Paul S. Otellini has died
newsroom.intel.com
newsroom.intel.com
I have long believed that Paul is the best post-Grove CEO that Intel has had. Otellini was as good of a CEO as Grove, better in certain ways (consumer marketing instincts). His tenure was not as long as Grove's and is under-appreciated for that reason only.
I wonder how different Intel would be today if that occurred.
Xscale was widely used in Palm Treo's, Sony Clie's most Compaq Poquet PC's and the original Amazon Kindle.
His "biggest regret" comment is pure rewriting of history.
He made the wrong decision to get out of phone CPUs.
This is probably one of the biggest blunders in Intel's history.
Probably would be pretty hard to justify, though.
Besides, if you’re looking for screw-ups that hammered Intel’s shareholder value, I don’t think the P4 is even in the top 3. Selling XScale and missing the boat on ARM was much worse.
I don't remember much of his speech, but when I remember most was bumping into him in the stairwell on my way to the speech. My eyes landed on his badge, and I said something like, "hey, I'm about to go listen to you talk."
We had one of the most friendly conversations I had.
The thought of that, as a 26-year old, terrifies me.
Imagine having multiple jobs where you are recognized and have the type of impact that transforms the entire world. In this case all of that happened at one company. He probably had enough money to retire well before the time he did, so I assume he enjoyed something about working there? So maybe he didn't feel bad he only had 4 years of retirement?
He had a family, including children. Maybe that pointless speculation isn't appropriate either direction.
I said, very clearly, that speculating on whether Paul would be ok with just having four years of retirement, is pointless speculation and impolite - or worse - toward the family he left behind. It is. A few seconds of thinking in empathy first, would prevent the entire discussion over what Paul may or may not have been interested in. Frankly, I don't even like having to explain the obviousness of how crude this conversation is.
To be clear, it's not an issue of whether discussing retirement matters in general in this thread is obnoxious. It's about speculating on Paul's specific choices or preferences. That is obnoxious.
It's not like there is some societal taboo being broken here.
The trade off between obsessive, 90 hour work weeks that make a CEO, and living for four fucking years afterwards is a discussion worth having.
Was it worth it? Do the family think it was worth it?
I'd say that it's probably closer to 100% of us will die.
Live around your work, so you are working to enjoy life now, not in the future.
That doesn't mean "slack off" or "can working", it just means find hobbies you enjoy and dedicate yourself as much to them as your work.
My dad worked for the same company for 25 years. He helped it grow and benefited from that growth by moving up internally, and he had enough time left over to raise a family. When he left at 60 to consult and start his own company, it’s not like he’d spent the previous 25 years in a sprint with nothing to show for it.
Steve Jobs died soon after he retired. And working at (nearly) the same company / dreams his entire adult life. Or more like he was forced to retire due to his health.
But Apple Park. As if He wasn't gonna let death get in the way of his Dream.
From reading books and listening to his talks he gave on life, I am sure he didn't regret it one bit.
“I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.” - Steve Jobs.
I agree with the sentiment, but it's also very easy for someone as financially secure as Jobs to make that call.
Life is pretty fleeting; we plan for a long healthy life and in most cases it does pan out. But you can get super unlucky for whatever reason.
Different things fulfill different people.
There are many retirees who enjoy their emeritus status so they can continue "work".
Working at the same company for a long duration? Or dying soon after retiring?
The idea of (seemingly) having never explored other places. He graduated and immediately joined Intel and never left.
Maybe he was happy-as-a-clam there but spending your entire adult life having (seemingly) never taken a risk.
There is obviously a lot of assumption and judgement to this though.
If he was able to climb the ladder to become the CEO, he probably took some very big risks and had a very big target on his back. The risks are just different from moving from one company to another.
I've worked at different large companies and met plenty of people who only did exactly what was asked for them. They barely took any risks. Every few years they got a standard promotion as per HR policy, but ultimately their career trajectory stalled. There's nothing wrong with that, but somebody who can climb to be a CEO of a company like Intel surely took some risks and did something to stand out?
It would take commitment, grit, skill, and so much more to do that. It's not like he was a mindless pencil pusher in the same dead-end job his whole life.
I hope to work at the same company for the rest of my life, raise my kids, vacation regularly with my wife, then die. I would be completely content with a 'boring' life.
You should only take a risk when the gain is worth it; if you already have what you want, the gain is not worth it.
Also, changing jobs is just one type of risk you can take. Maybe his steady work was his foundation for taking other risks in other parts of his life.
