8 ms·

Forget all the technical problems, fixing Intel is mostly about figuring out how they let a bunch of MBAs mismanage the company to the point that they squandere

Forget all the technical problems, fixing Intel is mostly about figuring out how they let a bunch of MBAs mismanage the company to the point that they squandered a two-decade long global monopoly on computing, in an era where computing absolutely dominated global economic development. I mean, when you put it that way, it's genuinely astounding that they managed to find themselves technically so far behind, and so quickly. This was not a minor mismanagement fuck up, this is complete incompetence. Things clearly need to be burnt to the ground, they need a lot of churn. If they can get back to being engineering-driven rather than financially driven, it will all fall into place.

foobiekr 6y ago
Once you invite the vampire into the house should you really be surprised that you find it sucking your blood? The answer is that like most large companies they decided technologist leadership no longer mattered. It’s a pattern that repeats again and again and that is because the people who need to learn the lesson most are counter-incentivized to do so.
- bcrl 6y ago
  Several conversations on this topic have brought up that pay rates at Intel are now less than the median of the industry. This would be fallout from actions by the MBAs in charge, but I don't think it's just an MBA issue. Something is clearly rotten in middle management in Intel. Either the people investigating the problems with their process weren't given the freedom to experiment to narrow down the scope of the problem, or they lost all their competent process engineers and are left with insufficient clue to fix the problem. If Intel has to rebuild their process group from scratch, they could be in for additional years of pain as new people come up to speed. Given that the United States is no longer a leader in bleeding edge process technology, this could take far longer than expected. How long will it take Intel to poach enough talent from TSMC to make a difference? And will they be able to integrate into Intel's culture?
  - headgasket 6y ago
    The Israel group saved their behind in the days of the Pentium M. It seems like skunk works projects have been crucial to Intel, but the last decade has been a lot of tick tock strategy and not a lot of hard engineering...
    - Sophistifunk 6y ago
      I don't have any insider info, but to my eyes a lot of this change would be risk aversion caused by the Itanium disaster.
ska 6y ago
> figuring out how they let a bunch of MBAs mismanage the company I think this is often stated as a cause, but more usually a symptom.
tshaddox 6y ago
> fixing Intel is mostly about figuring out how they let a bunch of MBAs mismanage the company to the point that they squandered a two-decade long global monopoly on computing, in an era where computing absolutely dominated global economic development. Isn’t the situation you described precisely where we would expect stagnation to be very likely?
- ethbr0 6y ago
  As with many algorithms, coin flips might have been better.
wpietri 6y ago
> bunch of MBAs mismanage the company to the point that they squandered a two-decade long global monopoly on computing I'm generally happy to blame MBAs for quite a bit. But isn't this also part of the nature of monopolies? A lack of competition means that in the short term, strategy doesn't matter at all. There was a period where Intel execs could have run the company via astrological chart or coin flip and done just as well for themselves. Managerialism and other MBA ideologies make that worse for sure.
- osigurdson 6y ago
  It is strange that the MBA was such a coveted designation for such a long time. Is there literally no value in management?
  - SmellTheGlove 6y ago
    I'm management, albeit not at Intel, and I don't have/have no interest in an MBA, so read in whatever biases you'd like. Or decide I'm full of shit, that's possible too. There is value in management, but management has to realize that it doesn't exist for its own sake. That's a tough one when "management is the company" is effectively what anyone's been taught for decades now. The problem is, I think, that it is an oversimplification. Nominally management makes the decisions, but we aren't where the product gets built or sold. The company is as successful as its products, and so maybe the product is the company, and we're all doing our part to make it the best thing that people want. I'd like to think I'm a good leader. Probably not the best one - there are plenty of folks I look up to. Probably not the worst one, but that's not for me to decide. In any case, as middle management, [0] I see three major components to my role: 1. Hire and retain really talented people who are good at what we do; 2. Decide what we'll work on now, what we'll do later, and what we won't do; [1] and 3. Sponsor my team and provide air cover for #2 I generally have a pretty good idea of _what_ to do, but not always exactly. I used to know _how_ to do it, but I'm probably not the best at that today. My goal is to hire or develop a team that can put a fine point on the _what_, or challenge me when I'm wrong, and to own the _how_. In terms of sponsorship and air cover, it's taking 1 and 2 above, and keeping it on the rails with minimal disruption. I see good middle management as needing to be very team-focused, caring for the health and composition of the team above all. Sometimes that means absorbing a lot coming from above, and sometimes it means being really pushy upwards to get what we need to be successful. But the team should be free to execute if we're doing our jobs well, and their end of the bargain is to deliver what we agreed to do. This is not the philosophy of all middle managers, and I'm sure there are other models that work. This is the one I can speak to. -- [0]: "Middle management" defined as someone who manages other managers but is not C-level. [1]: This doesn't mean I cook this shit up. I'm listening to the team I manage, as well as the priorities and directives coming from above, and applying my filters. Gotta figure they hired me because I know generally what to do in my space, and the team agreed to work with me because I have the ability to point them toward the critical path and push the debris out of the way before they run into it. Without management, there are either too many ideas to harmonize, or you get lucky and the team converges on the right one. I think good middle management helps us converge on the right ideas faster.
totalZero 6y ago
> they squandered a two-decade long global monopoly on computing This conclusion is extremely premature. Intel has greater market share now than it did in the Athlon 64 days.
