Intel CEO tells tales from inside

Siliconvalley.com ^ | Sat, Dec. 03, 2005 | Dean Takahashi

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RADIO INTERVIEW SETS TONE FOR GALA OF ELITE

Intel CEO Paul Otellini dished on Google, the advantages of not being an engineer and what it's like to give Andy Grove his first performance evaluation in 40 years at the Churchill Club's 20th anniversary dinner.

Before 400 dinner guests who included former Intel chiefs Grove and Craig Barrett, Otellini spoke with Tech Nation radio show host Moira Gunn at the event Thursday.

The conversation ranged from thoughts about working for Grove to strategic bets Otellini has placed on businesses such as Intel's new WiMax, wireless, broadband technology.

Otellini recalled that as Grove's ``technical assistant'' in 1989, he persuaded his boss to use a personal computer at his desk. From Grove, Otellini said he learned how important it is to be intellectually honest and ask penetrating questions.

``I worked for Andy for 31 years,'' he said. ``He works for me now. He's about to get his first written evaluation in 40 years.''

Asked how he has managed engineers at Intel without being an engineer himself, he answered, ``Oddly enough, engineers are people, too. They want to be challenged, managed by competent people, see their efforts of many years pay off.''

The why of WiMax

Not being an engineer has advantages, he added: ``When you're not an engineer, you're allowed to ask the dumb questions. Why are we doing this? Who is going to use it? What good is this feature? The very basic questions have led us in different directions.''

Asking such questions led Otellini to reorganize Intel earlier this year to focus more on markets and types of customers rather than on products and groups of engineers. It also led Intel to shift its products so they balanced both power consumption and computing performance.

Otellini spoke glowingly of Intel's investment in WiMax, technology that is compatible with high-speed WiFi networks but allows communication over much farther ranges, such as 10 miles from an antenna.

He said WiMax could disrupt the current powerhouses in broadband -- the phone and cable TV companies -- because it would allow new companies to enter the Internet business. He noted, for instance, that a satellite TV company could transmit signals into the home and use WiMax to carry signals back out from the home, providing two-way service that could compete with cable modems and phone company digital subscriber lines.

The question is, he said, ``how do we get everything to talk to everything else.

``It's the big brother to WiFi, but on a much broader scale. With WiMax, it's not out of the question to think of a single global network'' in the long term.

But Otellini wasn't thrilled about every wireless technology. He said he would be surprised if wireless sensor networks, which would put small computers in places to record data, such as the temperatures in a vineyard, would add up to a large fraction of Intel's revenues in a decade's time.

Kooky Google

Otellini said technology growth in China represents a threat as well as an opportunity. While the country could siphon off U.S. engineering jobs, it also is a huge market in which to sell more high-tech goods to a growing, tech-savvy consumer class.

Asked about the differences between Google, where Otellini is a board member, and straight-laced Intel, he conceded elements of Google's culture ``drive me nuts,'' especially how employees bring their dogs to work, lie about on futons and get free food in the cafeteria.

At the same time, he said he admired Google's fresh approach to managing employees, such as allowing workers to work on any project of their choice one day of the week.