Apple can attract a lot of talent so there's no worries about their semi-conductor business. Motorola bled many great engineers and I'm sure IBM and AMD have a few willing to depart for greener pastures as well. There's always industry bleed.
Good discussion thread, gentlemen. Appreciated the thoughtful responses to everyone's comments.
Ok, now that we have had a good discussion can I start the toilet humor? Or I am stuck in the dumps?
I must admit that when I first read the headline I felt a little alarmed but after further reading it doesn't seem like they lost that many people. When factoring in family issues, retirement and boredom that seems like a normal part of ebb and flow of any company.
One thing that was mentioned in a previous post is what happened to the IBM wiz kid? It seams to me that after going through such a PUBLIC pissing match with IBM that Apple would be trotting him out now and then. I am starting to suspect that he might not be fitting in all that well and will be retiring for "personal reasons" before the end of the year.
As long as most of the key engineers are still motivated enough to work within Apple they'll be fine. But my hunch is that the "start-up kind of people" who resigned are trying to motivate some of the top engineers and take them with them to start the new thing.
"Come with us, it's gonna be great, just like the old days, and you'll be a full partner"
Instead of reading the article as its been 2 years and everyone is fleeing for greener pastures.
Maybe read it as what it is.
So reading this part there were 150ish people working there almost 2 years ago.
Half a Dozen = 6
So we are looking at 6 people have decided to leave a team of 150, one of which is almost ready to retire.
Over a 2 year time frame thats not a bad batting average, especially when talking about a company as big as Apple, and when the situation of taking over another company and people just not wanting to be a member of the vastly different team.
Id say this story has been blown WAY out of proportion.
Did you read the bit that said "at least six...". You have taken that part and interpreted it as a confirmed and fixed quantity equal to 6, which is not what was said at all.
While a journalist might relatively easily find out the names of the employees forming the top echelons of a company, getting a full list of all the employees would be extremely doubtful, let alone trying to determine the current whereabouts of all of them.
The article could as easily be trying to hint that 6 ise just the tip of an iceberg. I am not saying it is, but it looks like there is a significant possibility that the true number of departees could be significantly higher.
Six is the minimum.
There is an old aphorism that goes: 'no need to buy the cow when all you want is a glass of milk.'
Knowing that 150 people came to Apple to design some super cool processors, ICs, etc. could very well have brought in other new talent that we don't know of.
Frankly, I think this is a story only of the entrepreneur types that started PA Semi who like being entrepreneurs. I'd expect them to start up another company.
So, some leave, some come. There may in fact be MORE than the 150 working in whatever areas the PA Semi people are working in just because they wanted to work at Apple along with the PA Semi guys/gals.
Nice story on the entrepreneurs moving. A non-issue as far as there being any big deal about losing a few PA Semi people.
... If Steve and Company would only dip into that hoard of cash and drop us shareholders a little of the bread crumbs. Than to throw money at a bunch of ingrates who happen to have a little IP and Patent Portfolio in their back pockets.
This is a bit much isn't it?
The lowest, stupidest Apple retail employee has more rights to profit from Apple than any shareholder IMO. You put in some money. Big freaking deal. That doesn't make you deserving of anything in my book.
The market is finally coming around to realising that stock splits and dividends just bleed money out of the company for no reason. Apple as usual, is way ahead of the game and realised that years ago.
Your investment has gone up in value rather considerably. I don't know why you think you deserve cash payments on the side as well. What did you as a stockholder actually contribute to the success of the company? Nothing, that's what.
Your investment has gone up in value rather considerably. I don't know why you think you deserve cash payments on the side as well. What did you as a stockholder actually contribute to the success of the company? Nothing, that's what.
If you have OWNership of a company, you should certainly expect to get a cut of the proceeds proportionate to your stake.
Apple maintains an internel chip dev team that has been around for a long time (VLSI team if I remember correctly).
I think the point made about acquiring the IP and patents around PASemi's working designs being the critical goal for the acquisition was most likely. Dan Dobberpuhl would have come on board for a specified time to ease the transition, but then probably had an agreement with a NC clause to go out and do something else with his time and talents. Agnilux, if you all remember from previous postings, is working on chip fab for the server/networking space - I belive there was mention of a partnership or client relationship with Cisco around this. It makes the most sense for Dan to provide in-house transitional assistance to Apple and then go his way - a fairly common industry practice in merger and acquisition situations like this.
