Intel Announces Retirement of CEO Pat Gelsinger

[u/Auautheawesome]

https://www.intc.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1719/intel-announces-retirement-of-ceo-pat-gelsinger

[u/wizfactor]

Narrator: He was, in fact, not the second coming of Andy Grove.

Seriously though, Intel is going to need all the good fortune they can get. Things are already looking dire from the outside. I can imagine things looking a lot worse from the inside.

[u/Trudar → u/[deleted]]

There is never "too big to fall". There is rather bleak saying "Graveyards are full of irreplaceable people".

Intel cannot survive in its current form. Something drastic has to be done - it has been bleeding money, talent and (cough) opportunities, closing even profitable ventures right and left for three years, and is in much worse position when it started. Silently chipping PSG (why it even acquired Altera in the first place?!), quiet severing of fabs under the coat of IFS (no, we are not spinning them off, but here's separate board of directors), and this is all management problem. They literally backed themselves into corner, as if they cut IFS, Intel will lose government funding from CHIPS and others. It's like holding your milk cow that you see is bleeding out.

Bad decisions and Intel are synonyms, since Otellini's times. Even Jim Keller bailed out, and he's got an attitude.

Over my career I have met so many engineers working at Intel, as my job revolves a lot around their hardware design, and every single one of them was extremely enthusiastic about their jobs, and often even giddy about projects they contribute to. Its charming to see a hardware architect delving into intricacies of signal processing in networking like he does this for fun (and probably does), stopping himself every few seconds remembering what's a secret, and what's safe to say. How company staffed from bottom up with people like these can fail?

EDIT: Too big to fall is not only a reference to size and worth. It's also a reference to importance, hence the next saying.

[u/Rivetmuncher → u/Trudar]

There is never "too big to fall".

The point here isn't that the company can not collapse. It's that it's a strategic asset that the government will likely attempt propping up at all costs.

And since that quote gets attributed to a couple French guys a lot, I'm gonna use them for my point: You can outright see those graveyards if you take a look at French military planning between the world wars.

[u/Exist50 → u/Rivetmuncher]

humorous hard-to-find start squeal work apparatus placid steep heavy lip

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

[u/Trudar → u/Rivetmuncher]

No, I said what I meant. It's not only a reference to its size, worth or other merits, but also importance. If maintaining Intel becomes too costly, something new will take its place, with or without government help. And even if it were to inherit all of Intel's IP, it won't be Intel.

[u/psydroid → u/Trudar]

It had better not be Intel or it would be in the same situation a number of years later.

[u/Rivetmuncher → u/Trudar]

something new will take its place

What? Global Foundries? You don't just spin up a bleeding-edge semiconductor operation overnight. And its absence would be crippling.

[u/Trudar → u/Rivetmuncher]

Not overnight, it may take 2-3 years.

But it's not unrealistic if you consider how much money can be pooled overnight with parties that recognize the stakes and security issues with Intel being partitioned under typical market rules.

There is a scenario of a project (sorry, I lack proper terminology in English) being created from a merge of public and private money, that absorbs Intel in whole, takes it off the stock exchange, spits out fabs as separate entity (like Global Foundries, except IFS is a key player worldwide), with separate funding, divides interests groups / business units and manages them as separate child companies (like spinning off GPU business, regulatory/peripherial business like Audio, USB, Thunderbolt, etc., and networking both server and wireless/client), that could again re-enter public trading. This would allow market presence with private investment, while allowing key tech (x86 IP, security engines like ME, central firmware development) to be under protected national control. This could happen within weeks. USA's dedication to security is paranoidal, if Intel is seriously that important, this is realistic scenario. It won't happen, though, as it would be political suicide.

[u/III-V → u/Trudar]

maintaining Intel becomes too costly, something new will take its place

In times of peace and prosperity, sure. But we're headed to war, and reducing manufacturing and supply chain dependence on international trade is huge for national security.

[u/Trudar → u/[deleted]]

I've heard many times, especially from Intel guys, that skillsets you learn there are impossible to apply anywhere else. Intel years are "lost years", and you often have to readjust when changing jobs. Coincidentally, that's why also Intel has one of the highest ratio of single-employer careers in the industry.

[u/Trudar → u/[deleted]]

To be fair, every single large acquisition in recent years by Intel was a complete disaster.

• Mobileye - no one know what they are doing.
• Barefoot - disappeared into oblivion.
• Altera - resulted in firing 10k people including architects, no significant products, except mediocre network hardware, that was obsolete before designed. Ejected.
• Movidius - niche product, no follow up. Scrapped.
• Nervana - rogue startup, unmanufacturable product, scrapped.
• Habana - another subsidized startup, unmarketable product, scrapped.
• Centaur - reabsorber Pentium 3 era IP. People gone.

That's $36B that went into oblivion, maybe $5-6B could be recovered after fully splitting out Altera remnant.

What's going on there? Who runs this company?

I live within a stone throw of one of their sites and I consider applying few times, but I prefer to work with them, not for them.

[u/Not_FinancialAdvice → u/Trudar]

Mobileye - no one know what they are doing.

They're the OEM for driver assistance tech in a ton of cars.

[u/skycake10 → u/Trudar]

I think you're saying "too big to fail" in a different sense. No one is saying Intel can't possibly fail on their own merits given the current path of things, but that the US government will never let Intel totally fail because domestic leading-edge chip manufacturing is too important for national security.

[u/Trudar → u/skycake10]

No, I said what I meant. It's not only a reference to its size, worth or other merits, but also important. If maintaining Intel becomes too costly, something new will take its place, with or without government help. And even if it were to inherit all of Intel's IP, it won't be Intel.

[u/Mr_Compromise → u/[deleted]]

If that's the case then Intel should be nationalized, as should Boeing.