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Intel From Behind the Curtain
Good Morning Silicon Valley writes "So now that we've reached this postmodern understanding that all official corporate communication is, if not a charade, part of a ritualized dance where meaning must be divined between the lines, where do you turn to hear an executive talk straight? Why, to his or her blog, of course. Even more candid than the still-rare public executive blog is one meant just for internal consumption, and that's what makes Intel President Paul Otellini's postings such interesting reading. The Mercury News snagged a copy of Otellini's 8-week-old blog and found it full of frank interaction with employees on strategic initiatives and the competition."
Do ya think?
Many employees get fired for this sort of candid thing...
I suppose seeing as he's the president that that would be sorta difficult.
Does anyone see the board coming down on him?
Obviously, someone doesn't read their company memos.
It reads like something customers are supposed to see, talking about "customer focus" and other such nonsense. He even mentions on the blog that he expected it to go public, so how exactly is this "Straight Talk From Executives"?
You know it's in poor taste that someone decided to "leak" this information. Business is nothing with open communication/exchange of ideas within its walls. And while some leaks are inevitable it is unfortunate that some employee decided to exploit this forum. The result of this will probably mean that businesses will become less adoptive of technology to exchange ideas until such time as DRM can evolve to the point where the information can be "protected."
It is however, fascinating to read...
where did you learn to count ? Intel ?
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
The trouble with this kind of thing is that it is public and it is there forever. If you say the wrong thing it can cost you big time in court.
A couple of cases come to mind:
Just last night, a mistrial was declared in a murder case because one of the witnesses had put stuff on the internet that made her seem less credible. The stuff had been taken down a long time ago but the cache was still there. (The trial is the 'Jonathan' trial in Toronto.)
Recently a bunch of brokers got nailed because the text messages they thought couldn't be intercepted were intercepted. The messages proved that they were plotting against their employer.
If you want to have a frank discussion with your employees, you have to be very very careful. Treat it as though it will become public and will be there forever.
it's always really just ALL about the monIE?
all is not lost?
If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and look upwards, and seek my peace, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear them, and will forgive their blindness, and will heal their saddened hearts, and their land.
don't forget? consult with/trust in yOUR creators. providing more than enough of everything for everyone (without ANY distracting/spiritdead personal gain motives) since/until forever. see you there?
My experience, from several industries, is that executive speeches (or blogs, or whatever) to employees, while different than those made for outside consumption, are not less carefully constructed to give a specific, not necessarily true, impression.
Moreover, especially with the ever-increasing threat of lawsuits, people are more and more careful what they put in writing in any context at all, and companies have learned that digital words are more dangerous than words on paper.
Now, if there were transcripts of a converstion between two executives that were good friends, and not rivals in any way, completely trusted each other, and were slightly drunk, they would be interesting transcripts.
Most interesting would be words written where the guy thought that NO ONE else would EVER see them.
Exam 4/C again. Maybe I'll do better this time.
Do you really think it matters that someone finally states what everyone knows?
I do not understand why "honesty" is something noone really cares for. The "candid" things a CEO might say is usually something everyone always knew. If Bill Gates said that Linux is a threat that must be watched closely... well d'uh.
For me the only real difference is the respect you gain by telling the truth. "Stupid Customers" that fall for those additional 5 GHz don't give a rats ass about such statements. Even if Linux was whooping MS's ass they would rather go petting a hedgehog than change what they have gotten used to.
But the respect you gain for someone that just tells the whole world the facts is worth a lot in my eyes. Because that will gain you attention from the people who will be advising their CEOs on whether that companies product will work reliably(!) and whether the support can be expected to be acceptable.
But that's just my opinion of course.
Says Paul about the new Intel Entertainment PCs: More importantly, the content protection mechanisms that we are now capable of delivering allow this industry to deliver premium content over the internet in a format that is safer (relative to piracy) than DVD's. This is nothing short of revolutionary for this industry. For those of you who have read the Innovator's Dilemma, this is a classic disruptive technology that will create new business opportunities. In talking to one of the Hollywood types, he told me that "Intel has struck exactly the perfect balance between fear and greed."
This unfortunate "leak" will effectively kill some of the market for the new EPCs before they'll even get there. Otherwise great read, it's nice to see how the man with the plan is thinking about the future.
Just
So now that we've reached this postmodern understanding that all official corporate communication is, if not a charade, part of a ritualized dance where meaning must be divined between the lines,
In Soviet Russia, people reached that understanding decades ago for all official corporations. Obviously, they were far ahead of their time. Of course, the poor suckers didn't have much of a choice than to figure it out--their lives depended on it every day; for us, most of the time, the consequence of figuring out corporate messages just comes down to whether we buy Coke or Pepsi.