The key players, unless given strong incentive to stay, would likely move on as well. Frequently the personalities of the officers and executives are non-meshable in cases like this - and they would do as Dan did, provide transition support and then move on to the next project.
I expect we will hear all about Agnilux' work in the network/server space in due time. Or perhaps Dan will join up with the ex-Apple social club, Elevation Partners and help bail out Palm and other SIlicon Valley critical cases.
Is there a PA Semi to compete with anymore or have they been subsumed by Apple? Even if PA S still exists as a seperate entity, how could the new startup compete with them since their only customer to speak of would be Apple?
They would have the same military customers that Apple doesn't particularly want/need to cater to. I used to work for what was Pixars image analysis arm that did software for "government agencys". Jobs sold it off as a distraction so I susect that there's no real animosity here.
People go to these startups many times making very little since no VC is willing to see most of its money they put into these companies go to salaries. In exchange for low pay they take a bunch of pre-IPO stock options values anywwhere form $0.10 to a few $. Then the company goes public and they make a bunch or it is sold and they again make a bunch. or the third and less talked about is they do not make lots since the VC need to come out a head and employees get screwed since the VC's revalued the employee stock to make the company more attracted to be sold or dumps on to the unexpected investor. I seen where people had 10 of thousands of shares in a startup only to have them reverse split on them right before it is sold or dump on the market.
The problem is VC's get preferred stock and employee get ordinary stock, the holder of preferred will always get their money out first and to ensure that happens the ordinary stock can be devalued at any time
Either way these employee usually leave since they feel they are not going to make as much if they stay and they think hey I did it once I bet I can do it again at another startup.
If it was true many left because the option they got from Apple were valued too high to stay, well they were given to them during the time when Apple's stock was rocking up and then crashed back so yeah their stock was not worth much then but today it would be.
I bet most of these people think they will hit it big again, which may not be the case.
Comments
Good discussion thread, gentlemen. Appreciated the thoughtful responses to everyone's comments.
Ok, now that we have had a good discussion can I start the toilet humor? Or I am stuck in the dumps?
I must admit that when I first read the headline I felt a little alarmed but after further reading it doesn't seem like they lost that many people. When factoring in family issues, retirement and boredom that seems like a normal part of ebb and flow of any company.
One thing that was mentioned in a previous post is what happened to the IBM wiz kid? It seams to me that after going through such a PUBLIC pissing match with IBM that Apple would be trotting him out now and then. I am starting to suspect that he might not be fitting in all that well and will be retiring for "personal reasons" before the end of the year.
Anyone want to place a (hypothetical) bet? ;-)
"Come with us, it's gonna be great, just like the old days, and you'll be a full partner"
- Steve.
Sent from my iPad
Hmmmm heres an idea.
Instead of reading the article as its been 2 years and everyone is fleeing for greener pastures.
Maybe read it as what it is.
So reading this part there were 150ish people working there almost 2 years ago.
Half a Dozen = 6
So we are looking at 6 people have decided to leave a team of 150, one of which is almost ready to retire.
Over a 2 year time frame thats not a bad batting average, especially when talking about a company as big as Apple, and when the situation of taking over another company and people just not wanting to be a member of the vastly different team.
Id say this story has been blown WAY out of proportion.
Did you read the bit that said "at least six...". You have taken that part and interpreted it as a confirmed and fixed quantity equal to 6, which is not what was said at all.
While a journalist might relatively easily find out the names of the employees forming the top echelons of a company, getting a full list of all the employees would be extremely doubtful, let alone trying to determine the current whereabouts of all of them.
The article could as easily be trying to hint that 6 ise just the tip of an iceberg. I am not saying it is, but it looks like there is a significant possibility that the true number of departees could be significantly higher.
Six is the minimum.
There is an old aphorism that goes: 'no need to buy the cow when all you want is a glass of milk.'
Knowing that 150 people came to Apple to design some super cool processors, ICs, etc. could very well have brought in other new talent that we don't know of.
