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 trium

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.