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I worked for 3 months for Intel. I can genuinely say that there is no saving that company. Recently, they are hiring many PhDs from various US universities (par

I worked for 3 months for Intel. I can genuinely say that there is no saving that company. Recently, they are hiring many PhDs from various US universities (particularly Indians) to try to compensate (they offer generous stocks and are hiring like crazy right now). There are two major problems I saw: lack of genuine interest in fabs (most people are there for the Intel name and then leave or in the case of Indians, they are there for Visa purposes. Mind you, we were not allowed to hire people from China since Intel is subject to Export laws). The biggest problem by far is lack of talent. Most of the talent I know is either at Apple or Facebook/Google, including those trained in hardware. Intel is bound to crumble, so I hope we as taxpayers don't foot the bill. There was unwillingness to innovate and almost everyone wanted to maintain the status quo. This might work in traditional manufacturing (think tennis rackets, furniture...), but fabs must improve their lithography manufacturing nodes or they get eaten by the competition

bentcorner 2y ago
> Most of the talent I know is either at Apple or Facebook/Google A relative of mine with a PhD sounds exactly like this. Worked for Intel on chip-production tech then was hired by Apple about 10 years ago, working on stuff that gets mentioned in Apple keynotes.
AdrianB1 2y ago
A few years ago a CEO of Intel (not Gelsinger) said something like "our CPU architecture is so well-known every college student can work on it". A friend working at Intel at that time translated it to me: "we will hire cheap students to work on chips and we will let the expensive engineers leave". At least in his department the senior engineers left, they were replaced by fresh graduates. It did not work, that department closed. I have no idea how widespread this was inside Intel, but I saw it in other big companies, in some with my own eyes.
- MPSFounder 2y ago
  Funny you mention this. In my brief stint there, I saw a fresh college graduate get promoted to a lead for a Scanning Unit simply because the current lead was retiring (I was actually offered that position, but I was leaving and turned it down). They were trained in less than a month by shadowing the lead on-the-verge-of-retirement. The engineer who got promoted was at Intel less than a year, and had no prior internship experience (they were hired in 2021 when chips were in desperate need of talent. You might recall the chip shortage that affected cars etc.)
- fransje26 2y ago
  > A few years ago a CEO of Intel (not Gelsinger) said something like "our CPU architecture is so well-known every college student can work on it". A friend working at Intel at that time translated it to me: "we will hire cheap students to work on chips and we will let the expensive engineers leave" Reminds me of the Boeing managers saying that they didn't need senior engineers because its products were mature.. A few blown doors and deadly crashes later, that didn't age well.. https://archive.is/H9eh9#selection-3935.0-3935.163 https://archive.is/H9eh9#selection-3935.0-3935.163
- amluto 2y ago
  I know some people who understand x86 [0] very well. Most of them do not work at Intel. Those that do tend to be on the OSS side and don’t really have any sway in the parts of Intel that design new hardware. And this is a problem! Most of Intel’s recent major architectural changes over the last decade or so have been flops. [1] Quite a few have been reverted, often even after they ship. I presume that Intel does not actually have many people who are really qualified to work on the architecture. [0] I’m talking about how it interacts with an OS and how you put it together into a working system. Understand stuff like SIMD is a different thing. [1] AVX and its successors are notable exceptions, but they still have issues, and Intel did not really rock the early implementations.
osnium123 2y ago
Were you working on the fab side of things?
- MPSFounder 2y ago
  Don't want to dox myself, but I worked at one of the fabs (Fab11X)
aprilthird2021 2y ago
Your two major problems would both be solved by paying more, but it sounds like they are paying well, according to you? Genuine interest is not the only way to get great results. Excellent pay can do so as well. And lack of talent, again, excellent pay.
araes 2y ago
> lack of genuine interest in fabs - most people are there for the Intel name I can actually believe this. Of most of the rest of the arguments, that tend to be rather vague, and wave at implementation, or some stock related motivation (like we need TSMCs business), a lack of genuine interest in the employees that was not sold to them or the market especially effectively seems fairly believable. Most people are there for the chips, for making great designs in silicon, and being market leaders in CPU architecture. Not running the equivalent of an offshoring division making other people's stuff. The entire implementation has seemed rather haphazard and not sold with much real motivation. Honestly, the entire situation feels a bit like Afghanistan (if that's a bit incendiary) Nobody really knows why they're going. Nobody really knows what they're trying to accomplish. The objectives on the ground seem vague, ephemeral, and constantly changing. There's not much passion among the ground troops about the idea. The leaders always seem to be far away, and making strange proclamations, without actually putting boots in the dirt. The information released often feels multiple personalityish, like there's far too many cooks in the kitchen, or far too many puppeteers pulling strings in every direction. And afterward you find out it was mostly some dumpster fire driven by completely different motivations than what were publicly acknowledged.
- MPSFounder 2y ago
  The senior engineers I saw there are talented. And Intel has benefits and stock packages that rival those of big tech. I think I can expand on your point by saying the more senior engineers were risk averse and on the verge of retirement, and the young engineers were just there for the Intel name or some other reason. There is surprisingly very few middle-aged long-term people down there. This would be expected in software (Facebook/Google), but it is a recipe for disaster in hardware where long term thinking is critical to advance lithography (changed don't happen overnight). I also was surprised by how few of Intel's engineers believed in Intel. The most stark observation I made was senior engineers would max their stock purchase plan, but many young engineers would abstain. If the engineers don't believe in the product they are working on, I don't accept that the gov. must bail it out. I hope some investigative journalist writes a book on Intel and Boeing someday, as I would be curious as to how things unfolded and got to this point. There are many similarities (I never worked for Boeing, but have friends in Seattle that describe the culture in similar terms to what I saw at Intel). Also, to your last point, the Intel name does not hold as much weight as it did in the Grove days.
2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
> Most of the talent I know is either at Apple or Facebook/Google That's a damn shame. Big tech monopolies are screwing up the talent market. Nobody can match their comp and it's bullshit
- lend000 2y ago
  The problem is that Intel is poorly run. Intel should be printing money, and did for a long time until a string of bad leadership. If they had brought in Gelsinger after Otellini, which they were reported to have considered, the company might be in a much better position. But alas, Intel is a mega bureaucratic company with a few tiny siloed teams responsible for innovating and everyone else being test and process jockeys. I think Gelsinger wasn't given enough time, personally, and agree with the OP that even someone like Elon would struggle to keep this sinking ship afloat at this point. BK wanted wearables and Bob Swan wanted to cut costs; neither of them were visionaries nor did they really understand that Intel was a hard tech company. Intel had achieved such dominance in such a in-demand, growing market, that all they had to do was make the technology better (smaller, faster, lower power) and the money would continue to flow. The mandate was straightforward and they failed.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago
  The companies that are big tech today took the risks and are now reaping the rewards. Intel decided not to take the risks, so now it doesn’t reap the rewards. No one stopped Intel from paying for talent. Intel’s shareholders decided to pay themselves instead of investing in the business by hiring great employees. That’s how you go from being a leader to a laggard.
- runeblaze 2y ago
  I am sure Intel has enough cash to hire some good talent (like just offer talented people next-level salary at $FAANG), the problem is deeper in the hiring pipeline -- convincing people of the budget and actually scouting and retaining good people
zoofrak 2y ago
[flagged]
- ragnot 2y ago
  Got a link?
osnium123 2y ago
Do you think Intel can improve the quality of engineers on the fab side by offering PhD level salaries to people with BS/MS from good graduates from good US schools? I suspect that Intel hires PhDs from subpar universities.
runeblaze 2y ago
While I am sure the foot soldier quality is important, we ought to put the burden on leadership a bit more. I am not sure AMD had a better talent pool (I don't work in the industry so I don't know!) ten years ago. Culture is predominantly shaped by those already in power -- it sounds like they need a change in culture.