Frankly, I think this is a story only of the entrepreneur types that started PA Semi who like being entrepreneurs. I'd expect them to start up another company.
So, some leave, some come. There may in fact be MORE than the 150 working in whatever areas the PA Semi people are working in just because they wanted to work at Apple along with the PA Semi guys/gals.
Nice story on the entrepreneurs moving. A non-issue as far as there being any big deal about losing a few PA Semi people.
... If Steve and Company would only dip into that hoard of cash and drop us shareholders a little of the bread crumbs. Than to throw money at a bunch of ingrates who happen to have a little IP and Patent Portfolio in their back pockets.
This is a bit much isn't it?
The lowest, stupidest Apple retail employee has more rights to profit from Apple than any shareholder IMO. You put in some money. Big freaking deal. That doesn't make you deserving of anything in my book.
The market is finally coming around to realising that stock splits and dividends just bleed money out of the company for no reason. Apple as usual, is way ahead of the game and realised that years ago.
Your investment has gone up in value rather considerably. I don't know why you think you deserve cash payments on the side as well. What did you as a stockholder actually contribute to the success of the company? Nothing, that's what.
Your investment has gone up in value rather considerably. I don't know why you think you deserve cash payments on the side as well. What did you as a stockholder actually contribute to the success of the company? Nothing, that's what.
If you have OWNership of a company, you should certainly expect to get a cut of the proceeds proportionate to your stake.
Apple maintains an internel chip dev team that has been around for a long time (VLSI team if I remember correctly).
I think the point made about acquiring the IP and patents around PASemi's working designs being the critical goal for the acquisition was most likely. Dan Dobberpuhl would have come on board for a specified time to ease the transition, but then probably had an agreement with a NC clause to go out and do something else with his time and talents. Agnilux, if you all remember from previous postings, is working on chip fab for the server/networking space - I belive there was mention of a partnership or client relationship with Cisco around this. It makes the most sense for Dan to provide in-house transitional assistance to Apple and then go his way - a fairly common industry practice in merger and acquisition situations like this.
The key players, unless given strong incentive to stay, would likely move on as well. Frequently the personalities of the officers and executives are non-meshable in cases like this - and they would do as Dan did, provide transition support and then move on to the next project.
I expect we will hear all about Agnilux' work in the network/server space in due time. Or perhaps Dan will join up with the ex-Apple social club, Elevation Partners and help bail out Palm and other SIlicon Valley critical cases.
If you have OWNership of a company, you should certainly expect to get a cut of the proceeds proportionate to your stake.
Invest in Boeing or Microsoft. You'll get a dividend and not much else.
Is there a PA Semi to compete with anymore or have they been subsumed by Apple? Even if PA S still exists as a seperate entity, how could the new startup compete with them since their only customer to speak of would be Apple?
They would have the same military customers that Apple doesn't particularly want/need to cater to. I used to work for what was Pixars image analysis arm that did software for "government agencys". Jobs sold it off as a distraction so I susect that there's no real animosity here.
People go to these startups many times making very little since no VC is willing to see most of its money they put into these companies go to salaries. In exchange for low pay they take a bunch of pre-IPO stock options values anywwhere form $0.10 to a few $. Then the company goes public and they make a bunch or it is sold and they again make a bunch. or the third and less talked about is they do not make lots since the VC need to come out a head and employees get screwed since the VC's revalued the employee stock to make the company more attracted to be sold or dumps on to the unexpected investor. I seen where people had 10 of thousands of shares in a startup only to have them reverse split on them right before it is sold or dump on the market.
The problem is VC's get preferred stock and employee get ordinary stock, the holder of preferred will always get their money out first and to ensure that happens the ordinary stock can be devalued at any time
Either way these employee usually leave since they feel they are not going to make as much if they stay and they think hey I did it once I bet I can do it again at another startup.
If it was true many left because the option they got from Apple were valued too high to stay, well they were given to them during the time when Apple's stock was rocking up and then crashed back so yeah their stock was not worth much then but today it would be.
I bet most of these people think they will hit it big again, which may not be the case.
I bet most of these people think they will hit it big again, which may not be the case.
They are traitors. They will fail.