- mirekrusin 6y ago
  Isn’t it obvious they are at the cliff of total collapse? They’re still flying, but all engines are off.
  - totalZero 6y ago
    Why, because they are one node behind the competition? Intel pulled in revenue of $77.9 billion last year. I don't think total collapse is a realistic outcome.
  - hollerith 6y ago
    Investors don't think so: stock price is twice what it was 5 years ago.
rich_sasha 6y ago
While I largely agree, it is also true that running a business requires very different skills than building its product. MBA or not, technologist or not, you can still be good or bad at what you do. Smart or stupid. I think simply looking at a mismanaged tech company and saying “ah too many MBAs in charge” is missing the point. My guess is, if you look at the well-ran large companies, these will also have an MBA-rich management core. I worked at a mid-sized company completely driven by technological people, with no one having a solid business background. It wasn’t good.
DrBazza 6y ago
> I mean, when you put it that way, it's genuinely astounding that they managed to find themselves technically so far behind, and so quickly. This was not a minor mismanagement fuck up, this is complete incompetence. Is it though? Or is it just the hardware of equivalent of the risky move of throwing it all away and rewriting from scratch for version 2? Intel have just incrementally improved their design, whereas AMD threw theirs away and almost disappeared in the process. In a parallel dimension, Intel could be exactly where they are now, with no AMD. But... I agree that there was/is clearly a huge amount of incompetence letting non-engineers run an engineering company.
- bbarnett 6y ago
  I wonder. Large corps do gather intelligence on the competition. Even small ones do. For example, when a new pizza place opened in town, the one I worked for when in College, immediately ordered one to see what they were like, pricing, taste, etc. Large corps go way beyond this, and information does leak. Bribes, promised promotions and roles at the new company, theft of code, processes, trade secrets. You do not have to use trade secrets, IP, or processes in house, and can silo that info from engineers / the main company. Yet having an awareness of these things, gives you an idea of how much to spend on research. I wonder, did Intel not do any of this? Did they do so, but AMD security/counter espionage worked to provide a fake picture? I wonder how large corps operate in this realm, these days.
jl2718 6y ago
I think they should replace every person in the hierarchy with a randomly-selected subordinate.
ksec 6y ago
>how they let a bunch of MBAs mismanage the company to the point that they squandered a two-decade long global monopoly on computing A MBA Story. Once upon a time, a MBA joined a company, worked his way from Finance Director to C grade. He could probably be described as pure breed MBA. He made friends with other rare MBA in the company and improve their career path along the way. Why? Because that is what you do, MBA always help another MBA. Somewhere along the line, the company's first non-technical / engineer MBA CEO was born. As the company grow there are more MBAs, but not all MBAs are bad, you just need engineers and product people around these MBA. But some of these engineers or product genius [1] are pain in the ass to manage, and since many of them dont have MBA, they dont understand MBA speak and they get driven out of company decision making forum. So what happened was these product engineers got rotted out over the years even when they are C grade and out very publicly. With leading edge tech company there is a very long lead time in their product R&D roadmap, so they were fine for the first few years, and continue to make record breaking results. Then MBA move his way up to the board and become chairman just in the time before his MBA CEO friend retired. Which means MBA Chairman gets to pick a new CEO again, guess which CEO would a MBA pick? Another MBA! Since MBA always help another MBA, new MBA CEO promoted more MBA to various rolls within the company. And MBA cult now officially dictate the company decision making. Everything was great for a few more years, the market was growing, they have a monopoly and most important of all, they are doing great because they are MBA. At least that is what those MBA thought. Until one day cracks started appearing, MBA CEO thought it was all fine, but with time external pressure were piling in and the whole industry moved on. The market looked very differently to what company were 10 years ago. And somehow the MBA CEO already had an on going internal investigation which shows he had an inappropriate relationship and was let go. Which is the MBA speak of CEO being fired. And a recently arrived CFO was named as interim CEO while MBA Chairman and Board continue their CEO search. They could hire other MBA from outside the company, but since the leading edge tech company are a gigantic company with so many different specific domain knowledge and culture. The suitable choice outside the company are virtually nil. MBA Chairman looked at CFO, despite not being his first choice and is fairly new to the tech company, but he has a MBA! And the third MBA CEO was born. The market is moving at a much faster pace than before. To give credit to the new MBA CEO he was trying very hard to steer the ship to a new path and direction. The tech company are already behind. These new direction and requirement are completely new, MBA middle management have no idea what they are doing and cant turn the ship fast enough. And while they are still turning, the industry has moved further along. I guess this is an example of MBA being killed by MBA. Finally shareholder were so fed up, some of them asked the same question; >how they mismanage the company to the point that they squandered a two-decade long global monopoly on computing, in an era where computing absolutely dominated global economic development. There are very little choice of what shareholder could do. They need those product engineers back. And a new CEO. But the perfect candidate had a fallout with MBA Chairman a decade ago, the only option was to rally enough support to get rid of him. In the end, MBA Charimand retired, a new Board Chairman was named, and those product engineers are back to save the company. As far as the MBA story goes, this is the end. We dont know what happen to the leading edge company, I guess that part is To be continued. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmFlOd0MGZg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmFlOd0MGZg

