Intel Chief Engineering Officer to resign on Aug 3

[bigman949]

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Summary

Venkata “Murthy” Renduchintala, Chief Engineering officer and group president of its technology, systems architecture and client group, will resign on August 3

 

Quotes

Quote

 

Intel said Monday that Venkata “Murthy” Renduchintala, the chipmaker’s chief engineering officer and group president of its technology, systems architecture and client group, will resign on August 3. 

 

The announcement shows Intel is reconsidering various aspects of its operations as it deals with ongoing manufacturing difficulties, including to release next-generation processors. In its Q2 earnings report on Thursday, Intel said it was behind schedule in coming out with chips that use a 7-nanometer architecture, while competitor AMD already offers chips with transistors that small. CEO Bob Swan said Intel is evaluating whether it would make sense to start using other companies’ chip foundries, rather than relying purely on its own. 

 

My thoughts

It think this is the beginning of more shake-ups and resignations. I personally think this resignation is the result of some internal argument where the CEO wants to go a different direction that Renduchintala doesn't want to, and so he is going to get out while he can. While it could be a "forced" resignation, I just don't see Intel giving up such high level talent like that especially when he is in charge of design and tech, not sales and product strategy, and losing him will hurt 7nm deployment. I don't think this will be the last high level resignation, and its going to continue to hurt Intel into the future.

 

 

Sources

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/27/intel-engineering-executive-murthy-renduchintala-will-leave-company.html

[Levent]

Only took them 7 years and loss of $50 billion in a day. EDIT: I should clarify that intel has long stopped being innovative or competitive, change was LONG over due.

[Trik'Stari]

I find it odd that companies seemingly cut into their own talent pool when people need to be cut, rather than marketing/advertising.

 

Why not cut into the people whose job is nothing more than an expense with little tangible value, rather than the people who actually design and make the products you sell?

 

Admittedly, this comment comes more from a focus on the gaming industry rather than chip makers, but still.

[Belgarathian]

44 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

I find it odd that companies seemingly cut into their own talent pool when people need to be cut, rather than marketing/advertising.

 

Why not cut into the people whose job is nothing more than an expense with little tangible value, rather than the people who actually design and make the products you sell?

 

Admittedly, this comment comes more from a focus on the gaming industry rather than chip makers, but still.

lol.

 

Value is created, or should be created, in all areas of the business. Marketing and sales are as equally important to the overall picture as solid design and manufacturing. Additionally, each role requires different skills sets with little transferable skills.

 

When times are tough, you don't stop telling people about your product. In fact you probably need to spend more. Sure, you may spend less on traditional advertising such as "Buy this, buy that" but you're still spending on PR, Events, Promotional activities, etc.

 

Every business will respond to a downturn differently, but from experience I've found that the best path of action is as a team to identify which projects are going to generate the most net present value from their associated activities, or are critical projects for business continuation. You then rank them and either do, delay, or halt them. You can then restructure the business to support the resource requirements appropriately. 

 

While Renduchintala may indeed be talented, he is ultimately responsible for the continued missed deadlines and delays in the manufacturing process hence the resignation. 

 

My feelings on the subject as an outsider is that Intel as a whole could probably use a refresh. They don't seem to be innovating in a cohesive manner, and they're certainly not communicating their pathway well. 

[Trik'Stari]

15 minutes ago, Belgarathian said:

lol.

 

Value is created, or should be created, in all areas of the business. Marketing and sales are as equally important to the overall picture as solid design and manufacturing. Additionally, each role requires different skills sets with little transferable skills.

 

When times are tough, you don't stop telling people about your product. In fact you probably need to spend more. Sure, you may spend less on traditional advertising such as "Buy this, buy that" but you're still spending on PR, Events, Promotional activities, etc.

 

Every business will respond to a downturn differently, but from experience I've found that the best path of action is as a team to identify which projects are going to generate the most net present value from their associated activities, or are critical projects for business continuation. You then rank them and either do, delay, or halt them. You can then restructure the business to support the resource requirements appropriately. 

 

While Renduchintala may indeed be talented, he is ultimately responsible for the continued missed deadlines and delays in the manufacturing process hence the resignation. 

 

My feelings on the subject as an outsider is that Intel as a whole could probably use a refresh. They don't seem to be innovating in a cohesive manner, and they're certainly not communicating their pathway well. 

Interesting insight, to say the least. My experience is from the other end. In my current job, I'm the guy that actually gets shit done. Our sales team is pretty much entirely hated by everyone else on staff (managers included) because they constantly take jobs and set deadlines, without ANY form of consultation of the people who actually get shit done. Stuff ends up double booked, and they look at us like the problem rather than the sales/marketing staff for not scheduling or even bothering to check whether or not a job was feasible within a set amount of time.

 

Somehow we always make it work. Mainly through blood, sweat, and tears (at times), but still. The sales/marketing people are treated like gods, then when we pull off their ridiculous timelines, we get a "thank you" and that's about it.