bentcorner 2y ago

> Most of the talent I know is either at Apple or Facebook/Google A relative of mine with a PhD sounds exactly like this. Worked for Intel on chip-production tech then was hired by Apple about 10 years ago, working on stuff that gets mentioned in Apple keynotes.

AdrianB1 2y ago

A few years ago a CEO of Intel (not Gelsinger) said something like "our CPU architecture is so well-known every college student can work on it". A friend working at Intel at that time translated it to me: "we will hire cheap students to work on chips and we will let the expensive engineers leave". At least in his department the senior engineers left, they were replaced by fresh graduates. It did not work, that department closed. I have no idea how widespread this was inside Intel, but I saw it in other big companies, in some with my own eyes.

MPSFounder 2y ago
Funny you mention this. In my brief stint there, I saw a fresh college graduate get promoted to a lead for a Scanning Unit simply because the current lead was retiring (I was actually offered that position, but I was leaving and turned it down). They were trained in less than a month by shadowing the lead on-the-verge-of-retirement. The engineer who got promoted was at Intel less than a year, and had no prior internship experience (they were hired in 2021 when chips were in desperate need of talent. You might recall the chip shortage that affected cars etc.)
fransje26 2y ago
> A few years ago a CEO of Intel (not Gelsinger) said something like "our CPU architecture is so well-known every college student can work on it". A friend working at Intel at that time translated it to me: "we will hire cheap students to work on chips and we will let the expensive engineers leave" Reminds me of the Boeing managers saying that they didn't need senior engineers because its products were mature.. A few blown doors and deadly crashes later, that didn't age well.. https://archive.is/H9eh9#selection-3935.0-3935.163 https://archive.is/H9eh9#selection-3935.0-3935.163
amluto 2y ago
I know some people who understand x86 [0] very well. Most of them do not work at Intel. Those that do tend to be on the OSS side and don’t really have any sway in the parts of Intel that design new hardware. And this is a problem! Most of Intel’s recent major architectural changes over the last decade or so have been flops. [1] Quite a few have been reverted, often even after they ship. I presume that Intel does not actually have many people who are really qualified to work on the architecture. [0] I’m talking about how it interacts with an OS and how you put it together into a working system. Understand stuff like SIMD is a different thing. [1] AVX and its successors are notable exceptions, but they still have issues, and Intel did not really rock the early implementations.

osnium123 2y ago

Were you working on the fab side of things?

