[HN Gopher] Intel CEO Bob Swan to Step Down in Feb, VMware CEO P...
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Intel CEO Bob Swan to Step Down in Feb, VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger to
Replace Him
Author : totalZero
Score : 327 points
Date : 2021-01-13 14:04 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cnbc.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cnbc.com)
| albertopv wrote:
| Intel is still making tons of money, so there's still time and
| Pat seems the right choice. Competition is good and Intel could
| still be competitive.
| marcusklaas wrote:
| For sure. Considering from what depths AMD has managed to
| recover, people are much too eager to count out Intel.
| ksec wrote:
| _" Notable absent from that list is he fired Pat Gelsinger.
| Please just bring him back as CEO."_ - [1] 2012 on HN, when Paul
| Otellini Retired.
|
| _" The only one who may have a slim chance to completely
| transform Intel is Pat Gelsinger, if Andy Grove saved Intel last
| time, it will be his apprentice to save Intel again.
| Unfortunately given what Intel has done to Pat during his last
| tenure, I am not sure if he is willing to pick up the job,
| especially the board's Chairman is Bryant, not sure how well they
| go together. But we know Pat still loves Intel, and I know a lot
| of us miss Pat."_ [2] - June, 2018
|
| _" This is the same as Intel pushing out Pat Gelsinger. The
| product people get pushed out by sales and marketing. Which are
| increasingly running the show at Apple."_ [3] 30 Days ago.
|
| And numerous other reference since 2009. Many more around various
| other forums and twitter. I am getting quite emotional right now.
| I cant believe this is really happening. ( I am wiring this with
| tears in my eyes! ) I guess Andy Bryant retired makes the
| decision a little easier. And Pat has always loved Intel. I guess
| he is pissed those muppets drove it to the ground.
|
| This is 12 years! 12 years to prove a point! Consider 4 - 5 years
| of work in lead-time since he left in 2009. That is 2014. Guess
| what happen after 2014?
|
| May be it is too little too late? Or May be this will be another
| Andy Grove "Only the paranoid survive" moment?
|
| The King is Back at Intel, despite being a fan of Dr Lisa Su, I
| am little worry about AMD.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4804875
|
| [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17391707
|
| [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25435150
| tambourine_man wrote:
| That's remarkable, can you share the reason for your emotional
| investment? Have you worked at Intel or with Pat?
| heyheyhey wrote:
| Wow, I'm impressed by your persistence. Have you worked with
| him or know him personally?
| hangonhn wrote:
| I worked at VMware when Pat first became the CEO. Pat is very
| much an engineer. If you ever wanted an engineer as your CEO,
| then that's Pat. That comes with some goods and some not-so-
| greats. Pat isn't very inspiring, at least not when he first
| became CEO. But I always got the feeling that he genuinely
| love engineers and is more comfortable around them than
| anything else. I once hosted a fun little engineering
| challenge (building bridges out of spaghetti). It wasn't a
| fancy event -- just a bunch of engineers having fun. Pat
| actually agreed to come by to hand out the awards at the end.
| I left VMware partly because I've been there so long and
| partly because I wasn't excited about it anymore. I felt its
| best days were behind it. Well, Pat proved me wrong by a wide
| margin. If no-nonsense engineering is what you need to win,
| then Pat is the right person for the job. It's a good day for
| Intel I think.
| effie wrote:
| What are your thoughts on VMware? It seems they are too in
| decline...
| jacques_chester wrote:
| I work for VMware, via the Pivotal acquisition.
|
| My purely personal view is that VMware's second act has
| begun and it'll do well. Pat deserves some of the credit
| for accepting that Kubernetes would be the future of the
| business and throwing his weight behind it.
|
| There are aspects of Pat Gelsinger's leadership that I
| dislike, but they're orthogonal to his management style
| and foresight. He's been effective.
| ra7 wrote:
| What does this mean for VMware? By all accounts, it seems
| like Pat was well liked at VMware.
| huac wrote:
| $VMW down 6.5%, $INTC up 7.5%, sounds like the market
| liked him at least
| treis wrote:
| I don't think I've seen a thread here before where the top 2
| posts are such opposites of each other.
| normlEyezd wrote:
| Devils advocate from a throwaway for reasons; Pat foisted
| VMWare on a small startup trying to find its engineering
| footing culture wise, after being invited in to advise on the
| business side (loan his name mostly).
|
| Cost a bunch of engineering time and forward motion, internal
| politicking. Eventually it got binned after months of not
| getting what we wanted out of it. There was no technical reason
| for it.
|
| Maybe hardware really is his thing, but that quid pro quo hurt
| productivity.
| fossuser wrote:
| Interesting - you think he can pull this off?
|
| It'll be interesting to see what happens, I had written them
| off as on the path of inevitable decline and irrelevance.
|
| If they have someone as CEO who understand the existential
| threat they're facing from everywhere maybe they'll survive.
|
| Should be interesting to watch.
|
| The irony of the other top comment is that the AMD threat
| wasn't the competitive threat that mattered. AMD is also
| screwed.
| mrg3_2013 wrote:
| Intel's downfall in recent times has been "Only the paranoid
| survive". They strayed far too away from customers and focused
| on competition (and their customer feedback was a redirect from
| what competition was up to). I doubt there will be cultural
| changes.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| To me, that move makes a lot of sense. But judging from the other
| comments, I'm the only one with that assessment.
|
| I'm my opinion, the secret sauce that makes Intel dominate
| certain industries is software. And it has been for some years
| already.
|
| If you need really fast mathematical number crunching, e.g. high
| frequency trading or realtime audio filtering, then you need MKL,
| the Intel math kernel library.
|
| If you want to further reduce latency with parallelism, you need
| TBB, the Intel thread building blocks.
|
| Raytracing? Intel embree.
|
| Once you are locked in that deeply, the raw Intel vs AMD
| performance becomes meaningless. You only care about how fast the
| Intel libraries run
|
| So a CEO with experience building high performance low level
| software seems like an amazing fit.
|
| Edit: And I almost forgot, the Intel compiler used in pretty
| every PC game to speed up physics. Plus some people have seen
| success replacing GPUs with icc+avx for huge deployment cost
| savings in AI.
| reacharavindh wrote:
| The compiler tricks can only get you so far. I administered a
| HPC cluster and we have a lot of software dependent on MKL and
| BLAS. However, with the lucrative performance boost AMD seems
| to put out, open source libraries like BLIS and open BLAS are
| attempting to fill gaps. Trust me, no one likes the intel lock-
| in if there is an alternative that is even close enough in
| performance.
| danpalmer wrote:
| To me this description sounds like a specialist high
| performance computing company rather than a consumer technology
| company. That may be a perfectly reasonable market to be in,
| but is that type of company worth $200bn? I'm not sure.
|
| Roughly 40% of their revenue is consumer chips where, apart
| from some games optimisation, they are no longer standing out
| from the crowd, and the leader is arguably Apple, with AMD
| doing well. The next ~30% of their business is servers, where
| there may be a significant number of HPC clients, but the bulk
| of this is again likely to be VMs running non-Intel specific
| software, and this market is starting to realise that Intel is
| nothing special here.
|
| Looking at their revenue breakdown, I struggle to put more than
| 20% into the things that you mention they are great at. Should
| they focus on this? It would lose them much of their market cap
| if they did.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| I agree with your market breakdown, but surely not with your
| assessment.
|
| In the consumer segment, you have regular people trying to
| make vacation videos with software like Adobe Premiere and
| Adobe Media Encoder, or Magix. Nvenc quality is bad. AMD is
| horribly slow. The only fast high quality encode is with
| Intel's dedicated CPU instructions, which both apps heavily
| promote to their users.
