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Comment by kilo_bravo_3 | Hacker News Reader

If it was just a firing I would be hopeful.

But a firing coupled with a reorg?

Good luck!

Even a fingerless man could hold up the correct number of digits needed to express the number of times a reorg has solved a problem.

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"Let's do a reorg!" has been Intel's goto action for this kind of thing for years. They're constantly reorg-ing hoping that it will solve the problem. But the problems at Intel right now go way deeper than what a simple reorg can solve.

> Even a fingerless man could hold up the correct number of digits needed to express the number of times a reorg has solved a problem.

I couldn't disagree more.

As companies grow/change, existing structures that used to work at some point, can start to break down and a reorg can (and often does) solve that.

A typical example are smaller companies that start with centralized services that support all BUs, but that break up these services as they grow, because per-BU needs might diverge too much or because the distance/sense of ownership of a central group doesn't always align.

It doesn't always work, but I've seen it done right multiple times.

Successful reorgs are done in response to growth, changing markets, and new lines of business.

Just like the examples you gave.

This is either a desperation or punitive reorg.

There are also boredom and “make my mark” reorgs and this ain’t them.

> Successful reorgs are done in response to growth, changing markets, and new lines of business.

> This is either a desperation or punitive reorg.

One could very well characterize the reorganization of IBM in the mid nineties as a desperation reorg and a punitive one (100K employees laid off.)

It was also a very successful one.

Was it? It could have been IBM who invented the smartphone or hardware as a service.

They survived.

Surviving cannot be the ambition of IBM.

Clearly you haven't worked at IBM.

Reorgs are like fire: they are often used to erase evidence of incompetence.

Love it!

I worked at a company that did a reorg every 6 months. Everyone was always on edge and backstabbing each other.

Took me 3 cycles to wise up and look for another job.

They can also try changing the departments names

Re-orgs, at least ones I've seen in Microsoft recently, are necessary acts of creative destruction. Halt stagnant projects and move employees into new growth areas.

I would say that is untrue. In the case of Intel and their issues as of late, some reorganization at this level will go a long way.

What are you basing that on?

5 years of running a 200 person company. There is such thing as a constructive reorganization.

The original comment read a bit like that of someone who was south of a reorg.

How does that relate to Intel though? How do you know that reorganization will solve their problems?

Issues as systematic as this often point to poor execution or weak teams in the organization. Reorganizing them to allow for better focus or better alignment (or in many cases just better leadership to a business unit that is struggling) can lead to some pretty dramatic results even with the majority of the organization remaining the same. Look at Microsoft - both in size (~100-150k employees) and challenges (market share loss, lack of innovation in key areas, delayed deliveries) - and the impact of Satya on the organization at large with regards to that.

Intel's fab has been lackluster for the last 5 years and the only solution at this point is to reorganize for better results. 10nm is unfathomably late and 7nm slipping like this is another red flag. I think too much tolerance for failure was given to the unit in charge of fabrication and I would be curious to see an organizational post mortem done on that.

In the interest of seeing continued competition in the processor world (which we're already seeing the numerous advantages of with AMD now) and also in the fabrication space (TSMC is getting very close to monopoly) I really hope that Intel solves this issue.

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