My question is how much did Intel decide to pay him that Apple, with all the money in the world sitting around in offshore accounts not helping anyone, decided it wasn't worth keeping him around for their most important hardware project in a decade.
Companies rarely have an interest to get in a bidding war because the best outcome is that you pay a lot to hang on to that person for a little while longer. People at that level more often leave because their job was done and they want new, interesting projects, money alone won't cut it. The worst outcome is that it incentivizes more employees to try the same approach. The company either opens the spending floodgates, or rejects a lot of them thus losing people either to the competition or to demotivation.
When it's one person they probably rely on the fact that the team and structure in place can take a loss. When it's a mass departure they will give bonuses as they have done recently with the possible departures to Meta.
Knowing big corps, his boss begged and cried to HR to fix his comp, but HR drones said raises over 3.7% can’t be approved for this role-seniority combination
I don't get this. Saying you can't raise someone's salary above a certain % is pure arbitrary BS. There's no rule they can't do it unless they create the rule. This is what keeps salaries depressed if you stay at a company long enough. They'll have to pay market for your replacement when you leave... I mean it's just stupid.
A lot of the equal pay movements drove standardization into pay structure and now companies say that it's to ensure everyone is compensated fairly while keeping wages well below any reasonable margin of what that employee generates for the company.
I find it’s useful to consider all the angles until one does make sense. In this case, enforcing miserly annual increases does make sense if only a small percentage actually do leave for increased pay. I personally find this to be true in my own network. Very few developers I know job hop to increase pay. Most stay at companies for 5-10 years.
From management perspective it’s unwise to pay more than you have to. And if management is competent, then the departure of a few should not be a hardship. That’s a big “if”.
Now, the great resignation may change this calculus, that remains to be seen.
Different challenges appeal to different people. From his background, he seems motivated by high levels of ambiguity, rather than maintaining mature products. By all outward indications, he is leaving Apple on a high and has no doubt helped develop a multi-year roadmap for the Apple Silicon team. He accomplished what he set out to do, and is simply excited by the opportunity to do something new in his field of expertise.
At a leadership level once you say you have another offer you’re tainted goods in a way. Loyalty in the leadership is a thing. Your senior leadership will lack some trust. Since trust is everything at Apple, I’d imagine that it would have been difficult to stay.
He probably makes enough money that money wasn't the issue. He probably took the M1 as far as he wanted to and decided now was a good time to explore other opportunities.
There's the saying to "quit while you're at the top". He has a massive victory with M1. Staying in place the best outcome in the future is to deliver incremental improvements. Going to the competition and helping them bootstrap another potentially hugely successful chip is certainly far more attractive. A new challenge is probably worth more than money alone.
I was about to say, it's also possible that he realize that right now if he quits Apple, he has an almost "legendary" status, to a point where he could easily come back in a few years for at least the same salary as before, if it turns out that working for Intel sucks for him.
If Intel is offering a competitive salary and promising interesting work, this is basically a zero-risk move for him.
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Imagine being so good in your field, both Apple and Intel get in a bidding fight over you.
Good for him.
My question is how much did Intel decide to pay him that Apple, with all the money in the world sitting around in offshore accounts not helping anyone, decided it wasn't worth keeping him around for their most important hardware project in a decade.
Companies rarely have an interest to get in a bidding war because the best outcome is that you pay a lot to hang on to that person for a little while longer. People at that level more often leave because their job was done and they want new, interesting projects, money alone won't cut it. The worst outcome is that it incentivizes more employees to try the same approach. The company either opens the spending floodgates, or rejects a lot of them thus losing people either to the competition or to demotivation.
When it's one person they probably rely on the fact that the team and structure in place can take a loss. When it's a mass departure they will give bonuses as they have done recently with the possible departures to Meta.
Knowing big corps, his boss begged and cried to HR to fix his comp, but HR drones said raises over 3.7% can’t be approved for this role-seniority combination
Aside:
I don't get this. Saying you can't raise someone's salary above a certain % is pure arbitrary BS. There's no rule they can't do it unless they create the rule. This is what keeps salaries depressed if you stay at a company long enough. They'll have to pay market for your replacement when you leave... I mean it's just stupid.
A lot of the equal pay movements drove standardization into pay structure and now companies say that it's to ensure everyone is compensated fairly while keeping wages well below any reasonable margin of what that employee generates for the company.
I find it’s useful to consider all the angles until one does make sense. In this case, enforcing miserly annual increases does make sense if only a small percentage actually do leave for increased pay. I personally find this to be true in my own network. Very few developers I know job hop to increase pay. Most stay at companies for 5-10 years.
From management perspective it’s unwise to pay more than you have to. And if management is competent, then the departure of a few should not be a hardship. That’s a big “if”.
Now, the great resignation may change this calculus, that remains to be seen.
So painfully true and common.
Different challenges appeal to different people. From his background, he seems motivated by high levels of ambiguity, rather than maintaining mature products. By all outward indications, he is leaving Apple on a high and has no doubt helped develop a multi-year roadmap for the Apple Silicon team. He accomplished what he set out to do, and is simply excited by the opportunity to do something new in his field of expertise.
At a leadership level once you say you have another offer you’re tainted goods in a way. Loyalty in the leadership is a thing. Your senior leadership will lack some trust. Since trust is everything at Apple, I’d imagine that it would have been difficult to stay.
He probably makes enough money that money wasn't the issue. He probably took the M1 as far as he wanted to and decided now was a good time to explore other opportunities.
He might:
These things happen.Or the "work is done" at Apple and he sees a chance to "do it again" for Intel. Often solving the same problem twice is fun, like replaying a game.
There's the saying to "quit while you're at the top". He has a massive victory with M1. Staying in place the best outcome in the future is to deliver incremental improvements. Going to the competition and helping them bootstrap another potentially hugely successful chip is certainly far more attractive. A new challenge is probably worth more than money alone.
I was about to say, it's also possible that he realize that right now if he quits Apple, he has an almost "legendary" status, to a point where he could easily come back in a few years for at least the same salary as before, if it turns out that working for Intel sucks for him.
If Intel is offering a competitive salary and promising interesting work, this is basically a zero-risk move for him.
I think this is notable in this field only because of how consolidated the power is - this happens all of the time in software engineering.