MPSFounder 2y ago
Don't want to dox myself, but I worked at one of the fabs (Fab11X)

aprilthird2021 2y ago

Your two major problems would both be solved by paying more, but it sounds like they are paying well, according to you? Genuine interest is not the only way to get great results. Excellent pay can do so as well. And lack of talent, again, excellent pay.

araes 2y ago

> lack of genuine interest in fabs - most people are there for the Intel name I can actually believe this. Of most of the rest of the arguments, that tend to be rather vague, and wave at implementation, or some stock related motivation (like we need TSMCs business), a lack of genuine interest in the employees that was not sold to them or the market especially effectively seems fairly believable. Most people are there for the chips, for making great designs in silicon, and being market leaders in CPU architecture. Not running the equivalent of an offshoring division making other people's stuff. The entire implementation has seemed rather haphazard and not sold with much real motivation. Honestly, the entire situation feels a bit like Afghanistan (if that's a bit incendiary) Nobody really knows why they're going. Nobody really knows what they're trying to accomplish. The objectives on the ground seem vague, ephemeral, and constantly changing. There's not much passion among the ground troops about the idea. The leaders always seem to be far away, and making strange proclamations, without actually putting boots in the dirt. The information released often feels multiple personalityish, like there's far too many cooks in the kitchen, or far too many puppeteers pulling strings in every direction. And afterward you find out it was mostly some dumpster fire driven by completely different motivations than what were publicly acknowledged.

MPSFounder 2y ago
The senior engineers I saw there are talented. And Intel has benefits and stock packages that rival those of big tech. I think I can expand on your point by saying the more senior engineers were risk averse and on the verge of retirement, and the young engineers were just there for the Intel name or some other reason. There is surprisingly very few middle-aged long-term people down there. This would be expected in software (Facebook/Google), but it is a recipe for disaster in hardware where long term thinking is critical to advance lithography (changed don't happen overnight). I also was surprised by how few of Intel's engineers believed in Intel. The most stark observation I made was senior engineers would max their stock purchase plan, but many young engineers would abstain. If the engineers don't believe in the product they are working on, I don't accept that the gov. must bail it out. I hope some investigative journalist writes a book on Intel and Boeing someday, as I would be curious as to how things unfolded and got to this point. There are many similarities (I never worked for Boeing, but have friends in Seattle that describe the culture in similar terms to what I saw at Intel). Also, to your last point, the Intel name does not hold as much weight as it did in the Grove days.

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago

> Most of the talent I know is either at Apple or Facebook/Google That's a damn shame. Big tech monopolies are screwing up the talent market. Nobody can match their comp and it's bullshit

lend000 2y ago
The problem is that Intel is poorly run. Intel should be printing money, and did for a long time until a string of bad leadership. If they had brought in Gelsinger after Otellini, which they were reported to have considered, the company might be in a much better position. But alas, Intel is a mega bureaucratic company with a few tiny siloed teams responsible for innovating and everyone else being test and process jockeys. I think Gelsinger wasn't given enough time, personally, and agree with the OP that even someone like Elon would struggle to keep this sinking ship afloat at this point. BK wanted wearables and Bob Swan wanted to cut costs; neither of them were visionaries nor did they really understand that Intel was a hard tech company. Intel had achieved such dominance in such a in-demand, growing market, that all they had to do was make the technology better (smaller, faster, lower power) and the money would continue to flow. The mandate was straightforward and they failed.
lotsofpulp 2y ago
The companies that are big tech today took the risks and are now reaping the rewards. Intel decided not to take the risks, so now it doesn’t reap the rewards. No one stopped Intel from paying for talent. Intel’s shareholders decided to pay themselves instead of investing in the business by hiring great employees. That’s how you go from being a leader to a laggard.
runeblaze 2y ago
I am sure Intel has enough cash to hire some good talent (like just offer talented people next-level salary at $FAANG), the problem is deeper in the hiring pipeline -- convincing people of the budget and actually scouting and retaining good people

zoofrak 2y ago

[flagged]

ragnot 2y ago
Got a link?

osnium123 2y ago

Do you think Intel can improve the quality of engineers on the fab side by offering PhD level salaries to people with BS/MS from good graduates from good US schools? I suspect that Intel hires PhDs from subpar universities.

runeblaze 2y ago

While I am sure the foot soldier quality is important, we ought to put the burden on leadership a bit more. I am not sure AMD had a better talent pool (I don't work in the industry so I don't know!) ten years ago. Culture is predominantly shaped by those already in power -- it sounds like they need a change in culture.