Just read itel..not using big plant that was going to bump economy.

At issue is declining processor sales and Intel's late entry into telecomm, which is dominated by the likes of Qualcom, etc. Intel's ginormous fabs are geared towards microprocessors, but increasingly, folks are using their small, 'smart' devices to do what they used to do on thier desktops/laptops.

Intel's attempt to become a foundary is getting hit by competator TSMC.

 

Creativity, innovation and motivation to make new products and new applications of existing products do not just come from engineers - they can come from anywhere. Engineers just like to remember engineering examples (eg Fairchild). There are many stories of a man-on-the street with a great experience who converts that experience to a product.

Yes, and as soon as that man with the great idea forms a company, the process begins whereby it gradually morphs into a place where innovation (and risk) are no longer allowed. It's because marketing and finance runs the company, the CEO constantly fears for his job, quarterly returns and the effect it has on stock price become the all important metric by which everything is judged.

My point was, Apple actually went through that...back when they forced Jobs out because he wouldn't go along with it. Apple promptly slid into a funk and they brought Jobs back and Apple took off again. The rest is history: the magic was Jobs.

Without a despot like Jobs, Apple will become another silicon valley company run by fear and innovation will be squeezed out.

The cycle repeats ad infinitum.

 

Product success comes when one finds a need and fills it. That is the essence of marketing.

The theory is that "there are riches in niches" and that is true to a degree but the problem is niches fill up quickly.

Tesla will find out that hard fact pretty soon.

 

Product success comes when one finds a need and fills it. That is the essence of marketing.

A smart marketeer is essential in any project... problem is, they are very rare. It also takes one with the cajones to put it on the line.

I started at nat Semi right after their last truly innovative product line was launched which was the Simple Switchers products. At that time there were only two ways to get a switcher: the molded "complete" units with all parts inside that were ridiculously expensive and a discrete design using a basic chip like a SG3524 which required MANY parts and a power supply designer who could do the whole thing.

The simple switcher concept was "middle ground". As the marketing guy Al Kelsh put it:

"It's a lot cheaper than the easy solution, and a lot easier than the cheap solution."

So it had a good niche to live in.

But it was risky and a lot of people tried to kill it but it got done and was a stunning success..... of course, then they all rewrote history and starting taking credit for their "insight" because success has a thousand fathers and failure is an orphan.

Point is, it always amazes me how many good things get strangled in the crib because nobody wants to assume the risk... lucky for Nat Semi they went with this one, the profits were huge.

We would have been up to our necks in money if they had followed my advice: the three inductor/transformer makers listed on our data sheets actually made a lot more money than we did (and paid us NOTHING). I suggested we have them stamp "Nat Semi" on the parts and we would buy them at wholesale and resell them to our customers and pocket all the profit.... but nobody would go near that idea because it meant somebody taking ownership of something. Too bad.... we could have all been millionaires.

 

Yes, and as soon as that man with the great idea forms a company, the process begins whereby it gradually morphs into a place where innovation (and risk) are no longer allowed. It's because marketing and finance runs the company, the CEO constantly fears for his job, quarterly returns and the effect it has on stock price become the all important metric by which everything is judged.

My point was, Apple actually went through that...back when they forced Jobs out because he wouldn't go along with it. Apple promptly slid into a funk and they brought Jobs back and Apple took off again. The rest is history: the magic was Jobs.

Without a despot like Jobs, Apple will become another silicon valley company run by fear and innovation will be squeezed out.

The cycle repeats ad infinitum.

It is very hard to keep a large company innovative. Innovation is done by people, not by processes. If we have a 100 open posotions, we are lucky to find one or two people in the 100 that will be innovative. Innovation requires an ability to see what a market (or customer) needs. Unfortunatley, engineers and scientists are often trained in their specialty (software, circuit design, mateiral testing, chemical synthesis, ...), they are not trained to think like a customer. Look at the difficulty people had in finding what can be improved with a soldering iron in another post. It started with some jokes about how fruitless this exercise will be but, eventually some ideas did surface.

Once a problem is identiifed and a solution propsed, an analysis has to be done to see how much an end customer is willing to pay for the improvement if the existing option is still avaiable. Then, one must analyze how many units must be sold to cover the development and setup costs and additional inventory of a second model in the warehouse.

The marketing guys do contribute but their decisions do not always have a black-and-white answer. There is a lot of gray and they put their necks on the line sometimes saying that 1M units will be sold for a new product. Even Apple has fires people because someone over estimated (or underestimated) an opportunity. That fear of losing your job, house, health insurance is what causes paralysis and halts innovation. Letting people learn from mistakes keeps people fresh. As long as they learn.

It is painful to see marketing people earning equal or greater salaries than engineers but the risk of losing an engineering job is much lower than risk of losing a marketing/business management job.

 

It is very hard to keep a large company innovative. Innovation is done by people, not by processes.

True. But companies have Darwinian forces at work within them where managers do what it takes to survive given the conditions..... and as long as the conditions are "stock price" driven and the company officers jobs hang in the balance, there will be no innovation.

I worked for 30 years and it was built into EVERY step of the process:

Managers can't take risk because their jobs depend on PBT (profit before taxes) and stock price.

Designers NEVER take risks with cutting edge circuits because they are being reviewed on a strict release schedule and innovation takes extra time.

marketing guys won't take risk because their jobs hang in the balance on "ramp time" which is how long it takes any new product to "break even" on NRE cost. No proven market for a device? It is killed in the crib.

Point is with humans, you will always get the behavior that is rewarded. And most companies reward playing it safe at every level.

The only exception is start ups or companies run like start up where one guy calls the shots.

 

Once a problem is identiifed and a solution propsed, an analysis has to be done to see how much an end customer is willing to pay for the improvement if the existing option is still avaiable. Then, one must analyze how many units must be sold to cover the development and setup costs and additional inventory of a second model in the warehouse.

Maybe so, but I have so often seen that used to paralyze something just to avoid taking any risk.

Anytime our director wanted to kill something, it was killed by committee:

"We can't go ahead until we get input from ABC and XYZ and check with Farbeltwarp to see where he thinks the next generation standards are going yadda, yadda, yadda."

The point is that sometimes you need somebody to drive the stake in the ground and say:

OK. We are pretty sure it's going like this and we are going to build this for it. PERIOD. No more whining, get to work."

And people who do that are wrong sometimes, but it is exactly like picking which stock to buy: follow the guy who is right MORE TIMES THAN HE IS WRONG and he will make you very rich.

Follow the guy who is always afraid to pull the trigger and go nowhere but bankruptcy.

 

The marketing guys do contribute but their decisions do not always have a black-and-white answer.

In reality, they do because ultimately they have the go/no-go final word on whether it goes forward. The first step of every project is the business case. Then somebody makes a black-white (yes/no) decision based on that.

 

It is painful to see marketing people earning equal or greater salaries than engineers but the risk of losing an engineering job is much lower than risk of losing a marketing/business management job.

Do you mean the risk of damage to the company is greater if a marketing job is lost?

I am not sure I understand that.

 

GopherT's Law to determine if a project will be implemented...

Probability of action = \(0.5^{n}\)

Where n= number of people who can say "no" as the project moves up the approval ladder.

I agree that inaction is rewarded (or at least not punished).