|
| And the 30% that you mention that run VMs... Wouldn't they be
| pretty happy if Intel added dedicated CPU instructions to
| make VMware better?
|
| I agree that for the work that I do, AMD is as good as or
| better. But people doing highly parallelizable tasks like
| compiling are the minority.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| > AMD is horribly slow. The only fast high quality encode
| is with Intel's dedicated CPU instructions,
|
| You might need a source for that.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Intel Core i7 6700K is double the FPS of AMD Ryzen 5
| 1600X https://www.magix.info/de/forum/ein-
| performancetest-zwischen...
| karavelov wrote:
| On first generation Ryzen AVX2 instructions were executed
| as 2 AVX instructions as the AVX pipeline was 128 bits
| wide. This was fixed in Zen 2 and nowadays we are at Zen
| 3.
| malinens wrote:
| this is article from 2017 which compares 5 generation old
| cpu vs other 5 generation old CPU
| nathannecro wrote:
| Uh, those numbers are more than three/five years old at
| this point. Beyond comments on the test bench not being
| properly set up, Ryzen has improved significantly since
| then.
|
| AMD's latest consumer-level chips significantly
| outperform Intel's chips in both price and performance.
| When talking about prosumer video editing performance,
| the Ryzen 9 5900x, the second most expensive "new" chip
| from AMD is a 3.4% performance improvement over Intel's
| most expensive "new" chip 10980XE. Additionally, the
| 5900x retails for $549 USD while the 10980XE retails for
| about $1,000 USD.
|
| https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Adobe-
| Premiere-Pr...
| sq_ wrote:
| Seems like the clock, RAM, and GPU differences there may
| have had an effect? Comparing between systems that
| different seems unusual.
| ghaff wrote:
| >if Intel added dedicated CPU instructions to make VMware
| better
|
| They (and AMD) did years ago. Intel VT.
| danpalmer wrote:
| I think you might over estimate the prevalence of video
| editing software like this. Adobe don't appear to sell
| consumer versions anymore, it's only pro subscriptions now.
| Magix is sold at a "vacation video friendly" price, but
| doesn't mention Intel in their marketing material.
|
| I just don't think the market for home devices is thinking
| about their video encoding time when they buy a laptop, but
| I do think they'll use an M1 Mac and find it surprisingly
| fast, or hear from a friend or family member that they are
| really good.
|
| Intel just haven't been optimising for the main user
| experience seen by these people, or those writing "normal"
| server software either. They've been pushing AVX512
| instead, which looks good for video or things like that,
| but not for regular use-cases.
|
| Another good example is how fast the M1 chips (and the A
| chips in iPhones) perform at Javascript benchmarks. Those
| benchmarks look a lot more like what most people are doing
| most of the time than video encoding benchmarks.
| mcosta wrote:
| > but I do think they'll use an M1 Mac and find it
| surprisingly fast, or hear from a friend or family member
| that they are really good.
|
| That only happens in California.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| MAGIX heavily mentions Intel in their marketing.
|
| "4K Ultra HD video editing with Intel and MAGIX"
|
| "Enjoy HD Video editing with Magix Movie Editor Pro and
| Intel Iris Graphics"
|
| "Edit in 4K Ultra HD" + Intel Logo
|
| "Finish and Share videos quickly with Intel Iris
| Graphics"
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eT9KOtN7KFM
|
| Plus, as a user of the software, I can tell you that if
| you tick the "Hardware Acceleration" checkbox on AMD, a
| popup will tell you to buy a supported Intel CPU and then
| turn the checkbox off again.
|
| BTW I'm picking Magix here because in the local
| electronics store, that's the video software that you can
| buy as a box and that is featured in bundles with Intel
| laptops. So if someone clueless walks in there and says
| they need video editing, this is most likely what they
| will end up with.
| 0xEFF wrote:
| > And the 30% that you mention that run VMs... Wouldn't
| they be pretty happy if Intel added dedicated CPU
| instructions to make VMware better?
|
| They have this today. What would make them happier is
| cutting power utilization by half or more, which is looking
| quite possible with non-Intel Silicon.
| sq_ wrote:
| > AMD is horribly slow
|
| Not sure where you're getting that these days? Absolutely
| in the days of Bulldozer, but AMD's Zen 3 architecture has
| taken even the single core lead from Intel, not to mention
| the multi core lead they've held for several years now.
| mhh__ wrote:
| The encoder?
|
| AMDs GPU encoder still lags a way behind Nvidia for
| example
| tw04 wrote:
| >Roughly 40% of their revenue is consumer chips where, apart
| from some games optimisation, they are no longer standing out
| from the crowd, and the leader is arguably Apple, with AMD
| doing well.
|
| You lost me at Apple. Apple owns around 15% of the PC market
| space and almost the entirety of that is Intel-based systems.
| Outside of HN, nobody cares about the M1 chip, it isn't a
| selling point to my mom or her friends. If someone at the
| Apple store recommends it they might buy it instead of an
| intel-based system but it definitely isn't something they're
| seeking out.
|
| The only threat Intel has right now in the consumer space is
| AMD, and it's a very real threat. AMD won both Sony and
| Microsoft console designs, and the mobile Ryzen 5000 chips
| released at CES look to have enough OEM design wins to put a
| serious hurt on Intel in 2021.
|
| Even if Apple goes 100% M1, there's the other 85% of the
| market that Intel is likely far more concerned about.
| danpalmer wrote:
| I get your point, but I think the M1 is more significant as
| proof of what is possible than because I think everyone
| will buy a Mac.
|
| I can absolutely see Qualcomm offering laptop chips off the
| back of the M1's success. They may not be as good, but they
| might be much cheaper. I can also see Microsoft pushing
| Windows on ARM harder, and rolling out their own chips at
| some point.
|
| Also once the market gets "used to" multi-architecture
| software (again), I think we'll see a renaissance of chip
| design as many more players crop up, because of the lower
| barrier to entry.
| Leherenn wrote:
| Maybe. Apple has solved the chicken and egg problem
| regarding software compatibility by forcing everyone to
| move on to ARM in the near future. Microsoft will not
| abandon x64 though, so there are far less incentives to
| port things. Also Microsoft cares far more about
| compatibility (e.g. 32-bit software). That means means a
| lot of things will run under a Rosetta 2 like system
| (probably less efficient if you need to support 32-bit as
| well). If you add the fact that Qualcomm is unlikely to
| match Apple in performance, the resulting product might
| not be very appealing compared to a classic x64 system.
| totalZero wrote:
| An ARM transition isn't a fait accompli just because
| Apple introduced M1 at the lower end of the Mac lineup.
| There's a huge lump of inertia there.
| terafo wrote:
| >it isn't a selling point to my mom or her friends
|
| Gargantuan battery life isn't a selling point? For laptop?
| In what universe?
| tw04 wrote:
| For who? My mom uses her laptop at home 99% of the time,
| if the battery gets low she plugs it in. She needs a
| battery that will last 1-2 hours for the 3 times a year
| she flies.
|
| You can find a place to plug in at basically any coffee
| shop or library you go to. My mom isn't spending 10 hours
| in a datacenter, so it doesn't really matter to her if
| the battery life is 3 hours or 12. For the average
| consumer, battery life has just been another stat on the
| spec sheet for years now.
| hollerith wrote:
| Even if your mom doesn't care about battery life, she
| will probably buy a product that is also sold to buyers
| who do care about battery life, and if the product can
| meet those buyer's needs with a smaller battery, then
| your mom's laptop will be lighter.
|
| So, does your mom also not care about the weight of her
| laptop?
