sell what you can produce and this is Intels main problem. If 10nm would have come 2 years ago and 7nm would be here as we speak, Intel would not have any problems. As this is not going to be happening any time soon, I would be more than concerned as a share holder. Luckily, I am invested at AMD but I am happy to get back and invest into Intels future once these problems are solved, a lengthy and very costly endeavor.

[SIPhouseMongolia]

Thank you for great video! I think in companies like Intel and AMD every MBA shall also have tech background. I'm sure that average PC enthusiast knows more about CPUs than those MBAs.

[maoandmi]

This should be a must watch for Intel share holders ... if they still want to make money.

[chiwbaka]

Where can I find that interview with Andy Grove? I'd love to read it.