Many philosophers thought so, but there are other pursuits. The philosophy of virtue (not in the biblical sense) describes one such alternative. The teachings of the virtue ethics can be perceived to mean that your pursuit should be mastery of any one (or number) of subject(s) and/or character traits. Mastery would be the perfect marriage between effort, preparation and result (or in the case of ethics, the perfect life in balance, cultivating the good in you).
There are as many reasons to do things as there are people do do them ;)
Intel hasn't been a tiny start up for decades. You can do many different things inside a large company that is in so many markets. Just because someone stays at the same company for their entire career doesn't mean that they were riding the gravy train the entire time.
You'll grow out of it once you hit 30.
Our society is based on work, that's why you should try to get a good one.
My biggest concern is folks dying soon after retirement. It's pretty scary to envision working for 40+ years and not be able to enjoy retirement.
Why is this happening?
Sadly, many interpret this to be that they will live to be that magic average number, and either get caught off-guard when time is up sooner (perhaps regretting having neglected family time / travel / personal stuff), or unprepared in the case they live 20 years beyond what their savings had projected to last.
And some of us have the notion that money can push your date out further. Then we see CEOs die "early" and realize nobody is an exception.
Part of it is surely genetic. Her father lived to be nearly 105 and was 100% healthy physically and mentally until 2 weeks before he died when he developed shingles and got sores in his mouth that made it difficult to eat so he stopped eating and died. He was still breaking horses into his late-80s.
I also wonder if it was something to do with how she was raised. She grew up on a ranch and spent a lot of time outdoors tending the cows and sheep We were visiting the old property this summer and she told us we should go on a hike to see a waterfall up a canyon where she once had to retrieve a flock of lost sheep - it was one of the most difficult hikes I've ever been on and I can't believe she did it and brought back the sheep while still a young girl. They made them tougher back in those days I guess.
For many years, Chinese elders are recommended to go to senior citizen clubs, play chess games and Mahjong, do TaiChi or something alike, for better physical and mental health. The unfortunate side of the reality is many elders are disabled and have no one to get them where they need to be except getting help from senior assistance. I hope more families can spend more time with their elderly.
>Survival increased across the full range of gait speeds, with significant increments per 0.1 m/s. At age 75, predicted 10-year survival across the range of gait speeds ranged from 19% to 87% in men and from 35% to 91% in women. Predicted survival based on age, sex, and gait speed was as accurate as predicted based on age, sex, use of mobility aids, and self-reported function or as age, sex, chronic conditions, smoking history, blood pressure, body mass index, and hospitalization.
Graph of life expectancy vs gait speed: http://jamanetwork.com/data/Journals/JAMA/8042/joc05171f2.pn...
Table with confidence intervals: http://jamanetwork.com/data/Journals/JAMA/8042/joc05171t2.pn...
My dad is 98 and lives a pretty active lifestyle. He jogs 5 miles a day and runs a hobby farm with chickens and sheep and a few acres of vegetables.
But some of it has to be genetic too. His older sister is 106, and my grandmother was 102 when she passed.
It’s kind of amazing to be my age and have a dad who was born in 1919 and a grandma born in 1882.
I’m grateful for having that much knowledge and experience around me.
There are things I’ve allegedly missed out on by having an older dad, but I wouldn’t trade my experience for anything.
I'm less concerned with when I punch out than with how I punch out.
The thing that scares me more than physical infirmity (and I can say this with a degree of certainty since I have a serious spine condition that at one point could have meant a wheelchair) is mental infirmity.
Terry Pratchett (and others) had it right, We should be allowed to choose our end time while we are in sound mind.
That we don't have Euthanasia in most 'modern' societies I think is insane.
An insanely complex and thorny issue, maybe.
I would argue that once preserving life is negotiable, a debate on the utility of the elderly and infirmed soon follows. Ruthless bureaucratic directives will simply roll off the tongue like, "maybe your mother should just take a pain pill", if you recall that ol' chestnut from prez. Obama.
So, if you want to institutionalize murdering inconvenient people, go ahead and make your case. I'll oppose such self-hating foolishness. If you do get your way, don't be surprised when you're powerless and some bean counter unceremoniously pulls your plug before you're ready to go, just to free up a bed.
> An insanely complex and thorny issue, maybe.
So are most major issues society has to deal with.
> I would argue that once preserving life is negotiable, a debate on the utility of the elderly and infirmed soon follows.
Perhaps but we already have that debate every time the government decides how much money to put into elderly care (hint: In my country (the UK) not as much as they should - Social Care for the elderly is critically underfunded)
> So, if you want to institutionalize murdering inconvenient people.
