zlacker

>>fancy_+(OP)
The strangest part to me about the current trends: why do all these business leaders all do the same things at the same time? E.g. Layoffs + micromanagement + cost focus etc... Is this truly about macroeconomic forces that every business is responding to? Or is it just following the latest fad?

There seems to be significant opportunity to zig as others zag. Imagine the Intel letter saying "we are going to take advantage of the current hiring environment to scoop up talent, and push forward on initiatives."

>>johnga+ec
Intel’s situation in 2025 is not comparable to the rest of big tech. They have lost technical leadership, bled market share, and started losing a ton of money in a hugely capital-intensive business. They are actually in need of major triage to survive, not just hopping on a belt-tightening trend among still-massively-profitable software companies.

>>jrk+2e
Yes this. Intel is in deep shit. This is exactly the thing you'd expect their new CEO to say right now.

>>mbac32+3m
One would hope HN commenters would be able to comprehend a microchip seller not having compelling products to sell means it needs to shrink its business, rather than jump to childish “CEO bad guy” sentiments.

>>lotsof+Xr
Shrinking the business is a hard decision to reverse, and one should definitely read into the word "needs" from "needs to shrink" before doing it. People tend to take any claim that a gigantic company "needs" to downsize with a gigantic grain of salt, because we were born with pattern recognition.

>>Dangit+ry
The business had already shrunk 10+ years ago when it was evident mobile devices were the future and Intel had no product offering for them.

It was do or die a decade or two ago to catch up in that market, but they didn’t bother paying sufficient salaries and focusing on the growing markets, so here they are.