Thread regarding Qualcomm Inc. layoffs

I thought having a company full of foreign born talent would lead us into innovation nirvana. That's what industry and the media tells us. Without all this spectacular foreign born talent where would we be now? So I think we need more foreign born talent to innovate our way out of this mess. More patents pave the way to ElDorado.

Yeah!! That is it. Our problem was that we didn't have enough business units!!! Why didn't I think of that?!?? Yes, we are on the right path now. Right path to hell. This guy is clueless. How to be seen to be acting without doing a damn thing. Now we there will be even more politics!!!!!

QC isn't as great as many think it is. The modem may be ahead now wrt feature set but I wouldn't be too arrogant about how "good" it is. That cool-aid is the source of complacency and a barrier to disruptive thinking.

@ Anonymous145315

Where things are going it seems pretty dismal to me!!!

They’ve really taken so much away from us in the past few years…it really is NOT as fun as it used to be.

The work environment has really gone downhill.

I mean really we get a cupcake for our 30th, no more Christmas parties, no more Company picnics, no more Service Award parties…no more appreciation!!!

I know business is business, but, it’s getting terrible and very de-motivating.

Ok, I’ll stop lamenting and focus on my work and finding my own appreciation and work on pursuing a better place.

Also decided to leave. I am a top performer, enjoyed immensely to work here 8 years ago. I can't stand it now, no matter what the pay is. I have calls from appl, but I'm looking for a small company. Can't stand this big aggregates anymore. It is also the 3rd mega tech place I see falling appart in my 20y career.

I second that. I decided to leave as well... Too much beauracracy and management getting on the way, to get a anything done. Hard to feel good about my work at the end of the day regardless of how way hours I put in. Last week I put in over 55 hrs and nothing to show for..... No good directions from my lead/management or any communication... except when it comes to things falling apart and management playing blame game... Too tired of all this!!

Unlike many newbies, I worked two places before I got to Q. So I know most places will end up facing a challenge or two. We still have one of the best modems, and I like that most people are as smart or smarter than I am. I have been here for over 6 years now, and in the beginning it was the best place I have ever worked at. Over the last 3 years or so, this place has gone downhill. No one really knows who is making decisions. I see a lot of people just not caring anymore. Some business people come in at 9am, and leave at 3pm, while I was working 10 hour days, and if I called them I never found them. In my team, I wanted to get things done, but there is no much paperwork, slide making and reporting, things just drag-on. Eventually I gave up. I don't know if anyone cares enough here anymore. As long as there was money rolling in, it was difficult to leave. Now, not so much.

I was the OP and I am ready to give something else a try. This place feels like my second gig, after things started turning bad. I should have left there earlier also.

What if you could know the exact answer to this question? So what. IMHO, its the wrong question to be asking, although it probably has a bearing on the right question, which is, "where are things going from here?" Maybe QC will turn things around, maybe they will come up with some great new business areas, maybe they will come up with a vision to keep people psyched about working there, maybe they will improve the benefits/RSU, maybe they will recognize the wasteful ways people are spending their working hours and address that, maybe they will go all Silicon Valley and bring in cool office spaces, free food, free snacks, free personal trainers, maybe they will just make it a fun place to work again. I'm not sure why anyone would think those things would come to pass, based on past experience, so if I were you, I would just start looking for a better gig. Stop lamenting what could have/would have/should have/where did we go wrong, just find a better place and get on with your life.

Anonymous144938 has the best answer. It's all Apple's fault! But wait?! What did our management team do when ARM started to license 64-bit ISA to both Apple and QC? Were they busy counting the money printed from selling 8960 and asking more RSUs by bragging? Or were they busy planning the next app processor to secure the market leadership? The answer is so clear. Apparently it's not the market shift which leads to where we are today. It's due to lack of leadership and improper strategic planning. I feel sorry for my co-workers who work day after night to get the project assignment done. Your effort is wasted. But don't worry, job market is always good as long as you can still do hands-on jobs. I also feel sorry for the mid-level management who though their job is to collect status and make big talks; those who dream about retirement by not making actual contribution need to learn this quote from Warren Buffett: Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked.

All it took was the moment when Apple stumbled QC with it's 64-bit chip.

The panic and rush to get their own 64bit out the door took a hit on quality & performance. Results are known to public.

144905: We are losing because we beat our competition? We are better at building chips in this space than anyone else in the world. Or at least we were before we became complacent over the last 2 to 3 years, and assumed the world owed us a living. We started believing our own story. We believed that whatever we turned out will find a market. Our managers looked like geniuses when the reality was that the market was changing and they did not react. MediaTek, Spreadtrum and Intel were working away to compete. Our customers hate us because we charge them for chips and royalties. So now that there are alternatives - even though our chips are better - they are choosing our competitors. And the prices are going down while we have increased our costs. So enter JANA. That is how we got here.

There was a fundamental flaw in the QC business structure. QC tried to get the best of both world in licensing and chip sales. They were diametrically opposing, and eventually QC was competing with all its licensing customers. Sales and Marketing did not hesitate to leverage licensing to win chip sockets. In time QC has managed to kill off all chip competitions in the countries that were subject to fair competition, in Europe and America. Now, QC has to deal with companies in China that don’t want to play by the rules. So, how did we get here? QC has single-handedly destroyed the mobile chip market in US, and QC management is responsible.

For me to stay: See a massive change of leadership at the top. No drones, no BS... This restaurant needs new management and a new menu.Same burgers, fries, stale soda are sold everywhere now. Our recipe is writtem by our customers mostly. How many visionaries do you know in Q? How many public figures do we have, that the world listens to? What is our noble goal that can fuel commitment and attract talent? World became a much more personal place. If you need to put a face on Q, which is that?