| tw04 wrote:
| The Macbook air with intel CPU weighs 2.75 lbs, the
| Macbook air with M1 weighs 2.8 lbs. The macbook pro is
| 3.0 vs 3.1 lbs.
|
| The weight is a non-factor. Quite frankly until you start
| cracking 5lbs nobody even cares in my experience. Apple's
| maniacal focus on making laptops skinnier and lighter has
| done a disservice to the entire product line, which they
| seemingly acknowledged with the 16" Pro.
| hollerith wrote:
| Apple had the option of making the M1 Air lighter (by
| choosing a smaller battery) but decided instead to
| greatly increase battery life. The point remains that
| Apple has choices that vendors of laptops reliant on
| Intel CPUs do not have, which might end up eating into
| Intel's market share.
| klelatti wrote:
| Strongly disagree. I'm writing this on a 12" MacBook with
| a partly broken screen - by far my favourite machine (I
| have a 2020 MacBook Pro too). I'm not alone too.
|
| I expect we'll see an M series MacBook again but this
| time it won't be underpowered.
| frereubu wrote:
| > For the average consumer, battery life has just been
| another stat on the spec sheet for years now.
|
| I'm not sure I agree with this. I think if you asked
| someone whether battery life was a priority, they might
| say no. And if you asked them to rank tech specs I'm not
| sure it would necessarily be that high either. But the
| experience of using a laptop with a noticeably better
| battery is, for me, quite likely to be one of those
| things that you didn't know you were missing, even if you
| just charge it every now and then.
| Spooky23 wrote:
| For consumers? It's a race to the bottom. Mom wants to
| pay $200 if anything. My in-laws do their taxes on their
| phone.
| whelming_wave wrote:
| the m1 isn't competing on many of the same axes as an
| intel or amd cpu, because it's necessarily packaged
| inside of an entire computer built around it. that
| computer is a mac, which might be different from the
| purchaser's current os so they decide not to switch, or
| they already bought software for windows and want to use
| it there, or they're married to the microsoft ecosystem,
| etc.
| klelatti wrote:
| Office runs on Macs too!
|
| Seriously, I predict we will see Apple successfully
| attack the sub $1000 laptop market within two years. They
| sell the iPhone SE with an A13 for $399 so they could
| easily do so now they no longer have the 'Intel tax'. And
| the products will be a lot better than the Windows
| equivalents.
|
| Most home users might use Office and that's about it. The
| allure of the Apple ecosystem will be strong especially
| for iPhone users.
| perardi wrote:
| I'm skeptical.
|
| Apple's bread and butter, as far as Macs go, is the
| MacBook Air. And by all accounts, they sell _a lot_ of
| those, and will presumably sell even more, with better
| margins, now that they've gone ARM.
|
| Do they really want to undercut that with a cheaper
| laptop? I suppose it's possible, if the volume/margins
| works out, but I'd bet they just keep plugging along with
| $999-$1500 13-inch laptops.
| klelatti wrote:
| All fair points but I think that with higher margins it
| tips the balance towards market share growth. Key issues
| are 1) can they make an acceptable margin on a good $800
| laptop and 2) can they genuinely significantly grow
| market share rather than lowering average selling price -
| i.e. can they maintain distinction between $800 and $1000
| products. Given what we've seen them do on iPhone and
| iPad I bet then answer is yes to both of these.
|
| Bear in mind too that after a generation or two they can
| put the last gen M chips in cheaper products.
| singhrac wrote:
| I think there's an economic principle here (and I don't
| know the sign), but this is all assuming a frictionless
| vacuum - in practice, Apple cannot sell 25% more M1 Macs
| if they lower their price to $800, or whatever, since
| their marginal costs rise in that case (because TSMC is
| totally booked!).
| klelatti wrote:
| That's today but I'd expect next year's sub $1000 Macs
| will use previous year's M series chips in due course.
| (Exactly the iPhone and iPad playbook).
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| I'm not really sure to be honest. We've moved on from
| laptops that you can't watch movie on without charging
| few years ago. I don't really care if my laptop works for
| 10 hours or 15.
| Retric wrote:
| It's the same reason battery life is so critical in EV's.
| Smaller batteries need to be charged more often which
| eats up more of their remaining lifespan. It's a downward
| spiral that means a 50% extra lifespan up front can be
| worth 100% extra lifespan in 3 years.
|
| Laptop batteries are also expensive in terms of money,
| weight, and bulk which puts Intel into a much larger
| bind.
| yowlingcat wrote:
| > it isn't a selling point to my mom or her friends
|
| Really? That's surprising to me. I'd imagine that for the
| demographic of her and her friends, quality of life
| increases for their phones are far more material than for
| their computers.
| neogodless wrote:
| It sounds like you're agreeing with your parent comment.
|
| > phones are far more material
|
| Thus they don't really care about laptop battery life.
| yowlingcat wrote:
| That's not what I'm getting at. What I'm getting at is
| that to say that "even if Apple goes 100% M1, there's the
| other 85% of the market that Intel is likely far more
| concerned about." is somewhat far-fetched. Apple can make
| their own desktop chips because it's an easier problem
| than making a phone chip (performance/thermal
| efficiency), but Intel can't make because they've
| sacrificed thermal efficiency time and time again -- not
| just this time but a decade ago. Remember Prescott?
|
| I think that is why Intel should be (and probably is)
| worried about Apple. They will make Intel redundant by
| having solved a harder problem which their own problem
| becomes a subset of.
| parasubvert wrote:
| I think you are vastly underestimating the revolution of
| what the M1 represents to the PC industry.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| I think you are vastly underestimating how hard IT
| departments will kick you if you request or bring a
| device that cannot properly execute the company-critical
| legacy Windows x64 software. Like SAP, for example.
|
| (SAP is the largest non-American software company by
| revenue and does business management, workflow
| automation, and bookkeeping)
|
| My prediction is that outside of hipster startups, M1
| will have no effect on business laptop sales.
| huac wrote:
| M1 with Rosetta emulation is still faster or comparable
| to top Windows laptops, with room to run for M2.
| cyxxon wrote:
| But then again, the current version of SAP is S/4 HANA,
| and unless you are a developer or admin for that, you
| will be using their Fiori based web clients, so a normal
| browser is enough. I am a developer in an S/4 rollout
| project in a Windows-only shop, but for our future system
| landscape I could see the normal people using the SAP
| systems using any kind of laptop or tablet. Even we are
| testing iPads and laptops at least.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > I think you are vastly underestimating how hard IT
| departments will kick you if you request or bring a
| device that cannot properly execute the company-critical
| legacy Windows x64 software. Like SAP, for example.
|
| Many companies have long ago set up some beefy Citrix
| servers for those application.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| Isn't sap a database? Why would you want users to run db
| on laptop, especially on windows?
| fxtentacle wrote:
| No, SAP is more like an Operating System for your
| factories. It contains EVERYTHING, from payroll to
| inventory management. Think of it more like an Exchange
| server plus all Microsoft office apps combined. To
| connect to the Exchange server and get all features, you
| need Outlook. It's the same with the SAP database and SAP
| client GUIs.
|
| The official GUI is C++ and Windows only. They do have a
| Java port for other OSes, and some 3rd party GUIs, but
| none of that is feature-complete or even halfway there.
| jaywalk wrote:
| SAP is so many things that their Products page has search
| functionality and is broken down by first letter:
| https://www.sap.com/products-a-z.html
|
| So no, SAP is not a database and has many client
| applications that would run on a laptop.
| ido wrote:
| SAP is lots of enterprise software stuff, not just a DB.