foobiekr 6y ago

Once you invite the vampire into the house should you really be surprised that you find it sucking your blood? The answer is that like most large companies they decided technologist leadership no longer mattered. It’s a pattern that repeats again and again and that is because the people who need to learn the lesson most are counter-incentivized to do so.

bcrl 6y ago
Several conversations on this topic have brought up that pay rates at Intel are now less than the median of the industry. This would be fallout from actions by the MBAs in charge, but I don't think it's just an MBA issue. Something is clearly rotten in middle management in Intel. Either the people investigating the problems with their process weren't given the freedom to experiment to narrow down the scope of the problem, or they lost all their competent process engineers and are left with insufficient clue to fix the problem. If Intel has to rebuild their process group from scratch, they could be in for additional years of pain as new people come up to speed. Given that the United States is no longer a leader in bleeding edge process technology, this could take far longer than expected. How long will it take Intel to poach enough talent from TSMC to make a difference? And will they be able to integrate into Intel's culture?
- headgasket 6y ago
  The Israel group saved their behind in the days of the Pentium M. It seems like skunk works projects have been crucial to Intel, but the last decade has been a lot of tick tock strategy and not a lot of hard engineering...
  - Sophistifunk 6y ago
    I don't have any insider info, but to my eyes a lot of this change would be risk aversion caused by the Itanium disaster.

ska 6y ago

> figuring out how they let a bunch of MBAs mismanage the company I think this is often stated as a cause, but more usually a symptom.

tshaddox 6y ago

> fixing Intel is mostly about figuring out how they let a bunch of MBAs mismanage the company to the point that they squandered a two-decade long global monopoly on computing, in an era where computing absolutely dominated global economic development. Isn’t the situation you described precisely where we would expect stagnation to be very likely?