 

Kind of infuriating. I know if I ever run a business I won't be kind to marketing/sales staff. At the least, if they behave the way ours do.

 

Edit: I am somewhat venting because one of our sales staff just signed us up for a job that we have absolutely no time, staff, space, or resources for. And yet upper management is expecting it to go off without a hitch. Even my own boss is verging on quitting because of the stress involved.

[thorhammerz]

14 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

I am somewhat venting because one of our sales staff just signed us up for a job that we have absolutely no time, staff, space, or resources for. And yet upper management is expecting it to go off without a hitch. Even my own boss is verging on quitting because of the stress involved.

Nothing gets the message home like the resignation of an entire engineering team .

[CarlBar]

15 minutes ago, Trik'Stari said:

Interesting insight, to say the least. My experience is from the other end. In my current job, I'm the guy that actually gets shit done. Our sales team is pretty much entirely hated by everyone else on staff (managers included) because they constantly take jobs and set deadlines, without ANY form of consultation of the people who actually get shit done. Stuff ends up double booked, and they look at us like the problem rather than the sales/marketing staff for not scheduling or even bothering to check whether or not a job was feasible within a set amount of time.

 

Somehow we always make it work. Mainly through blood, sweat, and tears (at times), but still. The sales/marketing people are treated like gods, then when we pull off their ridiculous timelines, we get a "thank you" and that's about it.

 

Kind of infuriating. I know if I ever run a business I won't be kind to marketing/sales staff. At the least, if they behave the way ours do.

 

Edit: I am somewhat venting because one of our sales staff just signed us up for a job that we have absolutely no time, staff, space, or resources for. And yet upper management is expecting it to go off without a hitch. Even my own boss is verging on quitting because of the stress involved.

 

Sounds like a problem with management at the very top. Having worked somwhere where management kept undercutting us as well i totally get the frustration there. Although to be fair in the case of where i worked everyone kind of didn't have a choice, if they didn't try to get us to do too much with to little we'd never have made any money, the business was fundamentally impossible to do right and be profitable because of local market conditions.

[mr moose]

Quote

The announcement shows Intel is reconsidering various aspects of its operations as it deals with ongoing manufacturing difficulties

 

How does someone resigning show anything about the company?  Does this journalist know the inside details or is he just speculating.  For all we know Intel might be capitalizing on his resignation to regroup manufacturing as they tackle the problem of over demand.    Fricking media always making shit up to sell an article.

[Bombastinator]

1 hour ago, Trik'Stari said:

I find it odd that companies seemingly cut into their own talent pool when people need to be cut, rather than marketing/advertising.

 

Why not cut into the people whose job is nothing more than an expense with little tangible value, rather than the people who actually design and make the products you sell?

 

Admittedly, this comment comes more from a focus on the gaming industry rather than chip makers, but still.

To wildly speculate:

 

I would liken possibly this to how people football teams flush their head coach when they’ve had a losing season.  The failure is in the inability of the manufacturing section to produce a good product.  So he goes.  Shareholders that just lost a big chunk of money want to see action.  So an action is taken.  Whether this person was the source of the problem or not I don’t know.  20 years after it happened the story of the problems American manufacturers had with cars has changed drastically.  In the 70’s it was how Japanese workers were abused by their employers.  Now it’s come out that the real problem was not that at all.  It was that Japanese industry had come out with better manufacturing systems and the executives had not done their jobs and upgraded.  When it all finally hit the fan, and the changes started to be felt in the marketplace, Japan had a ten year march on US factory equipment.  It never had anything to do with Japanese workers.  It had to do with executives not doing their jobs correctly for ten years.

[CarlBar]

1 minute ago, mr moose said:

 

How does someone resigning show anything about the company?  Does this journalist know the inside details or is he just speculating.  For all we know Intel might be capitalizing on his resignation to regroup manufacturing as they tackle the problem of over demand.    Fricking media always making shit up to sell an article.

 

I admit i wondered where that claim in the article came from.

[Trik'Stari]

4 minutes ago, thorhammerz said:

Nothing gets the message home like the resignation of an entire engineering team .

Oh it has been discussed, at length. No one wants to go that route. 

3 minutes ago, CarlBar said:

 

Sounds like a problem with management at the very top. Having worked somwhere where management kept undercutting us as well i totally get the frustration there. Although to be fair in the case of where i worked everyone kind of didn't have a choice, if they didn't try to get us to do too much with to little we'd never have made any money, the business was fundamentally impossible to do right and be profitable because of local market conditions.

The issue here is mainly that upper management only gives a damn about sales, and nothing else. Then when things go wrong, they blame (lets say "implementation") for the issues. Rather than the sales who didn't bother checking to schedule things reasonably.

