Arm

The work can be interesting and you get to work with some bright, interesting people.

1. Lack of career development... The feudal system is alive and well at Arm! If you want to progress you need to either enter into a marriage of convenience, build an empire or conquer and steal someone else's.

2. Constant re-organisation... Arm has little care for the employees caught in these manoeuours. The net effect of the constant shifting organisational structure is lots of very smart people being constantly displaced in favour of those who tow the line and will do as they are told without question.

3. Middle management with no vision... See point 2. The people who get promoted to the middle lack creativity, they are not disruptive they execute regardless of whether the plan makes sense or not.

4. Out of touch upper level management... There is at least one very public example of a senior figure re-writing history for the purpose of self promotion. The resentment simmering in the reporting line was plain for all to see apart from the person involved it seems! Similarly Mr Segar's himself is seeing a version of reality different to those on the ground.

5. A highly creative workforce being crushed by grind and lack of leadership... In the world of the FTSE 100 you are only as good as your ability to hit a quarter. Arm devolved from an "innovate to survive" culture to a sausage factory churning out product after product to feed the licensing machine. Innovation only happens if it's for free and fits within the schedule for the next release. This does the very talented people that work at ARM a disservice.

6. A non-executable growth plan The growth that Masa Son promised the UK government is almost impossible to deliver. The talent pool does not exist in the UK at present. In a post Brexit world Europeans are difficult to attract and with the tightening visa requirements it's harder and more expensive to bring in people from other parts of the world. What advice have hiring managers been given in this environment? "Lower your expectations."

Quite apart from this Arm can't actually house all the people with the facility's plan that's currently in place. The solution? Give everyone a smaller desk and increase the density.

Someone once said "Madness is repeating the same action and expecting a different outcome...".

Appointing or promoting those that only know execution to the upper levels is a sure fire way to kill the business.