ethbr0 6y ago
As with many algorithms, coin flips might have been better.

wpietri 6y ago

> bunch of MBAs mismanage the company to the point that they squandered a two-decade long global monopoly on computing I'm generally happy to blame MBAs for quite a bit. But isn't this also part of the nature of monopolies? A lack of competition means that in the short term, strategy doesn't matter at all. There was a period where Intel execs could have run the company via astrological chart or coin flip and done just as well for themselves. Managerialism and other MBA ideologies make that worse for sure.

osigurdson 6y ago
It is strange that the MBA was such a coveted designation for such a long time. Is there literally no value in management?
- SmellTheGlove 6y ago
  I'm management, albeit not at Intel, and I don't have/have no interest in an MBA, so read in whatever biases you'd like. Or decide I'm full of shit, that's possible too. There is value in management, but management has to realize that it doesn't exist for its own sake. That's a tough one when "management is the company" is effectively what anyone's been taught for decades now. The problem is, I think, that it is an oversimplification. Nominally management makes the decisions, but we aren't where the product gets built or sold. The company is as successful as its products, and so maybe the product is the company, and we're all doing our part to make it the best thing that people want. I'd like to think I'm a good leader. Probably not the best one - there are plenty of folks I look up to. Probably not the worst one, but that's not for me to decide. In any case, as middle management, [0] I see three major components to my role: 1. Hire and retain really talented people who are good at what we do; 2. Decide what we'll work on now, what we'll do later, and what we won't do; [1] and 3. Sponsor my team and provide air cover for #2 I generally have a pretty good idea of _what_ to do, but not always exactly. I used to know _how_ to do it, but I'm probably not the best at that today. My goal is to hire or develop a team that can put a fine point on the _what_, or challenge me when I'm wrong, and to own the _how_. In terms of sponsorship and air cover, it's taking 1 and 2 above, and keeping it on the rails with minimal disruption. I see good middle management as needing to be very team-focused, caring for the health and composition of the team above all. Sometimes that means absorbing a lot coming from above, and sometimes it means being really pushy upwards to get what we need to be successful. But the team should be free to execute if we're doing our jobs well, and their end of the bargain is to deliver what we agreed to do. This is not the philosophy of all middle managers, and I'm sure there are other models that work. This is the one I can speak to. -- [0]: "Middle management" defined as someone who manages other managers but is not C-level. [1]: This doesn't mean I cook this shit up. I'm listening to the team I manage, as well as the priorities and directives coming from above, and applying my filters. Gotta figure they hired me because I know generally what to do in my space, and the team agreed to work with me because I have the ability to point them toward the critical path and push the debris out of the way before they run into it. Without management, there are either too many ideas to harmonize, or you get lucky and the team converges on the right one. I think good middle management helps us converge on the right ideas faster.

totalZero 6y ago

> they squandered a two-decade long global monopoly on computing This conclusion is extremely premature. Intel has greater market share now than it did in the Athlon 64 days.

mirekrusin 6y ago
Isn’t it obvious they are at the cliff of total collapse? They’re still flying, but all engines are off.
- totalZero 6y ago
  Why, because they are one node behind the competition? Intel pulled in revenue of $77.9 billion last year. I don't think total collapse is a realistic outcome.
- hollerith 6y ago
  Investors don't think so: stock price is twice what it was 5 years ago.

rich_sasha 6y ago

While I largely agree, it is also true that running a business requires very different skills than building its product. MBA or not, technologist or not, you can still be good or bad at what you do. Smart or stupid. I think simply looking at a mismanaged tech company and saying “ah too many MBAs in charge” is missing the point. My guess is, if you look at the well-ran large companies, these will also have an MBA-rich management core. I worked at a mid-sized company completely driven by technological people, with no one having a solid business background. It wasn’t good.

