As you all know by now, I’m asking for your help in preparing to interview folks on stage for Web 2 next week. Your responses have been inspiring, and I am compiling them all into documents I use during the interview process. Previous Web 2 Conversation posts:
Mark Zuckerberg
Jerry Yang
Larry Brilliant
Next up is Paul Otellini, the CEO of Intel Corp. Intel is arguably the most influential technology company in the world. There are so many things to talk to Paul about, I really don’t know where to start. So I’ll start by asking you – what do you want to hear from Paul?
To spur you all along, and to thank you for all the work you’ve helped me to so so far, I’ve decided to take three of my personal complementary passes to Web 2 – yes, even the Program Chair only gets so many – and give them to those who comment on my site about these Web 2 conversations. My decisions are entirely subjective, but I plan to pick the three best questions, and reward them with a fress pass – a street value of nearly $4000 each. Yes, commentators from the past three posts are already eligible…
Thanks for helping me out! Now keep helping me (grin!).
John,
I would like to know what Paul believes will be the single factor to have the greatest impact on the tech sector in 2009. Will it be war, the US economy, global economy, expansion, a new trend, the net US President, global warming, something completely different, etc?
thanks for asking – mike
As a company leader, are there changes in the role in an economic downturn? Is Paul changing the way he manages, communicates or makes decisions, or does he believe consistency in approach works in good and bad times?
and bonus, how would he describe what are the necessary attributes of any leader?
John,
I would like to know how Paul expects the rise in cloud technology to influence Intel and the rest of the tech sector.
Cheers,
Chris
I want to know what is the difference, from Intel’s point of view, in working with Apple vs working with the rest of the computer manufacturers?
Also, how will Intel play a larger role in enabling the mobile computing revolution? Especially given Intel’s relationship with an innovator like Apple and the dominant role of the iPod and the rapid emergence of iPhone as a mobile computing platform, what role will Intel play in the expansion of these leading edge innovations?
Intel continues to pack more computing horsepower into each chip. Is software keeping up? How is symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) efficiencies in software affecting your ability to sell hardware?
Intel Classmate PC and One Laptop Per Child. How is Intel reaching the world’s developing countries through its own hardware or partnerships?
Solid state drives (SSDs) represent a new move into mass storage devices for Intel. Is this a new competitive market for you? How heavily invested is the company in the enterprise and consumer storage market?
Data centers are obsessed with power usage effectiveness (PUE). How is Intel improving the power efficiencies of its systems for a greener data center of tomorrow?
I’d also like to know about the move to hafnium circuitry for chip designs. Is this a huge leap for Intel that creates new headroom?
Finally, chip fabrication plants are expensive. How is Intel affected by the credit crunch?
Intel recently announced a collaboration agreement with Facebook to tune Facebook’s open source stack for Intel processors. Facebook is also presumably spending some of their $100 million loan on Intel hardware. What’s the relationship between the two companies? Are you looking at expanding partnerships between Intel and large web shops?
What does he think the most exciting piece of technology is at the moment? It can be something that they or someone else is working on? and what does Intel see happening in the next 10 years?
Cheers,
Kris
Hi.
There are many questions that pop to mind but here are a couple which I’m most curios about:
1. Andy Grove famous philosophy was “Only the paranoid survive”.
Is this still what makes Intel tick and move forward? And if so, what is Paul biggest fear? Which company he fears the most?
Is this the right mentality also for a time of economic crisis like now?
2. During the 90s the famous “Intellisoft” ruled, but now it seems that all the hype is around cloud computing, Google and Amazon.
Even Microsoft just releases this week their vision for their own cloud computing service.
In this new world, where is Intel of the future? Who is the partner and who is the enemy?
3. In a world where mobile computing suddenly became real and cell phones are catching up on laptops – What does Intel doing to catch up and make sure they will still rule the in the world of future computing?
Everyone is on Intel’s case for needing to be more competitive in new areas like mobile internet, graphics processing, networking, memory and so on.
Yet Intel is viewed as a virtual monopoly in many developed countries and some are even in the process of antitrust actions.
How does a global player like Intel deal with having to be very competitive in emerging technology markets yet defend itself against monopolistic behavior and consequences for their established business?
What will be the impact of “Open source hardware” paradigm (e.g. Arduino) to Intel’s business model? How likely are we to see cheap commodity cpus taking over from Intel in the low-end market?