| tw04 wrote:
| I think you are vastly overestimating the "revolution" of
| what the M1 represents to the industry. Apple isn't
| selling it to any other PC makers, and corporations
| aren't pivoting away from Microsoft for a CPU. Every
| single ARM chip that's been targeted at the Windows world
| has produced yawn-inducing performance.
| icedchai wrote:
| M1 is amazing. I think people are also underestimating
| how fast Intel can catch up.
| vasco wrote:
| You misunderstand the point of the M1 out of Apple, and for
| that matter the graviton2 instances out of AWS. What was
| demonstrated in the marketplace is that the biggest tech
| companies are now able to develop in-house processors that
| are more cost efficient and more performant. These
| processors are based on ARM and have minimal overhead
| licensing costs, as compared to buying Intel or AMD chips
| for their vast fleets / products.
|
| If AWS and Apple can do it, soon other very large companies
| will, but in a few years, even OEMs will be able to develop
| their own chips. The market for high end gaming is unlikely
| to be touched, but the vast consumer market is going to be
| eaten by custom made ARM-based chips.
|
| So in a world where processor design becomes a commodity,
| what does that mean for Intel and AMD? And what does that
| mean for the overall datacenter, consumer markets?
| klelatti wrote:
| Not sure of the source of your 15% but I'm willing to bet
| that by value it's more - no Celerons in Apple's line up.
| Plus Apple wouldn't be going down this route if it didn't
| expect to grow market share - and although people don't
| care if it's M1 or i5 they do care if the experience is
| better.
|
| Then Apple's success with the M1 will spur others - I would
| not be surprised if Microsoft follow them down the same
| route.
| toyg wrote:
| _> Apple wouldn 't be going down this route if it didn't
| expect to grow market share_
|
| Marketshare is not what Apple is about. Apple is about
| profitability and control. Their move to own silicon is
| driven by improvements in the reliability of their build
| pipeline (no more waiting for tic-tocs and whatnot) and
| tighter control / integration of their whole stack (same
| arch on phones and pc). That these chips happen to
| perform so well that they are potential market-growers,
| is a welcome coincidence.
| klelatti wrote:
| Growing marketshare but profitably and without impairing
| the brand is what Apple is about. That's why we have the
| iPhone SE. The M series lets them do that with the Mac
| now. And more Macs implies more Apple services sales.
|
| It's certainly partly defensive - they were frustrated
| with Intel - but Apple would only make a move of this
| scale if it thought it created business opportunities for
| them.
| karmasimida wrote:
| > I'm my opinion, the secret sauce that makes Intel dominate
| certain industries is software. And it has been for some years
| already
|
| Intel's secret sauce is inertia.
|
| The thought that Intel's is not challengeable, and the world
| doesn't need a company to dethrone it either.
|
| But that assumption is no longer true, and the counter movement
| is in its full swing.
|
| The future of computing is on not CPU if you ask me. It would
| move from general computing to heterogeneous computing, and
| possibly application-specific chips/FPGA. MKL is fast,
| probably, but GPU and ASIC would be even faster.
| CyberDildonics wrote:
| > If you want to further reduce latency with parallelism, you
| need TBB, the Intel thread building blocks.
|
| That's not how latency works and there is nothing too special
| about Intel's TBB library. It is a big bloated group of
| libraries that doesn't actually contain anything irreplaceable.
| Don't be fooled by marketing or people that haven't looked
| under the hood. It should also work on amd cpus.
|
| > Raytracing? Intel embree.
|
| Embree is a cool convenience, but also doesn't marry anyone to
| intel cpus.
| gameswithgo wrote:
| mkl runs fine on amd now once you un-handicap it
| hodgesrm wrote:
| The interesting question is what this means for VMware. Besides
| Pat's departure, Rajiv Ramaswami left to lead Nutanix. They have
| multiple holes to fill.
| JoshTko wrote:
| Pretty damming to Bob Swan when a $200B market cap company jumps
| +8% on news that you are stepping down.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Pretty sure he gives zero fucks about this considering the
| juiciness of his golden parachute.
|
| The only gig where you get rewarded handsomely even if you
| fail.
| astlouis44 wrote:
| This x 1000.
| xwdv wrote:
| This won't change anything, by the time Intel gets back on it's
| feet, big techs will be building their own silicon and AMD will
| have eaten up whatever is left of Intel's lunch.
| msoad wrote:
| People underestimate what it means for Intel when Microsoft and
| Apple are going to produce their own chips and AWS is pushing
| their ARM offering. It does not take much for the industry to
| switch to ARM as default for desktop and server.
| baskire wrote:
| I've noticed the switch to arm isn't drastically harder than
| switch to amd for large DC/Cloud users.
|
| The biggest burden is political. The technical work is only a
| few months. With savings often more than paying to hire
| substantially more staff to assist in migration then
| accelerate the core product.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's not about AMD which is (sorry) a marginal factor in all
| this. It's whether other architectures like Arm and RISC-V
| really upset the apple cart.
| neogodless wrote:
| Let's see if this is true, statistically:
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/735904/worldwide-x86-int.
| ..
|
| Intel/AMD split in x86 currently 61.4% / 38.6%.
|
| If we (very incorrectly assume) 100% of Intel sales were
| through Apple and were going to all be replaced by Apple,
| then, even given current trends AMD and Apple would be at
| roughly 50/50 before long. Looks like OS X is around 16-17%
| of desktop operating system share though. So the ~82% of
| buyers still buying x86 are going to continue choosing
| between Intel and AMD.
|
| Apple M1 has some people believing that suddenly everyone
| will stop buying x86 chips and buy Apple _unless_ someone
| releases a competitive ARM based chip for Windows /Linux. I'd
| like to see some evidence for that premise, though.
|
| Apple's messaging has always been "better designed hardware +
| better software experience", and yet they still haven't
| breached 20% market share. A CPU that increases battery life
| (and yes performs very well) but still can't be bought with
| your Windows PC isn't going to rapidly change the market
| share. It could erode it over time, but this is certainly
| just conjecture, not proof. Let's revisit the conversation in
| 5 years and see what Apple, Intel and AMD have done,
| technologically, and what consumers have decided.
| ghaff wrote:
| First of all, ARM is already dominant on non-laptop mobile.
| Secondly, ARM is growing rapidly for workloads in places
| like AWS and many think there will be a lot of growth on-
| prem as well. Apple's symbolically important for Arm in the
| sense that it shows switching to a non-x86 architecture for
| a laptop is possible but they're fairly irrelevant from a
| volume perspective.
|
| If one assumes that x86 remains the dominant architecture
| in the industry then, yes, it's basically a zero sum market
| share game between Intel and AMD. But lots of people don't
| think that represents reality in the second half of this
| decade.
| neogodless wrote:
| I don't know the history of non-laptop mobile CPUs. I
| assume they have pretty much almost all always been ARM.
| Please correct me if I'm misinformed. That hasn't
| factored into desktop/laptop considerations in the past.
| Currently, it seems to only factor into Apple's plans for
| unifying their OS X and iOS stack.
|
| ARM is growing in servers, but AMD is as well[0]. It's
| not clear though how either smartphone or server
| architecture will affect desktop/laptop purchasing for
| consumers en masse.
|
| Of course if we're talking about 2025-2030, I'm sure any
| predictions I make are a roll of the dice, at best. But
| right now I don't think there's enough momentum of any
| players to have absolute certainly about 2025 and beyond.
| There is a lot of inertia with x86 in desktop/laptop, and
| so far Apple's Macbook Air/Pro and Mac Mini are the only
| high performing options on ARM.
|
| I _like_ AMD but I 'll be happy to see any technological
| progress that makes significant improvements to our
| quality of life.