Seriously, this is no coincidence: modern political propaganda was invented during WWI in the US by people like Bernays. After WWI, the now out-of-work folks started writing books and selling their services to the private sector. Their "Torches of Freedom" campaign made smoking instantly acceptable for women (even though Bernays himself already believed that smoking was bad and forbade his daughter to smoke). Goebbels picked up Bernays's methods for the Nazis (from Bernay's published works), and I suspect the communist movement used it as well. After that, this has been pretty much the standard way for any large organization to communicate with rest of us--it is standard textbook stuff.
Try one of these. Or these.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
OK, so I'm running under the assumption this post is a troll. But the questions do deserve an answer, so here goes:
On Postmodernism: Read some Jean-Francois Lyotard for starters. From the Postmodern Condition is his most important work. You might want to follow that up with some Bertens or Hamermas. And as I'm sure you already know, this wikipedia entry and this answers.com entry offer basic overviews (though the wikipedia entry is better IMO).
Meme is a term coined by Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene. Wikipedia also offers an overview of the term here.
Cheers,
--Maynard
He's calling their internet delivery of movies a "classic disruptive technology"?
Good god, THAT bit's already here. Intel's New World Order DRM is just a last ditch attempt to hold back the tide.
He must still be using the Pentium
My company recently posted its third quarter earnings statement. Internally, the CEO was upbeat, singing the praises of the results, but with the by now mandatory "but we've still got a lot of work to do, don't get complacent" bit at the end.
The City got a rather different speech - verging on apologising for the poor results, it was very much lower-key.
Which is more accurate? Well, I'm no accountant or investor, but the results didn't look that great to me. The point is that just because something's said internally doesn't make it true, *especially* when it's communicated to the employees in general.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
It bothers me that this blog was "snagged" and made public. The whole benefit of having an internal weblog is to be frank and keep communication open. This is so much better than occasional and cold company emails or memos. Kudos to Mr. Otellini for trying this. Except now all his frank communication has been snagged and made public, and I don't see much of a reason for other executives to follow his example, lest their own comments get posted on Slashdot.
everyone and his brother's probably read this by now, but How to Deconstruct Almost Anything by Chip Morningstar is about the funniest techie answer to the field. (the *only* techie answer?)
however, when the jokes (and they are good!) are done, he goes on to offer a helpful reading list for the interested
Well, "customer focus" is not nonsense. It's a critical concern for a technology company.
Imagine a tech company staffed by brilliant geeks who are working their asses off to solve customers' problems. It would be wonderful, except the nature of brilliant geeks is not to solve other peoples' problems, but to work on things that interest them.
There's only so many ways to remind folks that, yes, indeed their salaries are being paid by customers who expect their needs to be met, before you start to repeat yourself and are perceived as spouting more of the bzzt-bzzt-bzzt of corporate speak. Reminding the staff that their are competitors with good products waiting to take the customer away is something every corporate leader has to do, becausing thinking about competitors is not something geeks like to do.
I know the first thing I think of in the morning isn't how I can stick my thumb in the competition's eye. OK, the first thing I think of in the morning is whether there is any coffee left in the coffee room, but the fact is under normal circumstances, it would never cross my mind to think about the state of the business. I want other people to worry about that for me.
Of course, you have take into account that Ottellini knew his blog would eventually get leaked, but that doesn't mean it was primarily meant for leaking. I think it was more or less meant for internal consumption, accepting that leaks are going to happen and are probably OK. Anybody who knows who Paul Ottellini is probably knows that AMD has a strong product already.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
From the blog itself, the first entry (at the end of the PDF, it's in reverse chronological order):
While this is intended as an internal blog, I recognize that it will become public--welcome to the Internet! As a result, please recognize that I may be a bit limited in my comments and responses to protect Intel, and that we may exercise some editorial privilege on your comments for the same reason. I want to be clear on this up front. This is the price of entry to this blog.
Mercury News is putting quite a spin on this "internal" stuff.
from the pdf:
"Kudos to the PR exec who thought up this forum"
"This year, Itanium will out ship every RISC processor except Power or Sparc."