Last responder nailed it! There were people who saw the coming iceberg. Eventually they left frustrated, but the band played on. Don't think our ahhm... leadership has a clue what to do. And to receive a package like that before blowing up? AH is a joke. HR sctipted. Not one lick of sense.

A: Lazy, complacent management + Lack of vision at the top. This was long way coming, but when you tell it to an SVP 2 years ago that the trajectory leads to a dead-end too fast, while having record quarters, who will listen to you? This is human nature... The fundamental questions are who's in charge, who's responssible, do they really care, what is their incentive? It really takes someone real passion to see the future and make it happen even if he has $10m in the bank. Now, you have to imagine yourself in that movie scene... On the left there us a blue pill - if you take it things will go forward on the same path, one more chip, market shifts, mabe one more layoff, maybe all milk&honey who knows... On the right there a red pill - if you take it you can make your own future. Do you trust the team that is giving you the blue pill right now and telling you how to live your future? Do this, listen to the last quarterly phone call with rhe analysts. No video, just voices. I realized myself how redundant the leadership team is. There is not one guy in charge... there are few who themselves are wondering what their roles are. And to close, unfortunatelly this chapter of the book was written before, just look at Intel.

I still have not seen a path that Q can get out of downward trend. I don't think I will be affected this round. Apple have been asking me to come interview with them for the last two years and I kept saying not interested. However, for the last few weeks, I am thinking go there to interview with them. The problem is that there are many people in my group joined Apple and still keep contact with my Q co-workers. I am sure if I go there for interview, many people at Q will know and my manger may know. So if somehow I do not get any offer, I will be in the black list for sure. Any advice? Should I have an open talk to my manager to let him know upfront instead of hearing from other source?

OP: As I see it, JANA is pushing QCOM to essentially gut QCT, and possibly sell it off, while retaining the part of QCOM that profits from licensing and other IP. The problem is that as competition in the chip industry gets more intense--and coutries like China, EU and others fight back against the pricing/licensing structure that is currently in place, the non-QCT parts of QCOM will ultimately become less profitable. Even if QCOM could eke by on competitive margins for awhile, the lawsuits that make it a necessity, and the Chinese playing chicken with the world economy by changing their currency value whenever it favored them, would probably kill us. Since JANA and others decided that R&D was expendable they have nothing new that's going to replace the income stream lost from chips. So the licensing isn't going to be the cash cow JANA thought. Since QCOM's attitude has generally been to eschew anything open source in their development and adopt a "lone wolf" approach to development so they can license it, the risk is high that anything developed will be increasingly jerry-rigged and full of design flaws if they need to meet a deadline. And the people with true talent in QCT and other divisions are rapidly bailing. Don't expect clarity fro SM at the AH meetings--or elsewhere. My personal opinion is that he's just going through the motions to comply with the Q's ethics policy. (You know, where it says management is open and inclusive, and values worker input....) IMO SM is technically clueless about the everyday working of the engineers and the technology that pays his salary. I'm increasingly convinced by his failure to exercise independent judgment that he was chosed for his ability to glad-hand the board, and suck-up to the people from JANA.

I don't see this downward swirling of Qcom entirely related to marketshift. As OP pointed out, it was evidently coming. We really need executives to give a better answer than this. Even come out and state clearly in all hands meetings (in some form or another) that this is mostly due to failure of execution in the middle to upper management (which is my strong belief is the case). And what is being done to fix this. I do see that there is a lot of "fat trimming" in progress, but really how did we get to this messed up management? Could it be that management had become so self involved and busy in self promoting (unethically or otherwise) that they were unable to let the company grow productively...basically preventing the engineers (the true assets of the company) to be more innovative and explore and venture into other future possibilities (and there by help Q to keep an eye on the ball, the current industry, and help the bottom line)? I see engineers being buried with all sort of irrelevant day to day tasks/meetings and bad politics due to management... How can a good productive engineer thrive in this kind of management. It feels like engineers are being stifled and suffocated by the management. Like OP, I am trying to make a decision whether to stay with Q or leave. I don't think I am one of the "chosen" ones for layoff this time around. But as much as I like (or rather liked) working for Q, I cant help but feel like it is a bad decision to stay here without some clear explanation (directly from the executives) of what happened and what are we doing to fix this? Please help the productive contributing remaining engineers make a call on this.

SM has absolute full confidence that the executive team can and will execute a successful turnaround plan. I heard it in his last AH, (with PJ cheerleading), so it must be true. Listening to the other executives AHs, I sincerely doubt it, but I wish for the best.

I would like to see a TRUE impartial failure analysis in many areas.

We can only guess the reasons without that.

yup, the market simply began to disobey QC sales projections. Part of the restructuring / jana plan should be to send the market back to obedience school. Buy! Sit! Stay! Paw! Other! Roll over, MTK!

I think it's strange that whenever I hear the leadership talk they always blame it on a marketshift. After completely missing 64bit and then the 810 disaster they keep chanting "marketshift". I find it incredible that MR still have a job. There seems to be no accountability at the top. It's quite disturbing.

Very good post.

Haven't seen such thought provoking post on this forum for a while.

As I see it, its NOT just Qcom going thru the rough patch.

The entire mobile/chip industry is going thru this.

Some of the bets Qcom made did not pan out.

Some of the bets Qcom doing, they are not executing well (read VR technology, Alljoyn)

While others are making huge in roads in these niche areas.

IOE! SYNERGY!