I worked at Intel 2005-2007. I read the article hoping to see an independent description of the culture I observed. I hoped to see someone use words to explain something that I can't explain.<p>The thing about Intel's culture that I observed was that it wasn't toxic at all. The worst thing that I could say about it was that it was boring, which was why I left so quickly.<p>If anything was "toxic," it could be that some managers and co-workers had very bad people skills... But that happens at all large companies. HR can't witness and guide every interaction between employees. In reality, when I was there, Intel's HR made every effort to create a culture where, if something "toxic" happened, they could fix the situation as quickly as possible.<p>Granted, things did happen. The "toxic" situations were more of ordinary human nature, and can happen anywhere, even in non work situations.
The term 'toxic culture' is mostly used to describe widespread harassment and bullying. 'Ossified' or 'stagnant' are more apt terms for a company that can't seem to seize new opportunities.<p>The thing about margins is that it's a lot more fun to work in a division with high margins. Low margin businesses are grim, because every cost matters. When you can charge $5000 for the latest Xeon, you can pay high salaries and have fat travel budgets. So it's hard to get people used to working on high-margin divisions to move into a new low-margin division, even if it might eventually be bigger.
I worked at Intel for two years. They don't have a "toxic" culture. They are just like any other big company. Believe it or not, Google and Facebook will end up like that in 25 years too.<p>Big organizations get like that. There's a generation that's raised on the company Kool-Aid and they live and breathe the company slogans and they forget that reality is a different place. That's not TOXIC ... that's just the nature of human organizations.<p>And I mean all organizations that are large. If you ever hang out with DNC or GOP people who work for the party you'll see the same blinders. Same goes for people that work at NASA ... or in certain academic fields. They all believe certain myths internally that no experts outside their group believe.<p>The point about Intel being addicted to narratives that aligned with its profits is true. And Microsoft was addicted to Windows and Office narratives too before Satya Nadella.<p>It certainly makes you admire IBM as a company a lot more, doesn't it? They have weathered so many changes in the landscape, and they are still around.
Interesting discussion here on the toxic culture reference. As I understand it, especially given the food analogy, Jean Gassee believes that the culture that Intel has evolved over time, prevents them from taking the steps that are necessary to continue to move forward. This culture is 'toxic' in that it is weakening the company rather than strengthening it.<p>Gassee also makes the point that the culture of the company is more influential on its success or failure than its financial position.<p>I found his argument fairly persuasive. Of course I worked at Intel during the Andy Grove years and understood that Intel is addicted to the high margins the x86 processors commanded. So when Gassee describes it as a cultural aversion to anything that might impact margins negatively, I can see that as a valid way of looking at it.
I've been reading "Measure What Matters" by John Doerr, which outlines Objectives and Key Results, a concept heavily influenced (invented?) by Andy Grove.<p>Would be interesting to hear from someone who knows if Intel still uses OKRs, and if their long-term usage contributed to the current "toxic culture". I really like OKRs as a concept, just wondering what long-term usage looks like, and what the downsides are.<p>Or maybe it's sensationalism, and the culture isn't that toxic?
No one going to point out that Diane Bryant mysteriously left Google recently? Long experience at Intel, expert in cloud, female face fits into the progressive culture they're trying to chase? Left Google at the perfect time?<p>Seems like a super obvious move to me.
I worked at Intel for several years. I really enjoyed myself most of the time and got to work on interesting things.<p>Because I was not serious about staying at Intel for a long time, I took a lot of risks that made my experience more fun. Most people probably wouldn’t do so.<p>There was significant beaurecratic bloat and overhead, the whole organization felt stodgy and a lot of the people simply weren’t doing their jobs. This caused me to feel like I constantly had to cross lines I didn’t want to cross in order to execute at a decent pace. I come from a startup background and couldn’t tolerate the endless delays and lack of responsiveness I saw there.<p>From my part of the company I mostly had a good time but I did see that I would not have a good time at many other parts of the organization. There are a lot of dead product lines with no future that need to get cut. No two ways about it. Cutting those products won’t be fun.<p>Ossified is a good word for many parts of the company.<p>I feel like the cultural harm caused by some of the layoffs left many people disenchanted. I heard one ex Intel employee say something like: “I got laid off because I am just another old white man.” That sentiment really is corrosive, I heard of that several times.<p>Unfortunately, I think the successor to BK is going to be saddled with some ugly clean up work. Or they could be cowards and continue to turn the same crank for wall street. BK cleaned some of the mess (and created several new ones), there are many more to clean.<p>It’s easy to be too pessimistic.<p>Intel has unbelievable engineering skills under the hood. They are incredibly dangerous if they are able to shake this off and re-energize.<p>I hope they find a truly progressive leader and don’t continue their descent into mediocrity.
The article is mentioning they missed the mobile revolution. How many mobile chip manufacturers are making that much money on mobile chips. If you look at QCOM's earnings a majority of it is licensing its patents. QCOM chip business net income is 15%. INTC net is almost 30%. In its data center business its 50%.
Six months of doing my best but failing miserably because I have no idea how to run a massive company, followed by a multi-million-dollar golden parachute? Sign me up!
In an organisation like Intel, how much fight is needed for a new CEO to break the Company into three, Intel Foundry, Intel Silicon, and Intel IP, along with Intel Holding being the holding company?<p>Intel Silicon will continue to produce the best in class x86 chip, from Desktop, Server, Notebook to Modem, FPGA, GPGPU and Network processor. And Storage like Optane and SSD.<p>Intel Foundry will focus to be the best Foundry on the planet. Not only just tech and yield, but also the ecosystem around it; from tools to libraries.<p>Intel IP will allow customers to use Intel's IP to fab their custom solution in Intel Foundry. x86 Core, 5G Modem, WiFi, Bluetooth, Network Processor, Memory controller, GPU, every building block Intel uses for Intel silicon. To be make to anything from SoC for PS5, Xbox with CPU and GPU, to Mobile SoC using ARM CPU + Intel Modem.
Firms with greater market power may innovate less
<a href="https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2018/07/07/companies-appear-to-be-gaining-market-power" rel="nofollow">https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2018/07/07/c...</a>
Intel PR was always too much addicted to Moore's Law. The Moore's Law is almost dead and so is Intel (Most semiconductor industry forecasters, including Gordon Moore, expect Moore's law will end by around 2025)<p>Source: <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law#Near-term_limits" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moore%27s_law#Near-term_limits</a>
>Money, or its lack, doesn’t cause a financial collapse, human folly does; the numbers simply follow<p>iow, the symptom should not be confused with the cause.
I feel that their hegemony in the server market might be lost even faster: <a href="https://ashishb.net/tech/three-reasons-why-intel-might-lose-server-market-even-faster-than-consumer/" rel="nofollow">https://ashishb.net/tech/three-reasons-why-intel-might-lose-...</a>
Saw this the other day. Seems like it would make sense.
<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/03/google-clouds-coo-departs-after-7-months/" rel="nofollow">https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/03/google-clouds-coo-departs-...</a>
WTF does "toxic culture" even mean, other than clickbait?<p>Some people seems to use this as meaning "anti-social" or "excessively aggressive" but the word only appears in the article as "toxic fixation on margins" where it's equivalent to "harmful".<p>The gist of the article seems to be that Intel lost in the mobile space because it refused to chase opportunities with lower margins. But decisions regarding such deals are made by a small handful of people at the top, the "culture" of the rest of the organization is irrelevant.