|
| Anecdote City:
|
| Just five years ago I didn't consider laptops viable for
| gaming, and now I do most of my gaming on one. The
| Macbooks with M1 seem like they are capable of some level
| of gaming, but not "max setting" 1080p gaming, so it's
| not yet an option for someone like me to switch. But when
| I'm working, I do most of that on a powerful but very
| quiet desktop. The M1 chip would not improve my quality
| of life on my desktop because the efficiency of the chip
| won't really change anything for me. There's no
| compelling reason to swap out of my custom built machine
| to a Mac Mini.
|
| Anecdotes are very personal. And so are computers. For
| many consumers where an M1-based machine work, the
| benefits are all but lost on them anyway, for a variety
| of reasons. They don't make decisions based on CPU
| efficiency - just what they are used to and what features
| they need and want. If a feature is really life-changing
| _for that particular person_ they might be OK with
| change, e.g. switching out operating systems.
|
| For a developer, it's either easy to think about
| switching because you know everything is cross-platform,
| or it's perhaps impossible to switch because you use
| exclusive software.
|
| [0] https://www.extremetech.com/computing/318217-amd-arm-
| both-in...
| ghaff wrote:
| > non-laptop mobile CPUs. I assume they have pretty much
| almost all always been ARM.
|
| All kinds of things over the years. For example,
| Qualcomm's Snapdragon line.
|
| And Intel was definitely pushing to get into mobile at
| one point. They made a big deal about processor
| compatibility from mobile up through the server. I still
| remember at one IDF, they made a big deal about how you
| wanted to run Intel for mobile (this was pre-iPhone) so
| that Flash would run the same everywhere.
|
| I agree that it's hard to make predictions more than a
| few years out and certainly x86 has a lot of inertia. On
| the other hand, there's a lot more abstraction than there
| used to be and we know there's going to be a lot
| heterogeneity anyway (GPU, DPU, TPU, FPGA, SIMD
| instructions, etc.) given the slowing down of CMOS
| process scaling. So I don't think it's _too_ big a
| stretch to imagine that we 'll see a more varied
| processor landscape. (I expect ARM to gain share although
| I don't expect it to dominate on servers--though I have
| colleagues who do expect that to happen.)
| metabagel wrote:
| You have it backwards. AMD is steadily taking market share
| from Intel in both the desktop and server space. ARM is only
| a potential threat at the moment, with a tiny market share
| outside of mobile and IOT.
|
| Granted, ARM is huge threat to Intel over the longer term,
| but AMD is taking market share now.
| wronglebowski wrote:
| This spoils any optimism I may have had for Intel. Reading that
| this came due to a search for "Strategic alternatives" is
| damning. Intel is like Boeing. They make one thing and they used
| to make it very well, silicon. If Boeing told you they were
| looking into alternatives to making planes would you be
| optimistic?
|
| It feels like they're throwing in the towel on being the leader,
| giving up on trying to catch up process wise and will look to
| maximize their existing revenue. RIP
| totalZero wrote:
| I don't see much similarity between the story of Intel and the
| story of Boeing.
|
| Boeing made an entire line of defective airplanes that could
| autonomously kill everyone aboard under normal usage. Then, a
| respiratory virus hammered the travel industry.
|
| In contrast, the semiconductor industry is seeing more demand
| than ever before, and presently undergoing a shortage. Intel
| has mismanaged 10nm and 7nm, but the company maintains a
| majority CPU market share overall and an even wider margin for
| servers.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| I think Spectre and related vulnerabilities are directly
| comparable to the 737 MAX debacle, insofar as they reflect
| poor engineering decisions made directly against the customer
| in favor of short-term profit. Of course Boeing's decision
| was far more devastating and led to the loss of 346 souls,
| but the pathology that gave rise to both situations
| (executive hubris, failure to tackle accumulated tech debt)
| seems quite similar.
| ghaff wrote:
| Eh. Some of the vulnerabilities in that class were Intel-
| specific. But there is a whole class of vulnerabilities
| that potentially can hit any design that has speculative
| execution--and people just aren't OK with shutting off
| speculative execution because the performance hit is so
| big.
| ericbarrett wrote:
| Intel chips were significantly more impacted by Spectre
| mitigations than AMD & others[0], and needed
| significantly more workarounds.
|
| [0] https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-amd-
| mitigations-perf...
| xxpor wrote:
| The thing about the max is the deaths were directly
| observable and obvious. The problem with Spectre/Meltdown
| is they might have been exploited for years, leading to
| wars/economic harm that the general public will never be
| able to tie back to Intel.
|
| On the balance of probabilities I think the Max debacle
| ended up doing more harm, but IMO Intel (and AMD/ARM to a
| lesser extent) did get off easy because of the extremely
| technical nature of the issue.
|
| Edit: I also agree that the max issue has a much more
| direct Executive Directive -> Harm line to draw. I don't
| think the Intel CEO went down to engineering and said
| anything comparable to "create a new version of a plane
| that needs no new training while having completely new
| larger more efficient engines, even if that's physically
| impossible"
| totalZero wrote:
| Workarounds for Meltdown and Spectre can impose a
| nontrivial performance hit for certain workloads, but it's
| tough to compare a 20-month grounding of 737 Max with
| patched security vulnerabilities that the average consumer
| neither understands nor directly observes.
| specialist wrote:
| Yes, but (vs and):
|
| My goober hot take on Boeing is a bit different.
|
| Another victim of financialization.
|
| When McDonald Douglass reverse acquired Boeing, the balance
| changed. Emphasis on share price, gutting wages while doing
| stock buybacks, shady business practices (bribes for defense
| contracts, gutting oversight), and so forth.
|
| Of course, there's always more to the story. Like I have no
| idea how much to blame Clinton Admin's push for consolidation
| and monopolies (removing competition). Or how to explain the
| quixotic quest to outsource and offshore core competencies.
|
| So as casual observer, it seems like Intel similarly lost its
| way.
| meragrin_ wrote:
| > It feels like they're throwing in the towel on being the
| leader, giving up on trying to catch up process wise and will
| look to maximize their existing revenue. RIP
|
| If they were going from a former CTO to a former CFO, I would
| agree. They are going to a former CTO from a former CFO. How
| does this make it seem like they are looking to maximize their
| existing revenue rather than trying to get someone in to "fix"
| their issues?
| gvb wrote:
| TFA doesn't say it came due to a search for "strategic
| alternatives."
|
| It says "Dan Loeb's _Third Point hedge fund_ in December _urged
| Intel 's board to explore_ "strategic alternatives."
|
| That is typical hedge fund pressure attempting to squeeze
| (short term) money out of their investment. The article has two
| more paragraphs consisting of the hedge fund's cheap shot
| quotes.
|
| It isn't clear Intel's board succumbed to the hedge fund
| pressure. Changing the CEO from a finance-oriented CEO to a
| technically-oriented CEO (Gelsinger) is taking Intel back to
| its roots rather than "exploring strategic alternatives." Intel
| was founded and lead for many years by technically-oriented
| CEOs.
|
| Ref:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel#Leadership_and_corporate...
| totalZero wrote:
| As far as Third Point's public commentary goes, you're right.
| [0] (Who knows what they said in private.)
|
| "Strategic alternatives" often means "split up the
| businesses." Silver Lake proposed something similar to AMD in
| 2015. In the end, the Silver Lake deal didn't happen [1] and
| AMD stock is up 45x since then.
|
| [0] https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/third-point-full-
| letter-...
|
| [1] https://www.extremetech.com/computing/215353-amd-talks-
| with-...
| atniomn wrote:
| Splitting up Intel's fabrication and design businesses
| would it make similar to AMD, the stock which is up 45x
| since 2015.
