Key iOS Chip Architect Gerard Williams III Departs Apple

[cmaier]

Don’t be condescending. Why did you get more than one degree if a BS is suffice to teach you how to think like an engineer?

I have three engineering degrees (B.S., M.S. and Ph.D.). Most of the people I worked with had B.S. degrees and did a fine job. With my Ph.D. I got specialized training and did research that let me jump to the front of the line and get an amazing job I couldn’t otherwise have gotten, because I happened to be one of the few people in the world with expertise in designing logic using bipolar CML logic, and there happened to be a startup trying to do that (Exponential Technology, as it turns out.). The point of getting a Ph.D. is not to gain competence. It’s to gain specialization, expertise, and experience, and often is a prerequisite for certain careers (like academia, etc.)

 

[4jasontv]

I have three engineering degrees (B.S., M.S. and Ph.D.). Most of the people I worked with had B.S. degrees and did a fine job. With my Ph.D. I got specialized training and did research that let me jump to the front of the line and get an amazing job I couldn’t otherwise have gotten, because I happened to be one of the few people in the world with expertise in designing logic using bipolar CML logic, and there happened to be a startup trying to do that (Exponential Technology, as it turns out.). The point of getting a Ph.D. is not to gain competence. It’s to gain specialization, expertise, and experience, and often is a prerequisite for certain careers (like academia, etc.)

It’s true, a PhD is a prerequisite for some jobs. A BS is a prerequisite for most jobs. That’s sort of my point.

 

[techwhiz]

Don’t be condescending. Why did you get more than one degree if a BS is suffice to teach you how to think like an engineer?

I wasn't being condescending, communication breakdown.
I have more than one degree because as an undergraduate in Electrical and Computer Engineering you do not cover advanced topics or at least not to the degree I wanted to cover. An undergraduate degree is fine. I wanted to study advanced and specialized topics. My graduate work was in the area of high speed logic design and processor architecture. Those topics were not covered in the depth that I was interested.

Also if you look at requirements for advancement in quite a few companies, they require advanced degrees, specialization and quite a bit of experience for titles such as Principal Engineer.

So I have no problem calling a person with an undergraduate degree an engineer as long as they came from an accredited school.

Those with advanced degrees got them for career advancement and a number of other reasons.
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It’s true, a PhD is a prerequisite for some jobs. A BS is a prerequisite for most jobs. That’s sort of my point.

You typically hit the ceiling at Senior Engineer without an advanced degree. There are very few Principal Engineers that don't have an advanced degree and at least a few patents.

 

[cmaier]

I wasn't being condescending, communication breakdown.
I have more than one degree because as an undergraduate in Electrical and Computer Engineering you do not cover advanced topics or at least not to the degree I wanted to cover. An undergraduate degree is fine. I wanted to study advanced and specialized topics. My graduate work was in the area of high speed logic design and processor architecture. Those topics were not covered in the depth that I was interested.

Also if you look at requirements for advancement in quite a few companies, they require advanced degrees, specialization and quite a bit of experience for titles such as Principal Engineer.

So I have no problem calling a person with an undergraduate degree an engineer as long as they came from an accredited school.

Those with advanced degrees got them for career advancement and a number of other reasons.
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You typically hit the ceiling at Senior Engineer without an advanced degree. There are very few Principal Engineers that don't have an advanced degree and at least a few patents.

At AMD none of the PMTS’s that i can recall had advanced degrees. The only person other than me with a PhD was a contractor. I think one or two people had MS’s, but I can’t recall any particular correlation between level of education and employment rank. At my prior companies we had flatter hierarchies - just “MTS,” so the discussion isn’t relevant.


(I, too, specialized in high speed logic design and processor architecture in grad school)

 

[PickUrPoison]

Apple charges more than 800 bucks for an upgrade to a 1 TB SSD. You can purchase high quality NVMe SSD in retail for roughly 220.
Hence Apple charges approx 4x, not even considering its an upgrade and Apple doesn‘t purchase in retail.

Sorry, but 4x for something mundane like an SSD IS outrageous. Ridiculous. Greedy

Not at all. That’s the way you cover the salaries of over 130,000 employees, 500+ retail stores and an R&D budget that exceeds $1.2 billion per month, every month.

As I’ve said many times, Apple’s gross margin hasn’t increased over the last five years; in fact it’s trending (very) slightly down. That means their sales prices are staying in line with their attendant costs.

You can complain about high prices all you want, but that viewpoint is contradicted by the facts, e.g. record/near record revenues in multiple product categories and/or geographies.

 

[09872738]

Thats nonsense. By that standard, every company has to raise prices.

You can defend Apple all you want, prices ARE outrageous. Period.

If you really believe Apple rips its customers off and make billions out of "responsibility" - that's actually seriously hilarious. In a sad way.

 

[LordVic]

Not at all. That’s the way you cover the salaries of over 130,000 employees, 500+ retail stores and an R&D budget that exceeds $1.2 billion per month, every month.