We all assume or know that the next waves in connectivity, mid-term is going to be the pervasive internet, followed by a long-term nano-everything world.
these advances will require miniaturized, ever-more-powerful, multi-function processors to be embedded in basically any device or component.
what is intel doing to prepare and lead us into that future?
Thanks for asking, John.
I’d like to know how dedicated Intel really is to the success of WiMax. Despite years of work, progress on WiMax has been pretty spotty — the US rollout is behind schedule, and there are reports of lots of technical problems from trials in Australia.
He’s obviously going to say it’s important, but can you dig beneath the corporate bluster and get a sense of how deep the commitment is? For example, are they willing to put more resources into it if, as looks likely, that’s needed?
And as a followup, when does he predict we’ll have WiMax service in Silicon Valley? And how much will it cost per month?
John,
Intel’s new Atom Processor is one of the most sophisticated chips ever built given the new design and manufacturing technologies it employs: (http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/129/reinventing-the-atom.html)
I’d like to better understand the role Intel wants to play around advanced mobility devices like Netbooks and devices like the iPhone/Android phone, and how the Atom chip line will evolve and drive profitability/innovation at Intel?
What role do you envisage for Intel in the social web?
John,
Regardless of these crazy economic times, are we headed into the decline of the “free web”?
In one study by Rubicon Consulting in 2008, 52% of the respondents said that they would pay $2 month to use Google.
Say it ain’t so, John!
Thanks for asking.
Allen L. Kelly
Web 2.0 Infant
John,
If passes were transferable I’m sure street price for w2.0 would be higher via the scalpers 🙂
Seriously I would ask the following in response to my blog post today..
http://furrier.org/2008/10/28/google-and-intel-weaving-the-web-of-relationships/
q: do you think that it’s ok for CEOs to sit on each others boards? Eric S on Apple and you on google. Do you think it’s ok for you to sit on google board given that google posssibly will be one of a biggest drivers of processor purchases in the ecosystem ..
Do you forsee a time when Intel will embed social features into its hardware? Microsoft tied it’s activation to Windows activation. Would Intel ever offer the ability for users on Facebook and other social networks be able to uniquely identify itself to a social graph and the associated permissions via the Intel chip?
Intel rode the application wave of win32 platform that was built on an horizontal industry where it could drive standards and nurture healthy ecosystem on its platform.
In the new era of web2.0, end user need and vertically integrated and extensible offerings rule – aka Google, Apple, Amazon etc. The shift from “Standards” to “Open Implementation” “Open beta” and “faster execution” means the game is fully changed. How will Intel transform and can Intel culturally transform itself?
The microprocessor is the miracle of our time with an economy of scale of production that’s truly astounding. Moore’s law described the exponential growth of capabilities, but can we approach a point where a new iteration could require more chips then we could ever conceivably use?
This would be my question.
How will you continue to provide innovative technologies and create jobs in the US while maintainng a dominant position in the market place?
1. What are the future plans of Intel for India?
2. Why are the manufacturers (acer, hp, and others) still selling old Intel processors (Dual Core) in India?
3. Name three biggest challenges that Intel faces today?
I would like to know if Intel feels that the notebook can be the central point of the home and can allow the consumer to make it the leading product to help gather info and route it to the family’s phones, kitchen, A/C, schedules, entertainment etc intelligently.
Has Intel essentially been shut out from Apple’s iPhone business? if so, was Intel able to make a pitch for atom or other processors and if so, what were Apple’s objections?
Also, some third party providers seem to be gearing up with a partial solution for the PC’s interminable boot up time. But for most users, are stuck waiting, waiting, waiting … because of Windows?
See below the questions that I would like to ask Paul Otellini:
– Is the average selling price for CPUs going down and if yes, can you make up for it with volumes?
– Do you think that SSDs will one day account for 25% of your revenues?
– Atom probably cannibalize low-end laptop sales, but the question is: by how much?
– Do you think that you can equal NVIDIA or AMD in graphics performance with Larrabee when it first ships?
1. Intel’s partner Micron announced 250/250 SSD, Intel produces only 250/170. Is it a reserve for a bit more expensive SSD?
2. x58 is said to be build on 5400. Does it mean that new dual-processor chipset will be x58 too? And will then Intel advice how to add RAID 0 8-SSD array to multi-GPU graphics workstation system?
3. Why Intel holds back the production of Lucid Hydra chip? Waiting for Larrabee being ready for market? Or does not want to ruin NVIDIA SLI racket?
As you know Computers are micro code. When will Hardware people start talking to Software people to bring out the hourse power out of the newer CPU? (Working with Codegear’s Delphi, C)