 

Thus far, upper management (corporate) absolutely does not care about anything beyond sales. Even during this covid crisis, my division is the ONLY thing in the entire corporation still bringing money in (and pre-covid we were the smallest division) and they wanted to cut the hours on everyone.

 

I sometimes wonder how people with basic common sense, haven't absolutely destroyed people who have "better" credentials when it comes to business. Because AFAIK people with business degrees are completely back-asswards and upside down in their way of thinking.

[Clueless_Gamer]

This is so relevant to Intel Today, they had a monopoly over the market for so long, so they were in no rush to make a better product, so now they are paying for it. 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4VBqTViEx4

[mr moose]

7 minutes ago, Clueless_Gamer said:

This is so relevant to Intel Today

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P4VBqTViEx4

I think you could apply that to just about any company today and it rings true.  Nature of the beast I am afraid. 

[RejZoR]

4 hours ago, thorhammerz said:

Nothing gets the message home like the resignation of an entire engineering team .

The message gets double the effectiveness if you start working for AMD after that

[Skiiwee29]

5 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

The message gets double the effectiveness if you start working for AMD after that

honestly, AMD would be stupid if they're not licking there chops right now and packaging up a sweet offer for him once he is on the market. 

[laminutederire]

6 hours ago, Skiiwee29 said:

honestly, AMD would be stupid if they're not licking there chops right now and packaging up a sweet offer for him once he is on the market. 

You mean AMD should try to cosy up to people who have left them for more money at Intel like Raja Koduri, or cosy up to the guy who extensively either lied or at the very least misrepresented the status of 7nm processes to his superiors?

[5x5]

7 minutes ago, laminutederire said:

You mean AMD should try to cosy up to people who have left them for more money at Intel like Raja Koduri, or cosy up to the guy who extensively either lied or at the very least misrepresented the status of 7nm processes to his superiors?

No, they should get him and his intelligence. The value in him is intel trade secrets, not his useless skills that broufh us Skylake version 8

[RejZoR]

Just now, 5x5 said:

No, they should get him and his intelligence. The value in him is intel trade secrets, not his useless skills that broufh us Skylake version 8

I'm pretty sure he has signed contracts that prevent him from just spilling Intel trade secrets to competitors like AMD. I don't know how this works exactly coz where will you then work if not for someone who makes CPU's and then ignore everything you learned and know when designing similar products. But I'm sure business world has ways with this stuff.

[5x5]

4 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

I'm pretty sure he has signed contracts that prevent him from just spilling Intel trade secrets to competitors like AMD. I don't know how this works exactly coz where will you then work if not for someone who makes CPU's and then ignore everything you learned and know when designing similar products. But I'm sure business world has ways with this stuff.

Well he obviously won't disclose them in front of the janitor. It'll be a close door discussion.

 

Edit and for intel to do anything, they'd need proof. Else a lawsuit is impossible.

[spartaman64]

12 hours ago, Belgarathian said:

snip

idk some of the marketing intel has been doing recently is just hypocritical and embarrassing. it seems like a lot of the people in intel's marketing department needs to be fired.

[5x5]

4 hours ago, spartaman64 said:

idk some of the marketing intel has been doing recently is just hypocritical and embarrassing. it seems like a lot of the people in intel's marketing department needs to be fired.

More like upper management needs a lobotomy. Most intel executives and top decision makers have no idea what they're selling. Half of them probably can't even describe it.

[porina]

7 hours ago, 5x5 said:

Well he obviously won't disclose them in front of the janitor. It'll be a close door discussion.

 

Edit and for intel to do anything, they'd need proof. Else a lawsuit is impossible.

There's a fine line to be tread here. You can't stop general knowledge from going around, but at the same time there is a degree of professionalism in not revealing everything about your previous employers. Companies tend to want to play it safe, and getting info on competitors this way is not safe. When we saw previous movements of Jim and Raja going from red to blue, I'm sure they knew where the lines were and not to cross them. Likewise if there is any going the other way. 

 

5 hours ago, spartaman64 said:

it seems like a lot of the people in intel's marketing department needs to be fired.

Fixed that for you.

 

46 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

Most intel executives and top decision makers have no idea what they're selling. Half of them probably can't even describe it.

It's worse than I though, they have a guy from EA!

[Nena Trinity]

Now this guy? First Raja and Jim now this guy? AdoredTV was right... OwO

[5x5]

1 hour ago, porina said:

There's a fine line to be tread here. You can't stop general knowledge from going around, but at the same time there is a degree of professionalism in not revealing everything about your previous employers. Companies tend to want to play it safe, and getting info on competitors this way is not safe. When we saw previous movements of Jim and Raja going from red to blue, I'm sure they knew where the lines were and not to cross them. Likewise if there is any going the other way. 

 

Fixed that for you.

 

It's worse than I though, they have a guy from EA!

So is L3 cache and HT going to be DLC now?

[porina]

5 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

So is L3 cache and HT going to be DLC now?

Get the season pass and you'll be fine.