This is an absolutely on-point observation about company dynamics that a large number of people in the tech industry have never had to experience. It's why growth is so critical.
Re:Jim Keller moves to AI chip startup
by MichaelZuo on Thursday January 07, 2021 @11:17AM
(#25672831)
Past a certain size threshold the organizational and social dynamics of human relationships seems to be the predominant factor in getting anything done. i.e. There’s a limit to how big of a headwind we can cope with.
If the company is growing, there are new X-of-Y positions to move up to.
If the company is stable or shrinking, people start watching out for their own careers with knives out.
AMD possibly avoided this because of size & realization of what needed to be done. Intel's too big & old: I would be very surprised if they weren't much more internally resistant to that sort of change.
And one can only deal with your colleagues throwing up brick wall after brick wall on every bit of minutiae for so long, as least if you're talented enough to have other options.