Qualcomm Layoffs Spawned by Letter

Does activist investor understand SoC's, R&D?

Rick Merritt, SiliconValley Bureau Chief, EETimes

A smart and well-heeled investor pulled hard enough on Qualcomm to help bring down some 4,700 employees.

Capitalism is a funny tug-of-war over money. Some people tug harder than others and get more rope while others fall down and get less.

Jana Partners LLC is the kind of firm that gets called an activist investor. Or call them a hard competitor in tug-of-war. They pull with the weight of $2 billion in investment in Qualcomm.

A letter Jana wrote helped pull Qualcomm executives toward their restructuring plan announced yesterday. When the rope shifted, pink slips started going out to an estimated 4,700 people, many of them engineers who build Qualcomm’s mobile SoCs.

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