|
| Intel's fabrication business needs more volume, so it can
| increase R&D spending and capital expenditure, it can get
| this volume as a merchant fab.
|
| Intel's design business doesn't need to be held back by
| Intel's fabrication delays. I imagine designers at Intel
| would prefer to compete with AMD on the same playing field
| --TSMC's latest node.
| totalZero wrote:
| AMD chose to spin out GlobalFoundries in 2008, several
| years prior to the 2015 Silver Lake near-deal [0],
| becoming a fabless company on the tail end of a 90% slide
| in AMD stock. AMD share price continued to decline and
| remained in the low single digits for seven years after
| AMD and GlobalFoundries parted ways.
|
| My understanding is that Silver Lake wanted AMD to split
| apart its product segments. They were going to buy 20-25%
| of the company, but the deal never materialized.
|
| Intel's vertical integration is an asset IMO, especially
| in a supply-constrained environment like the present.
|
| [0]: https://www.eetimes.com/amd-foundry-spinoff-open-
| for-busines...
| throwawayriver wrote:
| All those hundreds of millions of dollars Intel shelled out over
| the past five years for SJW and "diversity" initiatives are
| finally paying off!!!
| DoofusOfDeath wrote:
| I think you're raising an interesting point regarding the CEO's
| focus vs. company performance.
|
| Friendly advice from someone who's learned this the hard way:
| If you edit your comment so that it's tone is a bit more
| friendly, it's more likely to foster a real discussion.
| mrtweetyhack wrote:
| one loser for another loser
| roomey wrote:
| No harm to VMware on this I think. As it pushes into SAAS it
| really does need a big shake up. Not that Pat wasn't good, but it
| is an old company with a lot of inertia, some fresh blood and
| fresh ideas could really be beneficial.
|
| Hopefully the next CEO is as committed to all the other stuff,
| like treating the employees very good and the community stuff.
| The best bit of the company isn't the tech at all (in my opinion)
| ghaff wrote:
| >but it is an old company
|
| That makes _me_ feel old given that I first spoke with them as
| an analyst before ESX Server came out :-)
| samaxe wrote:
| They need to get out from under Dell's thumb. Until then no new
| CEO will bring significant changes.
| roomey wrote:
| I'm not sure I agree with that. I've been there now over 8
| years and the only difference since Dell bought emc is they
| are cross selling. In terms of product development, staffing,
| benefits etc they have no influence. This is in opposition to
| EMC, who had a lot of benefits and nice things like free
| coffee cut to match with dell.
| satya71 wrote:
| The CEO of a semiconductor company needs to have an engineering
| background, IMO. The tech is too complex and too important to the
| business to have a CEO who doesn't understand the nuances. Wish
| Pat all the success at Intel. We need Intel to do better.
| rossdavidh wrote:
| Disclosure: I worked at AMD for about a decade, although that's
| a while back now. It is traditional in semiconductor companies
| (or was, anyway) to have a triumvirate:
|
| 1) the "outside" guy (sales, know the customer) 2) the "inside"
| guy (operations, now the employees) 3) the "tech" guy
|
| Any of these three can run the company, but whichever one it
| is, they need to have the other two near at hand, and they need
| to listen closely to them. The problem comes when, as at Intel
| and perhaps also at Boeing, you have options (1) or (2) in
| charge, and they're not listening to the person who is position
| (3) in the triumvirate, or they don't have a triumvirate at
| all. If the person in position (3) is in charge (as at AMD
| currently), they will still need to have experts in (1) and
| (2), and they will need to listen to them.
| iamricks wrote:
| I agree, that is why Lisa Su runs AMD so well
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| From [0]:
|
| Gelsinger earned a master's degree from Stanford University in
| 1985, his bachelor's degree from Santa Clara University in 1983
| (magna cum laude), and an associate degree from Lincoln
| Technical Institute in 1979, all in electrical engineering.
|
| I'd call it an engineering background.
|
| [0]: https://www.vmware.com/company/leadership/pat-
| gelsinger.html
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| I've understood it as a critique of a previous CEO, not the
| new one.
| AlphaSite wrote:
| Wasn't he Andy Groves Protege?
| cletus wrote:
| Intel is in shambles. The whole 10nm thing is a fiasco at this
| point. Who could've pictured 10 years ago that Intel would've
| even considered outsourcing their fabrication? Intel's core
| strength was their seemingly unassailable lead in chip design and
| fabrication.
|
| From various articles over the years it seems that what's
| happened to Intel internally is fairly typical: internal
| fiefdoms, empire-building, turf wars and the like. This is
| something you have to actively prevent from happening.
|
| This is going to take someone with deep experience in fab
| engineering to figure out, not a bean counter. And it should
| probably involve a massive house cleaning of middle management.
|
| And no the answer isn't just another reorg. Unless you actively
| prevent it reorgs become a semi-constant thing. Every 3-6 months
| you'll be told how some VP in your management chain you've never
| heard of let alone or met now reports to some other VP you've
| never heard of or met. There'll be announcements about how the
| new structure is streamlined and better fits some new reality.
| And 6 months later you'll go through the same thing.
|
| This is a way of essentially dodging responsibility. Nothing is
| in place long enough for anyone to be accountable for anything
| working or not working.
| dave_aiello wrote:
| The world really needs a company like Intel to succeed, if only
| to take some of-- let's say-- the geographic concentration risk
| out of such a high percentage of the cutting-edge device
| manufacturers depending on TSMC's fabs.
| downrightmike wrote:
| Hopefully Pat fires all the consultants and puts engineers into
| positions that can actually make Intel succeed long term.
| acallan wrote:
| Pat was a "boy wonder" at Intel and could do no wrong -- until
| Larrabee. I was working at Intel at the time and remember always
| assuming that Pat would someday be CEO. His departure came as
| such a shock to a lot of us, as does his return.
|
| He might have what it takes to turn Intel around.
| ghaff wrote:
| There was also Intel's whole pursuit of frequency--they demoed
| I think it was a 10GHz chip at IDF at one point (and Itanium
| was essentially an ILP-oriented design)--and resistance to
| multi-core. Some of it was doubtless Intel convincing
| themselves they could make it work. But they were also under a
| lot of pressure from Microsoft who didn't have confidence that
| they could do SMP effectively--at least that's what a certain
| Intel CTO told me. (Ironically, multi-core didn't end up being
| nearly the issue a lot of people were wringing hands over at
| the time thought it would be for various reasons.)
| ethbr0 wrote:
| From my personal memory at the time, early NUMA multicore on
| Windows wasn't the smoothest sailing.
| ghaff wrote:
| It wasn't. A few years earlier, I was the product manager
| for a line of large NUMA systems which admittedly had far
| larger near-far memory latency differences than it was on
| multicore systems. Commercial Unix systems still could have
| issues for write-intensive workloads but Windows was pretty
| much unusable for configurations that had far memory.
| Things were likely better by the mid-2000s but Windows was
| definitely still behind Unix in this regard. (Don't really
| know where Linux was at that point but IBM at least had
| done work in OSDL on various scale-up optimizations.)
| SoSoRoCoCo wrote:
| Gelsinger was pushed out as CTO after horribly failing to address
| AMD's competitive threats. I have no idea how he wormed his way
| back in, but this does not bode well for Intel's future:
| Gelsinger is proof of the "Peter Principle", being promoted too
| high.
|
| EDIT: I was a bit harsh, toned it down.
|
| EDIT 2: This is probably petty, but I can't ignore the fact that
| there was a significant hubbub at Intel regarding him using the
| "Dr" prefix. He scrubbed it from his bio and internal pages when
| it was pointed it out didn't come from an accredited university
| and that it was honorary. He also caught flak internally for
| having the pope bless a wafer for Intel's future success. It was
| very weird, especially given the high percentage of Muslim
| engineers at Intel, and its focus on neutrality.
