Company devoted the majority of resources into the optical business and neglected much of their traditional RF and microwave business. The nature of optical is cyclical, and the recent slowdown from China severely affected the bottom line and stock price. Very political company, and due to neglect other business areas are stagnant and/or in decline. There was a culture of competition instead of cooperation between different sites, wasting valuable company time and resources. Upper management hired former executives from places such as Hittite, and the only strategy was to copy products instead of innovating while ignoring inputs and suggestions from the engineers. There was fundamental disrespect from the management towards engineering.
From dinner conversations, upper management and sales only wanted their stock prices to go up in the short term so they can retire comfortably, since they are all around retirement age anyway. They were extremely wasteful with company money and had an old-boys-club attitude. This all resulted in chasing acquisitions and inorganic growth with complete disregard for many of the best engineers in the industry that they hired in years prior. Such a waste of time and talent.