DrBazza 6y ago

> I mean, when you put it that way, it's genuinely astounding that they managed to find themselves technically so far behind, and so quickly. This was not a minor mismanagement fuck up, this is complete incompetence. Is it though? Or is it just the hardware of equivalent of the risky move of throwing it all away and rewriting from scratch for version 2? Intel have just incrementally improved their design, whereas AMD threw theirs away and almost disappeared in the process. In a parallel dimension, Intel could be exactly where they are now, with no AMD. But... I agree that there was/is clearly a huge amount of incompetence letting non-engineers run an engineering company.

bbarnett 6y ago
I wonder. Large corps do gather intelligence on the competition. Even small ones do. For example, when a new pizza place opened in town, the one I worked for when in College, immediately ordered one to see what they were like, pricing, taste, etc. Large corps go way beyond this, and information does leak. Bribes, promised promotions and roles at the new company, theft of code, processes, trade secrets. You do not have to use trade secrets, IP, or processes in house, and can silo that info from engineers / the main company. Yet having an awareness of these things, gives you an idea of how much to spend on research. I wonder, did Intel not do any of this? Did they do so, but AMD security/counter espionage worked to provide a fake picture? I wonder how large corps operate in this realm, these days.

jl2718 6y ago

I think they should replace every person in the hierarchy with a randomly-selected subordinate.

ksec 6y ago

>how they let a bunch of MBAs mismanage the company to the point that they squandered a two-decade long global monopoly on computing A MBA Story. Once upon a time, a MBA joined a company, worked his way from Finance Director to C grade. He could probably be described as pure breed MBA. He made friends with other rare MBA in the company and improve their career path along the way. Why? Because that is what you do, MBA always help another MBA. Somewhere along the line, the company's first non-technical / engineer MBA CEO was born. As the company grow there are more MBAs, but not all MBAs are bad, you just need engineers and product people around these MBA. But some of these engineers or product genius [1] are pain in the ass to manage, and since many of them dont have MBA, they dont understand MBA speak and they get driven out of company decision making forum. So what happened was these product engineers got rotted out over the years even when they are C grade and out very publicly. With leading edge tech company there is a very long lead time in their product R&D roadmap, so they were fine for the first few years, and continue to make record breaking results. Then MBA move his way up to the board and become chairman just in the time before his MBA CEO friend retired. Which means MBA Chairman gets to pick a new CEO again, guess which CEO would a MBA pick? Another MBA! Since MBA always help another MBA, new MBA CEO promoted more MBA to various rolls within the company. And MBA cult now officially dictate the company decision making. Everything was great for a few more years, the market was growing, they have a monopoly and most important of all, they are doing great because they are MBA. At least that is what those MBA thought. Until one day cracks started appearing, MBA CEO thought it was all fine, but with time external pressure were piling in and the whole industry moved on. The market looked very differently to what company were 10 years ago. And somehow the MBA CEO already had an on going internal investigation which shows he had an inappropriate relationship and was let go. Which is the MBA speak of CEO being fired. And a recently arrived CFO was named as interim CEO while MBA Chairman and Board continue their CEO search. They could hire other MBA from outside the company, but since the leading edge tech company are a gigantic company with so many different specific domain knowledge and culture. The suitable choice outside the company are virtually nil. MBA Chairman looked at CFO, despite not being his first choice and is fairly new to the tech company, but he has a MBA! And the third MBA CEO was born. The market is moving at a much faster pace than before. To give credit to the new MBA CEO he was trying very hard to steer the ship to a new path and direction. The tech company are already behind. These new direction and requirement are completely new, MBA middle management have no idea what they are doing and cant turn the ship fast enough. And while they are still turning, the industry has moved further along. I guess this is an example of MBA being killed by MBA. Finally shareholder were so fed up, some of them asked the same question; >how they mismanage the company to the point that they squandered a two-decade long global monopoly on computing, in an era where computing absolutely dominated global economic development. There are very little choice of what shareholder could do. They need those product engineers back. And a new CEO. But the perfect candidate had a fallout with MBA Chairman a decade ago, the only option was to rally enough support to get rid of him. In the end, MBA Charimand retired, a new Board Chairman was named, and those product engineers are back to save the company. As far as the MBA story goes, this is the end. We dont know what happen to the leading edge company, I guess that part is To be continued. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmFlOd0MGZg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmFlOd0MGZg