| mhh__ wrote:
| Damn, didn't read about that technique in Hennessy and
| Patterson.
|
| Odd.
| jhloa2 wrote:
| Any references on the Pope blessing a wafer? I really want to
| see this but can't find it
| SoSoRoCoCo wrote:
| Nope, I can't find it on Google. Nada. Even on Wayback. It
| may have been internal but I definitely remember it. It was
| pope Benedict.
| 1024core wrote:
| Well, $INTC is up bigtime today, so I'm guessing the market
| disagrees with you. Only time will tell.
| me_me_me wrote:
| I doubt that anyone at Intel might be offended by the blessing
| of a wafers if it worked xD
|
| The stock jumped quite high though. Not sure if its because
| really bad ceo was replaced with slightly less bad one.
| ZeroCool2u wrote:
| As an Intel shareholder, (only bought when it tanked after
| quarterly earnings this year), I can say this is exactly what
| I was waiting for.
|
| I'm not super sensitive to exactly who replaces Bob, though
| Pat seems like a decent choice having read about him now.
|
| I will say I was ready to unload the shares if Bob was
| replaced with another MBA though. Having a non-engineer lead
| an organization like Intel was a disastrous choice and
| seriously makes me question the boards judgement.
| potiuper wrote:
| Would this not logically have the opposite effect and
| seriously question the board to make consistent judgements?
| From a Wall Street perspective taking a market leader and
| financially stripping it is sound given a lack of incentive
| to innovate, but now making a 180 by trying to revive a
| dead horse with a technical push given a past history of
| itanic failures would seem like sailing into the iceberg.
| crististm wrote:
| 2012 was five years behind AMD making the comeback. If they saw
| that far into the future and didn't do anything else in that
| timeframe then maybe firing him was not for missing the
| strategy.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Richard Stallman uses the title 'Doctor' with only an honorary
| doctorate - people seem to think it's fine for some reason.
| WatchDog wrote:
| He apparently has 14 honorary doctorates, maybe after
| receiving 10 it's ok.
| bjornsing wrote:
| Isn't it a bit petty to deny him that? It seems a hell of a
| lot harder to me to get a honorary doctorate than a normal
| PhD, and I can think of a lot of PhDs who deserve their
| doctor title a lot less than Stallman.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Kanye West, Ben Affleck, Jon Bon Jovi, etc, all have
| honorary doctorates. Why does nobody call them Doctor? For
| the same reason you shouldn't call Stallman Doctor -
| because you don't do that for honorary doctorates.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honorary_degree#Use_of_title_
| a...
|
| Almost all universities _explicitly and strongly_ tell
| people they give honorary degrees to to _not_ do this.
|
| https://www.wthrockmorton.com/2017/12/11/honorary-
| doctorate-...
| bjornsing wrote:
| Well that's just social convention, and I don't place
| much emphasis on that. I reserve the right to address
| anyone I choose as "doctor", and if Stallman prefers to
| be addressed that way I'm happy to oblige. He has
| certainly earned it in my book.
|
| Same goes for Benjamin Franklin btw, whom I see you left
| out of your list.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| You're free to call him Saint IGNUcius if you want - many
| people do - and it's a similar level of connection to
| reality.
| m463 wrote:
| Good thing Dan Aykroyd got an honorary doctorate
| (Carleton) to back up Doctor Detroit.
| angry_octet wrote:
| If no one (including MIT) decided they could grant him a PhD
| on the basis of publications (rather than the more
| traditional thesis route) I don't see why we should use the
| honorific. Also, I know plenty of distinguished engineers who
| don't have a PhD, and they seem fine with it. It is the
| extremely vain who travel around being feted for faded
| laurels who I have no time for.
|
| Also, what's up with Peru? Marxism?
| https://stallman.org/biographies.html
| eco wrote:
| Silicon wafer or communion wafer?
| scandox wrote:
| Jesus was carbon based ... As far as we know.
| angry_octet wrote:
| The Church of the Silicon Jesus. I like it.
| MangoCoffee wrote:
| https://semiwiki.com/semiconductor-services/294637-2020-was-...
|
| >A few years ago, back in 2016, Intel did a "RIF" (reduction in
| force) of about 11%. Intel had previously done a significant
| reduction way back in 2006 of about 10%
|
| >In an industry that runs on "tribal knowledge" and "copy exact"
| and experience of how to run a very, very complex multi billion
| dollar fab, much of the most experienced, best talent walked out
| the doors at Intel's behest, with years of knowledge in their
| collective heads
|
| bottom line: Intel created the hole by itself and jump into that
| deep end.
| nikanj wrote:
| Management rule of thumb: For every % you cut from the bottom,
| you lose from the top. Cut 10% of workforce, and 10% of your
| best people say "yes" to the next headhunter trying to poach
| them.
| belval wrote:
| It's actually more complex than that, when a big company
| wants to reduce workforce they will fire the bottom and offer
| retirement packages to their oldest employees which are above
| or near retirement age, sometime as much as a full year of
| salary.
|
| The intuition is that older employees cost more and by
| cutting them you can reduce your payroll more significantly
| while doing what looks like smaller employee cuts from the
| outside. This is often viewed favourably by investors because
| on paper it doesn't seem as the company is stalling (head
| count is still high, costs are down). The obvious issue is
| that these older employees are not easily replaceable and you
| end up losing more velocity in the long run than originally
| anticipated.
|
| The above is more applicable to traditional blue-chip
| businesses where workforce movements are more limited. For
| software engineering (which Intel is not really) your
| assumption is correct and once cuts are announced a lot of
| your great engineers will jump ship.
| bluGill wrote:
| Those older employees better be replaceable! Many will be
| gone in a few more years because they retire anyway, so you
| should have a plan in place to save their knowledge.
|
| The above applies to everyone. When I was an intern the
| company folklore was full of horror stories because the
| last guy knew anything about a very profitable product died
| suddenly. (the product was for mainframes: clearly near end
| of life, but it was still mission critical for major
| customers and got had to get minor updates)
|
| I've also known important people to find a better job. Even
| when an offer of more money gets them to stay, my
| experience is they always wonder if they made the right
| decision and so are never again as good as they were
| before.
|
| Moral of the story: don't allow anyone in your company to
| get irreplaceable. This is good for you too: it means you
| won't stagnate doing the same thing over an over.
| belval wrote:
| I would venture that this is indeed how these exec
| rationalize the whole process. No one should be
| irreplaceable and therefore the move make sense. Even
| though management bashing is trendy these days, most
| managers/execs know these things and are not the idiots
| we satirize them to be.
|
| Even Swan is probably not an idiot, he simply expected
| everyone to struggle as much as Intel on the 7/10nm node
| and when TSMC just breezed past Intel and AMD came out
| with a much better product than anticipated he found
| himself in very hot water.
|
| (He could also be quite the idiot, I don't know him)
| graton wrote:
| Plus Intel for many years has paid slightly above average
| wages. If I recall correctly they targeted paying at about
| 55-60 percentile. The problem with that is that the FAANG
| companies will literally pay their engineers twice that.
|
| Many of the competent people I knew at Intel have left (not
| all), while many of the incompetent people I knew are still
| there.
| [deleted]
| PedroBatista wrote:
| The trillion dollar question is:
|
| Is the board leaning into the usual MBA moves 101 and turn Intel
| into a "services company" gradually going fabless and milking
| those sweet patents OR will they put the work boots on and start
| building an actual tech company with the people who actually can
| save them on the payroll? cutting on the usual contractors meat
| grinder and invite the vast armies of middle-management and
| marketing drones to leave?