This is not a true statement. I would bet the AVR and Xscale both out sell the Itanium. He might have meant that the Itanium was out selling all other server class RISC processors except Power and Sparc. But the question then becomes what other server class RISC processors are there besides Power and Sparc? Mips is dead in the server space. Alpha being killed. PA-RISC is at the end of it's life. Sounds like the Itanium is a distant third place. Too bad AMD did not pick up the Alpha line. Maybe they could have pushed Intel down to number 4 on the list. Probably for the best it might have distracted them more than it would have helped.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
How dare he call the Blue Man Group old and boring! That's the last straw, I'm never buying Intel again.
Shouldn't that be "Habermas"?
Anyway, it's worth reading from an academic point of view: to see what crazy ideas other people can come up with, but post-modernism is nothing to take too seriously: it's a toy for philosophers who've lost the competition with other scientists.
It's kind of funny to see all the employee comments about wanting to make "cool" products like iPods and Macs. I don't think chips will ever be a "cool" part of the consumer creations except for Slashdot readers. Intel just doesn't control that part of products, and the manufacturers on that side are only interested in churning out ATX compatible motherboards at low cost. For someone to start making "cool" products based on Intel chips, Intel is going to have to find someone willing to do some original motherboard design. Or convince Apple to based some products on their chips.
Sleep is for the Weak
Having RTFA, I'm even mor impressed by the EMPLOYEE comments... they have a very clear view of what the currents in the market are like, and a lot of them cite Apple as having a strong 'cool' factor that they would like Intel to compete with, as well as addressing the reliability / complexity factor of a PC as a home appliance.
You can't talk about Wikipedia's flaws on Wikipedia
As the leader of the company, in public he needs to be wearing his "RAH RAH RAH!" hat at all times. No no, no threat to our business model here! Everything is sweet cream and strawberries!
However, he knows the truth, and if he feels he needs to communicate that to someone, how does he do it?
By switching hats of course. As a memo to employees, he is supposed to wear the "Stern but fair father" hat. No bullshit, just the facts.
The real question here is: Who was he trying to communicate this to? Is he softening up the investors for a less than stellar quarter? Is he giving his partners a heads up on some new method of distribution?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Can we please stop having news about blogs. There is nothing interesting about blogs. More robots and dark energy please.
Will code a sig generator for food
Shouldn't that be "Habermas"?
... "toy". Which, while possibly an arguable interpretation compared to other historical philosophical trends (not scientific though - because it's not a scientific theory), is neither factual nor relevant here. Basically, you've just offered us the tautology:
That's called a typo. Whoops.
Anyway, it's worth reading from an academic point of view: to see what crazy ideas other people can come up with, but post-modernism is nothing to take too seriously: it's a toy for philosophers who've lost the competition with other scientists.
That's certainly one opinion to take, though I never thought "philosophers" were "scientists." I will note that you haven't offered any critique of what these people said, you've simply impugned the entire body of work with an ad-hominem attack calling it an "[un]serious"
"It's the suckiest suck that ever did suck" (It sucks because it sucks)
and left it at that. Great. Now we've all learned something. *cough!* --M
Any article that contains the above words immediately tells me this was not written for the common man -- or geek -- to understand.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
A lot of comments in the pdf were related to Apple's capture of the "cool" factor, and how Intel can get in on the action. It seems that everyone wants to find a way for their company to be as cool as Apple is right now. The problem is that you can't just suddenly become a cool company when you've been, at least from the average consumer's view, pretty dull for the last couple decades. I know that the R&D done at Intel is probably fascinating cutting-edge stuff, but there's a limit to how cool a CPU or southbridge IC can be. Trying to feed off Apple's appeal would be a waste of time for Intel. It would take them years to make progress in this area, and by then the trends will be something completely different.
Note-I make no claims to know anything about being cool!
Maybe they should pull an Apple and sue Mercury News to disclose their source.
Have you ever been to a turkish prison?
I am a bit confused. After reading the blog, he goes on and on about the EPC thing. He wants an Intel device that is a PC to be in the living room of everyones house. Has he talked to customers? Do people really want this? I understand that he wants this to be simple to use and immune to virues and like, but that makes his product impossible to create AND still be a "PC".
I read the responses also, and one person hit it on the head. They site Apple as making cool products and Intel as making products that other people use to make "cool" products. Does Intel really want to get in to the same market as Apple? If so then are they going to write software for their products also? What about their OS? What OS are they going to use? Lots of questions and how they answer them depends on how much they piss off Microsoft and others.
