Murthy was the mastermind behind ACT.Murthy wanted to cut headcount to 85k. He was specifically pushing managers to finish focal early to crunch the numbers. BK was the one who pushed back. Now Murthy is pointing to the stock price as vindication. Round 2 early next year.
10 replies (most recent on top)
OP, not only pointing at the stock. Also selling it like crazy.
F-ck Murthy. He and BK are, and will continue to drive the company into the ground.
There is no question Intel is fat and has many need to go, including many marginal engineers, managers and even some technicians.
Stock market as a whole has been rising so not hard for Intel to ride the rising tide. If BK was stupid enough to believe Murthy that ACT alone was the reason for the stock rise he is a moron, or the OP is a moron for the post alluding to that.
But as another poster has alluded ACT where they first selected IRs and anyone with SL4/SL5 and kicked them to the curb, then followed with outright pressure for those that stalled into their current position to feel pressure like they would go in the next round if they didn't leave was just stupid and poisonous to morale. To think experienced engineers with maybe 5, 10, or 20 years and performing well and contributing were less valuable than some idiot RCG or internal new-hire in retarded. Of course there are many older that with bad attitude need to go, but many that didn't and are gone. The organization as a whole saw that and is simply bad.
A far braver thing would be to do site and organization trimming based on real performance business need, but that would have required work, and management was too busy to do work, LOL
Redundancy in a collaborative culture can result in some positives, on-time delivery of the basics and allocation of excess capacity to longer-range or higher-risk (higher-reward) projects or initiatives.
Redundancy in a forced-ranking, my-colleague-is-my-competitor, back-stabby culture like Intel's results in chaos, dysfunctional teams and cynicism about leaders and their motives. Even with all of the redundancy, Intel can't do it's core job well. Let alone plan or execute for the future.
The indiscriminate cuts of ACT only reinforced and added fuel to the current toxic culture. Changing it will require different leadership and a commitment to rooting out the old one.
The inefficiency is both at the top as well as the bottom. The redundancy is astonishing after having worked at other tech firms.
I don't disagree that Intel is slow and inefficient. That's a top-down problem and not a bottom-up one. And that hasn't changed for the better with ACT (nor will it with ACT2, ACT3 or the future lay-offs formerly known as ACT).
The kind of short-term cost-cutting / trumpeting of illusory victories ("Big Apple modem wins" or "efficiency gains" or IoT "partnerships with BMW and GE" or "We bought an AI company!"). It's all BS and - not to quote that guy - time will tell.
Clearly Intel is far from being out of the woods or pointed in any kind of promising future direction.
Intel is slow and inefficient.
Even more cuts are needed.
I'm not at all surprised. I knew he came in to be the Hatchet Man back in November when I heard he was hired.
Yes, he did want a deeper cut (85K is about right) - at least this is the talk in the halls at JF. We all expect full compliance of these cuts for the next focal. If you were elected VSP - does NOT matter if you are an engineer, technician or PE, and or what group you are in, IOT, DCG, PCCG whatever. You are gone. Mark it here. You should have heeded the advice of your manager and taken the lucrative package when you had the chance.
We won't know the total results of ACT for another 2 or so years, when the business impact of the layoffs is visible. I'm not surprised that the predictable short term effects are trumpeted, nor will I be surprised if he's not around to face the music later when products slip due to resourcing.