Calling them useless may be a bit of a stretch. If you said "mediocre", I'd believe it. Also, in my experience there, the ratio is not uniform - you could go to a department with lots of top notch folks, and then to another department with everyone being mediocre.
Some data points:
Asked a person in a SW interview to write a function to calculate the factorial. The candidate was repeatedly told he could use whatever language he wants. He insisted on using a language he had little experience in (C++), and not the one he was experienced in (Python). He was given latitude to use any method he wanted: Recursive, iterative, etc.
He didn't even come close to solving it.
He was still hired.
He is not an outlier when it comes to SW folks at Intel. Yes, Intel definitely has some really good SW engineers, but the 1:40 ratio easily applies in that sphere.
Up till 2014, my department insisted on using cvs for version control. They said they saw no benefit to git (or even SVN).
In another team I was in, we were stuck with SVN. The senior manager wouldn't allow us to use git because he was sure it would be over the heads of many of the employees (sadly, he may have been right). Then in 2017, when IT announced that SVN was being EOL, to avoid git they switched to MS TFS (even though TFS themselves recommend git!) I still hear from folks there about the resistance to switch to git. And the following comment I've heard from multiple folks:
"I don't want to use git because it comes from Microsoft!" (conflating github with git, and upon further discussion realizing they have no idea MS bought Github - they think Git and Github both originated from MS).
BTW, I'm not a git fan boy - I much prefer mercurial.
If you're good at SW and somewhat up to speed with current technology, Intel is a very frustrating place to work.
But then again, their compensation for SW is simply not competitive:
https://www.levels.fyi/company/Intel/salaries/Software-Engin...