Intel CEO Tells Employees: 'We Are Going To Take More Risks' (cnbc.com)

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich told employees on Tuesday that the company will take more risks going forward and he said change will be the "new normal." From a report: In an internal memo that was sent to CNBC, Krzanich acknowledged "innovation" inside Intel's client computing business -- its biggest segment -- but said the biggest opportunities are in the company's growth areas like connected devices, artificial intelligence and autonomous driving. "It's almost impossible to perfectly predict the future, but if there's one thing about the future I am 100 percent sure of, it is the role of data," Krzanich wrote. "Anything that produces data, anything that requires a lot of computing, the vision is, we're there." The memo also underscores the dramatic change in the nature of Intel's business as it approaches its 50th anniversary in July 2018. "We're just inches away from being a 50/50 company, meaning that half our revenue comes from the PC and half from new growth markets," Krzanich wrote.

Comments

Translated and annotated corportate speak.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Intel CEO Tells Employees: 'We Are Going To Take More Risks'

Means:

Employees and the shareholders are going to take more risks. If the bet pays off all the stock options and the incentive pay will trigger and champagne corks will fly in the executive suites. If the bet blows up, they will shrug their shoulders and say, "Well, at least we tried. OK then, let us find some other company".

Re:Translated and annotated corportate speak.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

If the bet pays off all the stock options and the incentive pay will trigger and champagne corks will fly in the executive suites.

Didn't he just preemptively sell his stock yesterday?

Re:Translated and annotated corportate speak.

[ranton]

If the bet pays off all the stock options and the incentive pay will trigger and champagne corks will fly in the executive suites.

Didn't he just preemptively sell his stock yesterday?

Yes, Krzanich sold off the maximum amount of stock he could while still following Intel's corporate bylaws, which was about half of his stock. Essentially he now has the minimum skin in the game possible for an Intel CEO. It is the most prominent vote of no confidence that an executive can show towards his company.

Re:Translated and annotated corportate speak.

[bluegutang]

The other side of the argument is that the best way to diversify your investments is to not own your employer's stock. Because when that stock goes down, you are likely to get fired, so you have lost both paycheck and job.

Then this ISN'T

[p4nther2004]

Then this ISN'T we're going to take more risks.

This is....we're screwed...and I"m going to claim we "took risks" when it hits the fan.

Re:Then this ISN'T

[networkBoy]

yup.
Also: "Change will be the new normal" Bwahahahahaha
The running tagline inside Intel is: "The only constant is change"

As to how this happened?
"We want to remember in this time to treat our fellow employees who are leaving with dignity and respect". Followed by the most disrespectful treatment of mass layoff employees ever.
We were (most, I had a mole in HR warn me a week ahead) told nothing about who was up for termination, and were tagged by surprise meetings with our manager and HR, scheduled a couple hours before the meeting time (Intel standard is 24 hr advance scheduling of meetings). In that meeting you had your manager and an HR drone. There was paperwork to sign, all the basic shit. After the meeting was done you were *NOT* allowed to go back to your desk to gather anything personal, you were *NOT* allowed to say by to your co-workers, some of whom were more family than your biological family, you were *NOT* allowed to send the traditional "It's been a pleasure" email. You *WERE* frog marched out of the building under the eye of security.
Hey BK you asshole: that is *NOT* dignity and respect.
Because I understand security, I understand not wanting the employee to have unfettered access after being informed they're terminated, but for fucks sake, let them get their personal effects and say goodbye to their team.

From what I understand morale has not recovered and it's been over 18 months now. Normally morale recovers after 6 months or so. The company lost something in the last layoffs and the heartwood of the tree is dying.

Out of necessity.

[Gravis Zero]

AMD has out classed Intel performance and IME is about to blow up in their faces so they need to find a way to embed themselves in a market that is unable to reject them. When the past decade of Intel processors suddenly become an unacceptable risk to businesses they are going to need a life raft.

Unfortunately (for them), Intel overprices all their parts, is very closed off (NDAs out the ass) and refuses to abandon x86 which why they will never be able to compete with ARM for embedded devices. The day they start popping out $2 chips without a power hungry ISA and provide datasheets will be the day that hell freezes over.

Sounds like someone got a visit from consultants

[ErichTheRed]

Intel is a de facto monopoly. Yes, there's AMD and ARM is starting to gain a foothold, but x86 basically rules the industry for now. It sounds like the CEO is trying to figure out what to do about it. And when CEOs figure things out, the reality is that management consultants tell them what to do.

I've seen it happen a bunch of times. Management consulting firms are basically charging millions for a "digital transformation starter pack" for any company whose deployment processes aren't sufficiently DevOps-y. In Intel's case, I'm sure they're basically telling them to start acting like a startup, move fast and break things, etc. The MO is the same everywhere -- the uber-shark sales team sells the CEO the starter pack, a 25 year old with a fresh Ivy League MBA is put on a plane to deliver some PowerPoints, and a team in India is sent all the "work."

I'm sure Intel has its share of bloat, and there probably are a lot of people hiding out in nice safe positions. I know a bunch of people who work for HP (now HPE) who say that the ratio of useless to useful employees is still like 3:1, even after all the mass-firings. But one thing I worry about is that in the rush to be more agile, break things, etc. they're going to fire everyone who knows the fundamentals. After all, to look like a startup, your employees need to be under 30, wearing T-shirts and board shorts, and have product stickers all over their MacBook Pro lids. Any of those stuffy old electrical engineers who make things actually happen are overpaid and should be fired, amirite? :-)

Oh oh...

[Waffle Iron]

When Intel takes "risks", it tends to come up with things like the iAPX 432, i860, Itanium, and the 80286 incarnation of protected mode. This probably won't end well.

Re:And the employers responded:

[wyHunter]

Perhaps if employees were not treated like disposable commodities they'd be willing to be less risk averse.