As I’ve said many times, Apple’s gross margin hasn’t increased over the last five years; in fact it’s trending (very) slightly down. That means their sales prices are staying in line with their attendant costs.

You can complain about high prices all you want, but that viewpoint is contradicted by the facts, e.g. record/near record revenues in multiple product categories and/or geographies.

this is a bit misleading. yes, All of those things require costing and they're cost centred to certain departments.

But there are plenty of other companies out there with more staff and R&D who manage to sell for less. for example, we often point out Samsung's SSD's for their extreme performance (3,500GBps), that seems to be profitable enough for the whole chain, so much so that they sell in retail (so significant higher price than OEM/Wholesale) for 1/3rd the costs.

There are also creative uses of Accounting to be able to normalize and stabalize margins so they appear one thing on paper and are not the smoking gun evidence you believe. As a company, you don't want sudden spikes in gross margins because it sets unreasonable expectations on investors. Applee (and thousands of other companies) will use different accounting principles to defer costs/payments/income to different periods. They will also change things like divident payouts, bonus structures for executives, etc in a period to bring margin numbers to where they want. There's nothing wrong with this practice, but it doesn't prove what you think

 

[techwhiz]

At AMD none of the PMTS’s that i can recall had advanced degrees. The only person other than me with a PhD was a contractor. I think one or two people had MS’s, but I can’t recall any particular correlation between level of education and employment rank. At my prior companies we had flatter hierarchies - just “MTS,” so the discussion isn’t relevant.


(I, too, specialized in high speed logic design and processor architecture in grad school)

I saw you said you went to law school. Got bored? You doing patent/IP work?
I'm still doing SOC architecture and design.

When I was at Avago/Broadcom, requirements were at least an MS as one requirement for Principal.
I was also at Atmel and they had that requirement also.
A couple of other large and midsize companies that I worked for had that requirement.
Not all and companies and those that have been around a while may not have it.
For a while a MS was not the norm. I'd say in the last few years I've seen quite a few engineers with MS degrees.
Still only a handful of PhD's. I was at an encoder company for a while and out of about 30 engineers we had more than half with advanced degrees.

But we digress.
The guy leaving Apple doesn't mean anything about how good the development will be.
If he got hit by a truck they would need to replace him and as far as I've seen, everyone can be replaced.
It might be painful. It might not be smooth, but you can replace everyone.

Also, we agree, the actual coursework ability may go away with time, but the thought process that goes into problem solving rarely is forgotten by someone that acquired an engineering degree.

I think we've beaten this to death. The horse is now really, really dead.

 

[cmaier]

I saw you said you went to law school. Got bored? You doing patent/IP work?
I'm still doing SOC architecture and design.

When I was at Avago/Broadcom, requirements were at least an MS as one requirement for Principal.
I was also at Atmel and they had that requirement also.
A couple of other large and midsize companies that I worked for had that requirement.
Not all and companies and those that have been around a while may not have it.
For a while a MS was not the norm. I'd say in the last few years I've seen quite a few engineers with MS degrees.
Still only a handful of PhD's. I was at an encoder company for a while and out of about 30 engineers we had more than half with advanced degrees.

But we digress.
The guy leaving Apple doesn't mean anything about how good the development will be.
If he got hit by a truck they would need to replace him and as far as I've seen, everyone can be replaced.
It might be painful. It might not be smooth, but you can replace everyone.

Also, we agree, the actual coursework ability may go away with time, but the thought process that goes into problem solving rarely is forgotten by someone that acquired an engineering degree.

I think we've beaten this to death. The horse is now really, really dead.

I defended avago against a few lawsuits. Good times. (Yeah, I mostly defend patent lawsuits, though I do some other stuff too). Not surprising to me that they required MS for Principal - they had that old-school HP thing going on, though post-Broadcom not sure the vibe is the same. The MS thing seems to come in waves. In the early 90’s there were a bunch because the job market cratered and people were hanging out at school an extra year on research stipends to ride it out. But at Sun, Exponential, Nexgen, and AMD I hardly ran into anyone with a graduate degree. Heck, I remember interviewing at DEC with the Strongarm folks and Dobberpuhl gave me **** for bothering to get one.

 

[techwhiz]

I defended avago against a few lawsuits. Good times. (Yeah, I mostly defend patent lawsuits, though I do some other stuff too). Not surprising to me that they required MS for Principal - they had that old-school HP thing going on, though post-Broadcom not sure the vibe is the same. The MS thing seems to come in waves. In the early 90’s there were a bunch because the job market cratered and people were hanging out at school an extra year on research stipends to ride it out. But at Sun, Exponential, Nexgen, and AMD I hardly ran into anyone with a graduate degree. Heck, I remember interviewing at DEC with the Strongarm folks and Dobberpuhl gave me **** for bothering to get one.

That's funny. I remember DEC. I never got crap for getting the paper.
I did get crap from a cool professor that asked me why I was in graduate school.
He told me since I was already doing more at work than they taught at school, it was silly for me to be there.
I told him I needed the paper for advancement. I was at Amdahl at the time.
He eventually stopped calling on me in lecture and waited for *ANY* other person to answer questions.