| quercusa wrote:
| Or are they looking for that one acquisition that (this time!)
| will fix everything?
| CalChris wrote:
| Arguably a re-aquisition. Gelsinger was at Intel for 30
| years.
| nwsm wrote:
| They didn't mean Gelsinger _as_ the acquisition. The
| question is what direction Gelsinger will take them, with
| one option being to acquire some company or companies to
| bootstrap a new path forward.
| nikanj wrote:
| Time to sign your startup in for the lottery. Your company
| might be the next Pure Digital or Autonomy Corporation!
| daniel-thompson wrote:
| > Is the board leaning into the usual MBA moves 101
|
| Probably not, considering the guy they're throwing out the back
| door is a finance dude with an MBA and Gelsinger was/is an
| actual engineer.
| andromeduck wrote:
| BK was an engineer too but still managed to pull an Elop.
| gscott wrote:
| All of the other fabs are so busy they can't handle Intel's
| chip production plus Intel's technology is wound around their
| own labs. Switching wouldn't be easy and might end up being a
| failure and taking the company with it.
| totalZero wrote:
| The argument I've seen for outsourcing is that everyone uses
| machines from ASML et al anyway, so retooling to run a
| different company's silicon may not be as impossible as it
| seems.
|
| I think there's an issue with helping Intel temporarily,
| because if you're TSMC you'd rather use your capacity to
| serve long-term partners rather than helping Intel bridge the
| gap to 7nm only to get dropped a couple of years from now
| when they get their chips in order.
| andybak wrote:
| Tangent. I first noticed the phrase "leaning into" a couple of
| years ago and I'm _still_ not sure I understand how to use it.
|
| It's like "flex". I don't hate them (I hate "relatable" and
| "addicting" but those are apparently acceptable as real words
| now) but it's odd how they seem to bubble up suddenly out of
| nowhere.
|
| (British by the way - that might have a bearing)
| PedroBatista wrote:
| Hey don't expect help here, I barely speak my native language
| correctly let alone English :)
|
| I play it by ear and there's a high chance the "leaning into"
| expression was used incorrectly. I meant to say, the board
| was more inclined to follow a roadmap than other options.
| moistbar wrote:
| It's like when someone tells you your singing is bad, so you
| purposely ham it up for laughs. That's leaning into it.
| mattnewton wrote:
| Here I think of it as "committing to the direction," the way
| you "lean into" a tight turn on a bike or motorcycle. It's
| similar to "doubling down" or other euphemisms for committing
| harder to a course of action.
|
| The metaphor works for me -\\_(tsu)_/-
| jacques_chester wrote:
| "Lean in" was popularised by Sheryl Sandberg. It's popular
| with management types and wildly unpopular with folks who
| feel that "just work harder" coming from an actual
| billionaire is a bit patronising.
| mepian wrote:
| Pat Gelsinger fits the second option better, he has an actual
| engineering background and worked on some of the most important
| Intel products early in his career.
| CalChris wrote:
| Swan was utterly the first option.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| Pat Gelsinger didn't do that at VMW, and it seems unlikely
| he'll do it at Intel. He's an engineer.
| amelius wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pat_Gelsinger
|
| Not sure what to make of the fact that he wrote two books on
| balancing work and family life, and makes me wonder if this is
| the general that will win the silicon war. Time will tell, I
| suppose.
| mepian wrote:
| This article doesn't do him justice, he was one of the key
| people behind the 386 project which saved Intel during its
| first major crisis. After that, he went on to become the lead
| of the 486 project and kept moving up on the management ladder
| until the Larrabee fiasco.
| thunkshift1 wrote:
| Why was larrabee considered a fiasco?
| daniel-thompson wrote:
| Because it failed in its intended goal, which was to create
| a viable competitor to AMD and Nvidia at the high-end of
| the GPU market.
| wing-_-nuts wrote:
| I'm not sure that was the goal? From reading about it, it
| sounded like intel was trying to develop a high
| performance apu?
| ghaff wrote:
| That is so typically Wikipedia. 10,000 word articles on
| trivial subjects and basically a stub listicle for an article
| on the longtime CEO of one of the largest (but "uncool")
| software companies in the world.
| jack_riminton wrote:
| First job should be to acquire Jim Keller's new startup and get
| him back
| sithadmin wrote:
| Definitely a win for Intel. Pat will be sorely missed at VMware,
| though.
| iKevinShah wrote:
| Can confirm. With multiple other amazing things he brought to
| the table, he was super excited about things we were doing no
| matter how small or big. He truly respected everyone.
| Definitely will be missed.
| vkat wrote:
| I always thought VMware was super lucky to have Pat as CEO. The
| mood is pretty grim today at VMware.
| jeffrogers wrote:
| Can't wait to see which celebrity they bring on to be the next
| innovation leader...
| atlgator wrote:
| Pat completely missed the boat on building a VMWare cloud when
| AWS started taking off. Can't say I'm enthused for Intel.
| hodgesrm wrote:
| He recovered from the mistake. The drop in VMW share price on
| news that he's leaving shows what the market thinks of his
| affect on VMW value.
| hntrader wrote:
| CEO departures almost always cause a drop in the share price,
| usually not because the CEO is considered great but investors
| perceive it to signal private information about the state of
| the company
| ghaff wrote:
| He didn't become CEO of VMware until 2012 which is 6 years
| after AWS launched. Even if VMware had decided to directly go
| after AWS, they would have started way behind. Also, for good
| reasons and bad, it's unclear to me that would have been a
| great move. IMO, you can look to other trends they could have
| latched onto more quickly that would have been better fits.
| [deleted]
| hehehaha wrote:
| Really don't see how this changes things inside Intel. Pat
| Gelsinger is not new to Intel at all. This is just playing
| musical chairs.
| totalZero wrote:
| Pat was fairly effective at VMW. The fact that he himself is
| not new to Intel is probably beneficial for the company, but
| there's a pretty substantial difference between being CTO and
| actually steering the ship.
|
| I'm not comparing Gelsinger to Steve Jobs in a general sense,
| but Jobs wasn't new to Apple when he returned -- and yet Jobs'
| return to leadership was transformative for the company.
| JohnJamesRambo wrote:
| Only in the incestuous world of CEOs does being "fairly
| effective" at your last job grant you the keys to one of the
| biggest companies in the world.
| ghaff wrote:
| You could argue that VMware was slow to move into
| containers and should probably have better leveraged
| Pivotal before they drew them in. The former is something
| of an innovator's dilemma thing. The lack of focus on
| developers and applications was something of a VMware blind
| spot going back to Diane Greene days. But "fairly
| effective" underplays how well VMware has done over the
| past 10 years or so overall. There are things they should
| have been more aggressive about, especially with the
| benefit of hindsight, but they've been a very successful
| software company/subsidiary.
| hehehaha wrote:
| I see a lot of parallels between what happened at Boeing and
| now at Intel. It's a cultural phenomenon and I am not
| convinced Pat is going to shake things up.
|
| When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he literally fired most,
| if not all, of management consulting types. He changed the
| culture overnight. I don't see that happening at Intel (but I
| hope I am wrong).
| newsclues wrote:
| If it puts a focus on Engineering leadership, it could work.
| swyx wrote:
| poor guy. stepped in way too late to catch up to AMD, now falling
| on his sword. Intel needs a Wartime CEO now.
|
| (that said i'm sure he's crying all the way to the bank with his
| millions so i'm not feeling too sorry for him)
| eznzt wrote:
| Yes, they should call Stephen Elop
| mathattack wrote:
| Wow! Big musical chairs.
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