> The engineer working on CAD, layout, specs, RFQs, Suppliers, Equipment, etc are hardly going to revolutionize anything. Their work is valuable but they’re entirely replaceable.

You just named all specialist who would get N-times the salary outside of the industry.

That's the problem of the industry.

A man who can "just write a CAD plugin" in semi industry would probable be an instant senior hire in any CAD vendor.

A mid-level semi PM would be a senior PM, GM level manager, or a COO anywhere else.

Analog IC designer is by default a top-tier EE.

A fab "junior technician" is likely an engineering, or physics master, or more likely a PhD in Taiwan.

And so on, and on.

I saw these first-hand armies of cheap contractors that cannot deliver anything. In the meantime your neglected supporting software/infrastructure slow you down. Intel had enough money to get the best engineers on every level. Lower turnover and better and cheaper to maintain software. Instead, they choose to save money QA they got spectre saga. Intel saved on latest process and not used EUV and could not deliver 10nm at all.

> The engineer working on CAD, layout, specs, RFQs, Suppliers, Equipment, etc are hardly going to revolutionize anything. Their work is valuable but they’re entirely replaceable.

I think this is a very elitist mindset that unfortunately many people have.

To me engineering is primarily a learning process on how to build better tools. And you can probably always build a more suitable tool on top of existing tool.

So saying, this is "boring work", that requires "just minions" is akin to saying that the existing tools cannot be improved, or people who use these tools cannot figure out a way to improve them themselves, they need to be told by somebody.

All of these people can and do make outsize contributions to the company if you let them, because people don't only do their jobs. (They can also do outsize harm if you let them, I suppose.)

> Their work is valuable but they’re entirely replaceable.

Intel is replaceable.

Sorry, I’m not sure if I follow your point?

Basically, I was saying that top-engineers are irreplaceable but they need replaceable engineers to execute menial, boring, repetitive work. There is a lot of this to be done.

His point is, when you go from being practically the only game in town in 2014, to being a joke-ass also-ran "competitor" being trounced by the underdog processor company[0] who damn near went bankrupt and had to sell their fab just to stay afloat; and when your two biggest allies 1) make their own System-on-a-Chip that fucking slaughters your best offerings in a ton of benchmarks and real world tests, and also does it on 1/4th the power[1] and 2) is actively working with another company to also make their own System-on-a-Chip that you can be damn sure will also go into, not only their premium tablet and laptop line, but likely also their cloud service division [2], you had better shape your ass up with a quickness and do whatever you need to do before you end up a footnote of history.

[0] - AMD

[1] - Apple

[2] - Microsoft

This feels like a distraction from what I was driving at. Whether it’s Intel, AMD, etc. any large company needs a lot of work to be done. You don’t need top engineers for that.

You are confusing "top" engineers/employees with top-technical employees, that is not the same at all. If you staff a company with geniuses in R&D and gray mediocrities in all the other departments I am pretty sure you know what will happen. You want great CAD designers, PM, QA, logistics, marketing people? Pay them accordingly and not like mediocrities.It is pretty obvious you have no idea what you are talking about.

Either that or he is unwittingly expressing the underlying problem with intel's corporate culture that got them into this mess.

Good engineering is about finding reusable solutions to problems, it's not manual labor.

If you have good engineers the relationship between amount of work and number of engineers needed is non-linear.

> You don’t need top engineers for that.

Top-tier companies have to pay top-tier compensation.

Unethical companies have to pay top-tier compensation. You don't have to pay Google/FB bucks if you don't have sex scandals and employee retaliations in the news every day, or if the students you're recruiting don't think you're brainwashing their grandparents.

That's a very weak idea and unhelpful. Many companies pay excellently and aren't even connected to advertising.

If you are/become a leader, this mentality can seriously hurt your org. Pay for the talent you want to attract and keep. Pay generously for performance.

Hiding in those pools of 'replaceable' engineers are the next generation of top-level engineers. Intel seems to have failed to recognize that fact and now have become as replaceable as their employees are.

Having a boring or menial job is not an indictment of a person's potential or capabilities.