I didn't mean to imply that exactly (since the margins were still pretty high and comp was still incredible by conventional standards), but I'm implying that high-margin software companies could easily offer previously unthinkable comp so they could recruit the best talent possible. I think most HW companies were slow to adjust across-the-board comp to compete. It's not like there was a mass exodus to these SW companies, but I think it was a small factor in this story (and was for nearly every tech company that wasn't operating at absurd $/employee margins).

Perhaps he means that some intel jobs are inherently high stress? I could imagine this being the case in a fab.

Even if you ignore the software world which has been easily outpacing hardware compensation for the last decade, if you only look at hardware companies, Intel has been either at or very close to the bottom of the pay scale until very recently. In the industry it became a bit of a joke where ex-Intel employees would joke by comparing their pay raises upon resigning.

Intel was very clear that it was not willing to pay top dollar not because they didn’t have the money, but because top technical talent tended to resist or reject Intel culture. This meant the big bucks always went to management and other enforcers of said culture.

In 2021 Pat Gelsinger told HR to increase pay to match market in an attempt to stanch the attrition. The problem with this is that Intel management didn’t try to fix the broken culture, and instead propped it up by handing the new cash over to the “critical talent” that again, were the cultural enforcers. Pat G genuinely believes Intel is the greatest company on the planet, so he won’t see this as a problem.

There are some things that money can’t fix.