Intel cans luxury R&D center, promises parking lot instead Nearly two years after taking over as CEO, Pat Gelsinger's master plan to reinvent Intel is on uncertain footing as the chipmaker struggles financially and fights for government subsidies it says are necessary to keep its foundry expansion on track. Now, the company's $200 million development center planned for Haifa, Israel …
I was an accidental Intel employee back in the 2000s (accidental because Intel took over a company that I'd just joined). As a result I spent a week at Haifa, bringing over some prototype wireless networking kit for testing so got a first hand look at how our colleagues worked. It was a little different from American practice (the office park had armed guards, the conference rooms were also bomb shelters, that sort of thing) but once you got past that the actual work environment was quite nice. The working day started with a fairly leisurely breakfast -- bagels, fruit, yogurt, coffee etc. -- in the cafeteria A couple of hours later it was lunchtime and it was a rather nice meal too, again cooked and served in the cafeteria. There was (obviously) high quality coffee available but I really didn't have time to partake -- they didn't do 'quiet quitting' but then they didn't have to since they all left promptly at or before quitting time. It was quite a contrast from our working conditions which weren't at all bad but as is typical in technology working more than strictly scheduled hours and not taking your (limited anyway) time off is quite normal. The Israelis have to plan their manpower differently since they all seem to be in the military so are always disappearing at regular intervals for their obligatory service (US management regards taking any time off as unacceptable so regularly losing people for three weeks at a stretch tends to mess up schedules; it does lead to some interesting conversations like the one I had over lunch with a programmer who much preferred his other assignment, piloting a Hercules transport, to sitting in a cube).
Then there's the free car for Grade 6 and above. Methinks hat some people were just a bit spoiled (but rumor has it that the divisional director was a local lad....you know how it is....).
They've got some smart people over there, but then we had some too. It just seemed a bit sad that while I was working at Xircom/Intel the place was steadily being run down, any good stuff stopped until it was just another Jones Farm (that a megacube farm in an Intel facility in Oregon). We got closed down eventually and our work transferred to Russia. A decade or more later our facility is still empty.
A foundry in Germany? Doesn't look a country without energy costs issues. Germany bet on Putin and obviously lost. Moreover they started to shutdown nuclear plants because theere was an eathqauke and tsunami in Japan, both common occurences in Germany too. One wonders whose interestes Frau Merkel was caring of - becoming more and more dependent on someone's gas. But if you want to make business in the EU you have to bow to Germany first.
Merkel was pandering to the highly vocal and pretty effective green party and lobby groups. The Greens have a significant number of MPs and in a coalition that can have a lot of power.
https://www.tatsachen-ueber-deutschland.de/en/politics-germany/parliament-parties
That the outcome is what it is should have been seen as a risk.
Remember the first big spike in gas prices at the end of 2021 was due to Germany having to use their gas reserves to generate electricity due to 6 months of sustained low output from wind. As that period extended into winter they were replenishing those reserves as demand increased due to winter further driving up prices.
But so what, 100% renewable energy is achievable as long as there is gas to make up the shortfall......
Just like all the people who believe their 100% renewable tariff in the UK is "renewable". It is not, it is based on an estimate of what renewable energy will be generated and is totally reliant on other sources to actually work. Now if those people and businesses are happy to be cut off or load reduced when renewable output cannot meet demand that is fine and they can pay lower prices for their 100% renewable power.
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