Heck I have an idea for Intel. How about making the best X86 and X86-64 for the money? I will give you the mobile market for now. Then look at where the bottleneck is the current systems (memory) and do something about it. RAMBUS was not the answer!!! Adding more and more cache is not the answer either. You have around 12 BILLION in R&D and you let AMD beat you in your core business?? If you couldn't force Dell and others to not ship AMD systems then you would probably be in a world of hurt, but how long can you continue your stranglehold (illegal monopoly practace)?
Lastly I want to say again... You have BILLIONS in R&D. Come up with the best product.
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
MS isn't a PDA or tablet company but they invented PocketPCs and TabletPCs.
Intel can become cool by creating cool reference designs for their chips. Employees who say "we're just a chip company" are really too blind.
BTX ain't it!
Geeks wanting to be cool? What's the world coming too??
``I'm somewhat disappointed that a "gaming platform" doesn't appear to be a part of Intel's new platform push. As a gamer & Intel employee, I find it frustrating that AMD products are repeatedly recommended as better for gaming by almost every gaming publication & review site. While gaming isn't as large or as critical a market as the corporate market, it does push the technology envelope for silicon based solutions. Direct X & the GPU market are a prime example. I sincerely hope that we can consider changing our view on gaming as a viable application for our products strategically rather than viewing it as only a means for "bragging rights." '' Well, I'm sorry that the Extreme Edition isn't enough in the gaming market. However, when it comes to x86 based rendering, Intel still holds the top. Maybe the dual core chips will change this, but from where I'm standing it doesn't look good.
In talking to one of the Hollywood types, he told me that "Intel has struck exactly the perfect balance between fear and greed."
:-)
Just to be clear the "fear and greed" is on the part of the Hollywood exec's not Intel.
Why will the leak kill the market? Sorry, I'm still waking up and things don't make sense yet.
Does this story deserves similar attention that the EFF vs Apple story deserves on internal corporate communications and trade secrets?
Where did they get this blog material? From an internal source? While I like to dislike Intel as much as ex motorola chip fab employees this smacks of wrongful publication...
I am glad I got the pdf though! w00t!
But how do we know it's real?
The irony is that such out-of-touch statements is the reason why companies that make them have products that are not considered "cool". Apple is cool because Apple is cool. Pepsi has tons of product placement, would anyone consider Pepsi (or any other product placement product) to be "cool"? I highly doubt it. These execs just don't get it and probably never will.
Don't you feel bad for this Intel employee's kids that want an Apple but can't get one because daddy can't? How do you think that makes the dad feel? The poor guy must be completely divorced from reality .
Speak truth to power.
You have BILLIONS in R&D. Come up with the best product.
Trust me, we're working on them...Incredibly cool technology can't be designed overnight. (It takes about 3-4 years, but don't worry, we didn't start last night, either..)
We Intel grunts support Paul: he does understand the type of change Intel must make to be competitive.
The most accurate information you can get if you're an employee is from the grapevine.
When all comnpanies are finally cool intel will be one of the last ones to have made it there.
Why? They're not fun. I remember a day when I was sitting at a truly arcane 8086 intel development system to bring up the ROMS for an 8086 version of the companies 8085 based product. Other people were using macs. And having fun doing their work. I was suffering with segment registers. Not cool.
Even IBM is slightly more cool than intel. I can't believe I'm saying this.
Need Mercedes parts ?
From TFA:
Kinda like that Usenet thingy that's dying, right?
Have you considered that there may be designated "leakers" and it's all part of a PR campaign?
"0n teh resp0nses citing teh c001 pr0duct5 fr0m 4pp13, I w0uld 1ike t0 p0int that it w0u1d n0t be a fair c0mparison with c001 end pr0duct5 as we are sti11 at ingredient/bui1ding b10ck 1eve1, th0ugh we are c0mbining 0ur key ingredient5 to de1iver better va1ue thr0ugh 0ur p1atf0rm strategy n0t in teh 0uter 1ooks but teh wh01e pr0duct, dood."
Philosophy was always considered "queen of the sciences", even in the beginning of the 20th century.
Anyway, your offering is not much better: it consists of a wikipedia reference that's totally free of argument of the validity of post-modern interpretations. As a matter of fact, it literally says "Postmodernism therefore has an obvious distrust toward claims about truth, ethics, or beauty being rooted in anything other than individual perception and group construction." That basically allows for ad hominem arguments, apart from perpetuating the ridiculous idea that there is not one thruth.
Comparing truth with esthetics makes an end to all argumentation (you cannot discuss about taste, as the Germans say) and consequently disables (or deconstructs) itself, not convincing anyone outside the circle of believers.
There you have it.