Not sure how you got there from my post but for what it is worth, I don't - I want the opinion of the person in sound mind backed up by competent medical professionals to be respected as a matter of body autonomy, We don't get to force surgery on adults of sound mind for example and here in the UK other things are regulated in a similar system - I can choose not to have surgery that will kill me if I don't have it, that's fine but I can't choose the manner of my death, it seems contradictory to me, We put animals that are suffering to sleep because it's humane but we don't extend the same right to humans who are capable of asking for it and yes there are arguments against but nothing is perfect, the question I always ask is "in aggregate does this benefit people" if you wait around for the perfect solution you end up not implementing a 'merely' better one.
> If you do get your way, don't be surprised when you're powerless and some bean counter unceremoniously pulls your plug before you're ready to go, just to free up a bed.
And if we don't, don't be surprised when the secret Martian master race turn up and harvest your essence....
Hm, this is not selling me on your system.
You've already surrendered your freedoms. Take whatever you can get, I guess? Go strike in the streets if you don't get enough care? I am sorry for you; I just hope we (in the US) don't go your way.
> We put animals that are suffering to sleep ...
You are merely an animal, then? You have resigned yourself to the meat grinder. I prefer to take a more enlightened view of what it means to be human and how special human life is.
> So, if you want to institutionalize murdering inconvenient people, go ahead and make your case.
That's the exact opposite of what is being discussed here: Murder is a disgusting violation of personal rights.
My disagreement is with killing people. I particularly have a problem with killing people who do not wish to die by withholding care because they're no longer useful, too expensive, etc. This is the institutional murder that I'd like to avoid.
I'd prefer to err on the side of caution rather than make blanket "right to die" laws. Right to die laws a) expand like all laws do, and b) get misapplied in tragic ways.
The problem of euthanasia is thorny because abstract arguments in-favor are very dangerous. "I don't see any reason that they shouldn't also have the right to decide when to give that right up" is not very specific. I am therefore assuming you are a very dangerous, if well-meaning, person.
> I particularly have a problem with killing people who do not wish to die by withholding care because they're no longer useful, too expensive, etc.
Me too (and I hope I made that clear in my previous comment).
> I'd prefer to err on the side of caution rather than make blanket "right to die" laws. Right to die laws a) expand like all laws do, and b) get misapplied in tragic ways.
They seem to work out pretty well in places like Switzerland.
> I am therefore assuming you are a very dangerous, if well-meaning, person.
In the context of an informal online discussion, I don't see the point in agonizing over the exact wording; I feel that my intent was clear enough in the context of the thread. If someone is of a sound mind, and wishes to end their life through euthanasia, they have the right to do it.
I don't see the "euthanasia" part itself as the "thorny" bit. The details of determining the individual's mental state (i.e. the method of testing their sanity), documenting that, and preventing abuse of the law. But that's the nature of the law; provide protection for citizen's rights, and preventing abuse of those rights.
> I am therefore assuming you are a very dangerous, if well-meaning, person.
I think you're reading too much into a couple sentences typed during my coffee break.
Fair point. I impute a lot of selfish motives when I hear what I consider to be ambiguous pro-euthanasia arguments.
> The details of determining the individual's mental state (i.e. the method of testing their sanity), documenting that, and preventing abuse of the law.
I appreciate you trying to corner this argument with some specifics. I can't convince you, but my contention is that mutable laws and under-manned/inept/corrupt officials can never provide the type of sustained protections for the helpless that I think you're envisioning. Just knowing how loop-holey and unjust so much of American law is, I urge caution.
Ruthless bureaucratic directives will simply
roll off the tongue like, "maybe your mother
should just take a pain pill", if you recall
that ol' chestnut from prez. Obama.
I have no real proof, but I'll be prodding my father to find a side job or volunteer work or a really deep hobby as he approaches retirement.
Is it not also possible that a driven person retires because, perhaps subconsciously, they recognize symptoms that both impair their continued performance and portend their imminent demise?
Edit: it may be a silly observation I have made, but hn users are really silly to downvote this.
I disagree with your assessment. I think this place is just full of people who are too easily offended by non tech topics appearing, and think perhaps that if they were at their own deathbed they'd look back and be glad they moved to discourage some random dope that casually compared the day's news to another headline. Very smug and lacking in social perspective.
Quarterly OKRs for a millionaire? I really hope they weren't the entirety of his existence, otherwise we're all doomed
FWIW that's impressive to me. Apple is probably one of their larger customers, and the deal could've gone to AMD instead.
Business accomplishments can be worth praising.
I don't know if they've since edited it or what, but it currently describes plenty about how "the human" is the reason for those numbers. It reads to me like a recognition of Otellini's successes as CEO.