National Semiconductor lays off Bob Pease

Sorry it is not a joke. I just got an email from Bob.

I bet you thought that RAP was immune to layoffs. So did I. But the Turk knows where to find me: “The Coach wants to see you; bring your Playbook”. My Playbook weighs several thousand pounds. I wonder how much fun it will be to clean up my Office. Most of the stuff in my office is stuff that I bought and paid for…. Books, instruments….

I will see how this plays out before I write a rant that I will regret. I assume National did not really fire Bob, they probably gave him an incredibly generous retirement package like they have with others nearing retirement. All I will say for now is that as far as systems engineering, knowing not just how to design what goes inside a chip but also how to design discrete parts on a circuit board, Bob is probably the best analog engineer alive today. I said as much in my blog about the greatest analog engineers. And the pathos to all this is that National Semi’s new focus is on systems like Solarmagic and hybrid cars. Please comment below if you are as outraged as I am and feel free to call or write National directly. I suspect he will stay on in some capacity. Bob is a tremendously loyal person and I am sure he would rather stay at National answering those 200 emails a day rather than go work for a competitor. The louder you howl the more likely National will bring Bob back. They really are a decent company. I saw Dennis Monticelli at the electronic flea market Saturday and you could really see the pain in his eyes when I mentioned the layoffs. And I should also mention that I found out that National really helped my buddy Saurabh get his immigration papers in order. They may have laid him off, but they spent a lot of money helping him out so he could get another job, which he has.