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."

Comments

About AMD

[cflorio]

"``While I hate losing share, the reality is that our competitor has a very strong product offering,'' Otellini wrote in a Jan. 10 entry."

Do ya think?

Interesting

[cyberfunk2]

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?

Re:Interesting

[mikael]

Personally, I'd prefer to see a company director admit that the true state of affairs, and propose action to remedy the situation, rather than remain in a state of denial, only to be forcibly evicted six months later.

OK, all Intel employees raise their hands!

[lucabrasi999]

Paul's Blog is a private communication for Intel internal use only. Please do not forward or distribute outside the company.

Obviously, someone doesn't read their company memos.

Re:OK, all Intel employees raise their hands!

[cyberfunk2]

He cant really expect that it'd be kept private from the outside world can he ? Too many people can see it.

I mean that sort of setup is just begging for trouble.

Re:OK, all Intel employees raise their hands!

[Anonymous Coward]

Paul's blog is on Intel's internal web site, not accessible from the outside - until some moron leaks it, of course. Paul recognized this would happen, so he's not quite as open as he might be otherwise, but the blog is a big hit within Intel and he is responding to employee questions. I do hope he continues it despite the leaks.

I do note that nowadays the blog is prefaced with the standard legal mumbo-jumbo about "forward-looking statements".

"Straight Talk"?

[InfallibleLies]

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"?

Re:"Straight Talk"?

[Tim C]

It reads like something customers are supposed to see, talking about "customer focus" and other such nonsense.

That's pretty common - we had a number of speeches and other internal communications where I work a year or two ago about how we had to become "more customer focussed", amongst other things. None of them were expected to be seen publicly; executives really do just talk and think that way.

Look at it this way - no executive or manager is going to tell their staff to care *less* about customers, are they?

It's scary.

[Anonymous Coward]

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 is still censored

[QMO]

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.

Re:It is still censored

[jrm228]

Based on my experience, from several industries, it's not necessarily censored. In a lot of companies, particularly those with strong core values, they hire/promote CEOs that believe in their company. Don't immediately write it off as marketing fluff. It could actually be what he, the exec team, and BOD believe.

Re:It is still censored

[mikael]

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.

That's why executives play golf.

Does it matter?

[Kokuyo]

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.

In Soviet Russia...

[idlake]

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.

Re:postmodern

[maynard]

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

You think the employees get the truth?

[Tim C]

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.

Re:You think the employees get the truth?

[JPelorat]

Yep, I'll second that. We made our stretch goal this year, that's close to 30% more than the regular projected growth goal, we got the big speech about doing great, sales were huge, ticking right along, etc.

And then two weeks later they laid off seven people. Because sales weren't meeting the projected quotas any more. WTF. We always have a downturn about this time of year, but now that we're corporate, that's unacceptable. Feh.

*Internal* blog, so why are we reading it?

[Junks Jerzey]

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.

Re:*Internal* blog, so why are we reading it?

[ffub]

Although candid, his remarks are fairly carefully chosen. If you read the first entry, page 14 of the PDF, he writes, "While this is intended as an internal blog, I recognize that it will become public - welcome to the Internet!"

Re:*Internal* blog, so why are we reading it?

[grasshoppa]

If a company's exec is so paranoid as to be frightened of his words going public, maybe there is something wrong with the company that it SHOULD be public.

That is not the case here, but I'm speaking directly to your statement.

Further, as the head of one biggest names in technology, you can't hope for anything you write down for mass consumtion NOT to be spread around. It's the nature of the beast. Surely intel exec, more than anyone else, would understand this.

This is just a cleverly craft bit of PR.

A funny techie answer

[conJunk]

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

"Customer Focus"

[hey!]

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.

Re:"Customer Focus"

[SpongeBobLinuxPants]

I talk to the damn customers so the engineers don't have to. I have people skills damnit!

Re:"Customer Focus"

[hey!]

Well, yes, sort of. What customers need, in your, example, are clean floors. They don't necessarily need a robot to sweep them. Connecting the need for clean floors to your company's strength in robotics is an act of leadership, the need for which I think you are pointing out here.

However, its not always simple. Suppose you had an industrial robot company. Your guys have spent years successfully meeting the needs of industrial customers by making robots that are easy to integrate into different kinds of manufacturing situations, are modular, serviceable, and flexibly programmable.

Now you decide to make a Roomba competitor. The needs are different from what you are used to. The robot will be used for one purpose. It will not be user serviceable or maybe not serviceable at all, if it can be made cheap enough. It will perform one task only so it doesn't need to be programmable at all, except to perhaps handle several different precanned vacuuming routines.

Furthermore, the device will have requirements that are entirely new to you. It has to be very small. It has to be economical with power. It has to be mobile, and do things like maneuver around and fit under chairs. Above all, it has to be cute, maybe even have something that could be perceived as a personality.

I think, in a way, that this is actually fairly easy. You have so many new requirements, that your guys (and gals) have to start with a blank sheet. There's a certain appeal, like having a new field of snow to tramp around in.

What I think is hardest is when what you are doing is more or less right, but you have to track rapidly evolving customer needs. The necessary self-destructive work of tinkering with past successes is bound to be the hardest. So you've got a team that's focused on delivering raw computing power for ages and ages, but maybe power consumption is going to be an issue in the next generation of processors, or maybe the kinds of applications they run can't use the power the way they're planning on delivering it. I dunno, I'm not a CPU designer or design bigot, but I assume there are problems of this nature.

I do know geeks. If they have an idea they really like, it's going to be hard to get them off of it just because it may not be exactly what the customer is asking for.

Re:"Customer Focus"

[AsimovBesterClarke]

> Imagine a tech company staffed by brilliant geeks who are working their asses off to solve customers' problems.

Don't have too. Always have.

> 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.

BZZZT! Thanks for playing. In my experience the problem comes down to the mgt. insisting on the band-aid approach and nothing but the band-aid approach. I've seen many a 'quick fix' go in ending up being a permenant solution. Yeah, it mad the phone stop ringing for the particular problem, but ends up causing further problems down the road.

Taking the 'geek' side a little more here (and, again, this is my experience), it isn't a matter of what 'interests them,' but of solving the actual problem. It really is sad how often the moral equivelant of 'direct stderr to /dev/null' is used.

Now, to be fair, there are times when the effort to get to the root of the problem is not cost effective (for lack of a better term). Again, in my experience, balancing these is what will make the difference between real innovation and mediocrity.

I could almost agree with your arguement if it won't for this premise.....

Re:"Customer Focus"

[hey!]

Well, I've been on both sides of the equation. The problem is that as organizations scale, you begin to get specialization. This specializaiton has permicious side effects.

Really this shouldn't be seen as management knows whats right vs. geeks know what's right. The issue is that management needs more technology sophistication and geeks need more business sophistication.

It's a PR ploy

[barrkel]

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.

did you see the PR part

[NetMagi]

from the pdf:

"Kudos to the PR exec who thought up this forum"

Nice double speak.

[LWATCDR]

"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.

Running Scared of Apple? Silly!

[Mr. No Skills]

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.

Apple, AMD, and convergence

[Stanistani]

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.

We can't all be cool

[Retrospecter]

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!

Pull an Apple..

[ad0gg]

Maybe they should pull an Apple and sue Mercury News to disclose their source.

Customer Focused?

[FatherOfONe]

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.