It's not just the gaming industry that likes to get fat and then fire everyone, as Intel has announced a cost-cutting exercise where they will be letting go of around 15,000 staff.
Announced as part of their Q2 2024 financial results, followed up by a note from Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, the reduction in staff is to be completed by the end of the year. No matter how you want to spin it, 15,000 is a ridiculous amount of people overall for a single company to just get rid of.
Gelsinger mentioned how it's "an incredibly hard day for Intel as we are making some of the most consequential changes in our company’s history". Words that will likely fall on deaf ears for those being told their time is up. Why though? According to Gelsinger, Intel's revenue has " not grown as expected – and we’ve yet to fully benefit from powerful trends, like AI".
Their results show they've seen revenue of $12.8 billion in Q2, which is down 1% year over year. Gelsinger notes for example how in 2020 annual revenue was "$24 billion higher than it was last year, yet our current workforce is actually 10% larger now".
How long before the AI bubble really bursts? Or perhaps stuff like this is the beginning.
Intel's shares have fallen about 23% at time of writing.
Go ahead Intel, solve the problem with AI. More AI will surely fix this once and for all, right?
This is especially visible in game publishers, during the Covid pandemic they had record sales and expected that they will see grow like that each year. But you can't grow infinitely, the market is finite. They now need to fire people left and right because they were chasing short term profits instead of building resistant business.
As Liam mentioned I expect the same to happen with AI bubble, when the market will be saturated and there will be nowhere to grow.
CEO Pat Gelsinger made $17 million in 2023 alone. That was a 45% raise from his 2022 salary of $12 million. This asshole took almost a 50% raise (what normal person ever gets anywhere close to that), laughed, turned around, and fired THOUSANDS of people.
If the company you are leading has to cut 15k people because of insane ramblings like "revenue has not grown as expected" then surely he will take a 90% cut next year, right? RIGHT?
Last edited by Jarmer on 2 August 2024 at 1:57 pm UTC
and we’ve yet to fully benefit from powerful trends, like AIThat's the thing...
EVERYONE SHOULD REPEAT THIS AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE:Even with the insane inflation, us little people don't get raises like that!
CEO Pat Gelsinger made $17 million in 2023 alone. That was a 45% raise from his 2022 salary of $12 million. This asshole took almost a 50% raise (what normal person ever gets anywhere close to that), laughed, turned around, and fired THOUSANDS of people.
If the company you are leading has to cut 15k people because of insane ramblings like "revenue has not grown as expected" then surely he will take a 90% cut next year, right? RIGHT?
I'm not sure why companies are taking growth for granted. Why they won't rather work with what they made the current year and expect that the next year will be the same or maybe save some of the money for bad times if you are making more than you expected, so you have some reserves.The stock market doesn’t work that way. It’s cool and useful or sometimes necessary, but it is also cancer.
All that talk about going back to being a fab but now they're saying they'll go even more to TSMC for their own chips. Someone offering me to make chips doesn't instill confidence when they can't even make chips for themselves.
How about they figure out how to design great chips and how to make them once again. Then just packaga that into a sensible product and you're good to go. But I guess that would make too much sense for the big businessmen that would rather let everything fall to the deep end.
I'm not sure why companies are taking growth for granted. Why they won't rather work with what they made the current year and expect that the next year will be the same or maybe save some of the money for bad times if you are making more than you expected, so you have some reserves.
To simplify it: one reason is competition.
If you don't grow, your competitors will grow anyway. And once they are big enough they will take over from your market share.
EVERYONE SHOULD REPEAT THIS AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE:I work for Intel.
CEO Pat Gelsinger made $17 million in 2023 alone. That was a 45% raise from his 2022 salary of $12 million. This asshole took almost a 50% raise (what normal person ever gets anywhere close to that), laughed, turned around, and fired THOUSANDS of people.
If the company you are leading has to cut 15k people because of insane ramblings like "revenue has not grown as expected" then surely he will take a 90% cut next year, right? RIGHT?
Believe me, us employees are not going to be quiet about this.
Guess they're too busy powering genocidal rogue states.You definitely aren't wrong about this.
Well, good luck, eh?EVERYONE SHOULD REPEAT THIS AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE:I work for Intel.
CEO Pat Gelsinger made $17 million in 2023 alone. That was a 45% raise from his 2022 salary of $12 million. This asshole took almost a 50% raise (what normal person ever gets anywhere close to that), laughed, turned around, and fired THOUSANDS of people.
If the company you are leading has to cut 15k people because of insane ramblings like "revenue has not grown as expected" then surely he will take a 90% cut next year, right? RIGHT?
Believe me, us employees are not going to be quiet about this.
I'm not sure why companies are taking growth for granted. Why they won't rather work with what they made the current year and expect that the next year will be the same or maybe save some of the money for bad times if you are making more than you expected, so you have some reserves.The stock market doesn’t work that way. It’s cool and useful or sometimes necessary, but it is also cancer.
Yep, major source of these issues are the shift from long term investment where people invested in companies and held on to them for years on end (and got rich on the constant but stable dividends) to the more modern "lets buy and sell the same share within a few milliseconds" that drives the demand for infinite growth.
Once again, a lot of people will be hurt and have their lives upended over rich peoples yacht money.
Go ahead Intel, solve the problem with AI. More AI will surely fix this once and for all, right?
> Asks the AI how to fix the AI problem, if it can't answer just add more AI
Guess they're too busy powering genocidal rogue states.You definitely aren't wrong about this.
At his point on the internet, I actually can't tell if it's sarcasm or you're being genuine. You being an employee there I guess you could have more insight, so I'd like to know if you know more about this.
Last edited by Pyrate on 3 August 2024 at 12:12 pm UTC
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