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I made it sound too interesting. I just meant to point out two things that are pretty obvious to external observers (one of which is that manufacturing work is often less predictable and more after-hours than something like SW development).

Given the stories I've heard, I don't think anyone can compete with the gaming industry!

I didn't mean to imply that exactly (since the margins were still pretty high and comp was still incredible by conventional standards), but I'm implying that high-margin software companies could easily offer previously unthinkable comp so they could recruit the best talent possible. I think most HW companies were slow to adjust across-the-board comp to compete. It's not like there was a mass exodus to these SW companies, but I think it was a small factor in this story (and was for nearly every tech company that wasn't operating at absurd $/employee margins).

I was there when it hummed, and I was there when it failed. This is a gross mischaracterization (of an extremely complex failure) that owes its appeal to a simple and familiar explanation: greed / optimizing for shareholder returns.

I'd love to dish, but there is no simple and salacious story to tell, and it's too soon to talk about it anyway as far as I am concerned (and I imagine their lawyers agree). I do think the emergence of high-margin software companies as providers of mostly high-pay, low-stress jobs (and thus magnets for sharp and motivated engineers or aspiring engineers) was one of many contributing factors. I'd tell you how process engineers in the most critical areas used to work, but you'd never believe me.