And yeah, post Broadcom, the vibe was the same there.
I left two and a half years ago.

My daughter is a third year EE student.
She's the reason I'm still doing calculus, physics, etc.
She plans to go to law school; patent and IP law.

 

[cmaier]

That's funny. I remember DEC. I never got crap for getting the paper.
I did get crap from a cool professor that asked me why I was in graduate school.
He told me since I was already doing more at work than they taught at school, it was silly for me to be there.
I told him I needed the paper for advancement. I was at Amdahl at the time.
He eventually stopped calling on me in lecture and waited for *ANY* other person to answer questions.

And yeah, post Broadcom, the vibe was the same there.
I left two and a half years ago.

My daughter is a third year EE student.
She's the reason I'm still doing calculus, physics, etc.
She plans to go to law school; patent and IP law.

I interviewed at Amdahl, too, before the end. They made me an offer but I didn’t like the commute.

Tell your daughter not to become a lawyer. It sucks.

 

[PickUrPoison]

<snip>

Tell your daughter not to become a lawyer. It sucks.

I’ve heard this time and time again from attorneys. Something must be broken. Is it the billable hours/partner track situation? Overwork? High pressure? Not fulfilling? Too routine? Boring?

Really curious; doesn’t have to be specific to you if you’d rather not disclose... just based on what you know from being on the inside. Thx

 

[cmaier]

I’ve heard this time and time again from attorneys. Something must be broken. Is it the billable hours/partner track situation? Overwork? High pressure? Not fulfilling? Too routine? Boring?

Really curious; doesn’t have to be specific to you if you’d rather not disclose... just based on what you know from being on the inside. Thx

Pretty much all the things you’ve listed are true.

 

[Baymowe335]

Thats nonsense. By that standard, every company has to raise prices.

You can defend Apple all you want, prices ARE outrageous. Period.

If you really believe Apple rips its customers off and make billions out of "responsibility" - that's actually seriously hilarious. In a sad way.

He’s right and you’re wrong, objectively. Per dollar, Apple doesn’t make more today than they have during the iPhone era. The scale has grown (which also points to pricing not being an issue) but the margins have not.

You can whine about prices, but you are not the authority on what constitutes an “outrageous” price. The market does that. And with $266B in revenue in 2018, up 16%, the market says prices are fine.

Apple has pricing power. Companies with pricing power DO raise prices.

 

[09872738]

He’s right and you’re wrong, objectively..

Not at all. OBJECTIVELY, asking 800 currency units (sometimes more) upgrade charge for SSDs which are available at 200 at similar quality is just outrageous.
There is no denying that if maintaining objectivity.

Its almost comical: How would you justify those (mentioned) prices?

 

[Baymowe335]

Not at all. OBJECTIVELY, asking 800 currency units (sometimes more) upgrade charge for SSDs which are available at 200 at similar quality is just outrageous.
There is no denying that if maintaining objectivity.

Its almost comical: How would you justify those (mentioned) prices?

Why? You don’t understand the cost structure inside Apple. You can get it cheaper? Go get it. Apple can charge whatever the market allows.

 

[09872738]

Why? You don’t understand the cost structure inside Apple. You can get it cheaper? Go get it. Apple can charge whatever the market allows.

I don't care about internal Apples cost structure, because its irrelevant for me as a customer.

And correct, Apple can charge whatever they want. And if they charge in excess of 4x (not even considering its upgrade and they don't pay retail prices) a component's actual worth I am entitled to call it what it is: outrageous pricing.

 

[PickUrPoison]

I don't care about internal Apples cost structure, because its irrelevant for me as a customer.

And correct, Apple can charge whatever they want. And if they charge in excess of 4x (not even considering its upgrade and they don't pay retail prices) a component's actual worth I am entitled to call it what it is: outrageous pricing.

For Apple’s actual customers, it’s not “outrageous”. They value Apple products at the prices Apple is asking, and they willingly pay it. You’re opinion that prices are “outrageous” is contradicted by the fact that customers are paying those prices.

If you don’t find value at the prices Apple charges, you won’t buy it. Apple’s ok with that. Apple’s net profit is about 20%. They know they could sell more product if they dropped their prices 10%, but that would cut their profit in half. They could sell even more product if they cut prices 20%, but then they would make no profit. Apple is a business, it’s that simple. If you were CEO, what would you do?

 

[Baymowe335]

I don't care about internal Apples cost structure, because its irrelevant for me as a customer.

And correct, Apple can charge whatever they want. And if they charge in excess of 4x (not even considering its upgrade and they don't pay retail prices) a component's actual worth I am entitled to call it what it is: outrageous pricing.

You’re still not getting it. “Outrageous” is your opinion. Customers still see tremendous value in the products, as evidenced by the numbers.

You don’t pay street price for components in Apple’s ecosystem. You pay for the whole package.