Ed The Serial CEO is scouring the company's accounts looking for costs he can cut out in order to make the company's figures look as good as possible for the impending IPO.
'It seems to me', writes Ed in his diary, 'that for a fabless IC company it is very odd to be employing half a dozen process development engineers and paying money to develop processes with a foundry. I shall bring this up at my next meeting with the product managers. I reckon I can save the best part of half a million quid.'
A later entry reads: 'At the product managers' meeting I propose cutting out process development spending at our foundry partner, and terminating the employment of our process development engineers.'
'A product manager spoke up. "This is a recipe for commoditisation of all our products," he stated.'
'"How come?"' I ask.
'"These are processes you can't get in normal foundries"', says the product manager, "these are things which our process development people add to the foundry process which our designers want to use. They produce uniquely differentiated parts which are, in many cases, sole-sourced proprietary products on which we enjoy very high margins."'
'Other product managers pile in to support him', writes Ed.
'"OK. OK"' I tell them, "I'll keep it like it is."'
'Sod 'em.' writes Ed, 'Oh well only 284 days till the IPO and I'm out of here with a wicked wodge of wonga.'
Next he'll be cutting all the test engineers you find in a fabless company as that's all done in Asia!
You're right Nick, Ed's a daft bugger. Maybe I'll suggest this idea to him.