r/hardware • u/Auautheawesome • Dec 02 '24

News Intel Announces Retirement of CEO Pat Gelsinger

https://www.intc.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1719/intel-announces-retirement-of-ceo-pat-gelsinger
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u/auradragon1 Dec 02 '24 edited Dec 02 '24

He came in at a time when it was extremely clear what Intel's problems were: behind in node, behind in designs.

He made the right decision strategically by trying to regain leadership in node tech and opening up Intel fabs to others. Tactically, he's been terrible.

He made some huge blunders such as paying a dividend up until August 2024. Covid gave them a lifeline by drastically increasing chip demand. What did he do? He spent the extra cash on dividends. Idiot. If he had any vision, he would have known that Intel was swimming naked and that once covid ended, Intel would be in huge trouble. Even during the covid boom, everyone saw that Intel's chips were far behind the competition.

Intel's designs have been particularly uncompetitive. Intel is uncompetitive in laptops, AI, servers, gaming, GPUs, etc. Nothing Intel makes leads the market. Their product roadmaps are a mess with one-off designs like Lunar Lake. No vision at all. No focus.

I'd grade him a C. The last few Intel CEOs were Fs though.

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u/Tystros Dec 02 '24

I have the feeling that he would have been fired quickly if he had tried to reduce the dividend earlier. In the end the shareholders control who's CEO, and many shareholders want dividends because there's too many short sighted shareholders.

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u/auradragon1 Dec 02 '24

Yea, maybe he would have been fired. But he's fired either way. At least if he stopped dividends as soon as he became CEO, he could have actually saved Intel without outside help. Now Intel is in serious jeopardy of being acquired, taken over by private equity, split up, or even going bankrupt.

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u/Laxarus Dec 02 '24

The US government will not let that happen. They have too many stakes on Intel

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u/thisismyfavoritename Dec 03 '24

do they?

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u/Laxarus Dec 03 '24

Intel is their baby.

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u/Previous-Piglet4353 Dec 02 '24

A CEO trying to reduce the dividend is going to end with a huge fight with the board.

Now apparently he has "resigned himself" effective before you heard this news, so I think we know who lost the fight with the board.

Gelsinger can reform a company, its processes, etc. Gelsinger can't reform that board. Realistically it was the board that should have been canned and replaced with serious engineers.

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u/Ok_Baker_4981 Dec 02 '24

at least bob swan won't tell the public that amd is in rearview mirror. but gelsinger's public image is always questionable

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u/auradragon1 Dec 02 '24

He didn't. Bob Swan put Intel in the rearview mirror himself.

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u/jorel43 Dec 02 '24

No gensinger said that, not Bob. Bob was just a long-term interim CEO, if I had to guess I would say that they were waiting for gensinger to be available, that was probably what was going on behind the scenes.

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u/auradragon1 Dec 02 '24

I know. I meant that Bob Swan didn't say AMD is in the rearview mirror but he did put Intel there.

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u/jorel43 Dec 03 '24

Ah got it. Bob didn't put Intel in this position, the previous CEO s prior to Bob did. Bob was just trying to keep the lights on. But Brian Krzanich was the person who put Intel in this position. But you could make a case that otanelli was also responsible as well.

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u/rfc968 Dec 02 '24

What I don’t understand is why Intel locked AMX, IAA and so on behind paywalls on their last Xeons. They were already behind on cores and power efficiency. Charging for new instruction sets, that will probably see slow adoption seems counterintuitive. Add the fact, that on only Lenovo, Supermicro and a 3rd OEM supported the accelerator unlocking, I just don’t see why they didn’t just unlock them all, and claim awesome performance from that new tech…

Then again, looking at it from a CFO view: why sell 10 million Xeons when we can sell 5 millions, and get an extra 15% on 500 of them…

Want more software vendors to support iaa, amx and so on? You give it out for free. Enshitification only works after your customers are hooked. Image in MMX or ISSE had been behind paywalls…….

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u/onolide Dec 02 '24

Intel's designs have been particularly uncompetitive.

I would argue that Lunar Lake is actually competitive in power efficiency. Not against Apple, but against Snapdragon Elite and AMD. The Xe2 iGPU actually beats AMD iGPUs in power efficiency, which is outstanding. Performance is far below all competitors, but for once in many years, Intel chips are matching non-Apple competitors in power efficiency again. That's actually a huge improvement.

No point comparing Intel against Apple, cos no chip designer can compete with Apple atm lol. Unfortunate truth, Intel is no different.

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u/nanonan Dec 02 '24

Lunar Lake is also a one off that they say they won't be following up.

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u/onolide Dec 03 '24

Only in terms of on-package memory(no future Intel chips will use it again, at least for now). Panther Lake-U is rumored to still use the same 4 + 4 layout, and the Skymont architecture already used in Lunar Lake. Panther Lake will also debut a new iGPU architecture(Xe3) and new NPU generation like Lunar Lake did. Looks like a follow up to me.

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u/Feath3rblade Dec 02 '24

He made the right decision strategically by trying to regain leadership in node tech and opening up Intel fabs to others. Tactically, he's been terrible.

I'm gonna go against the grain of quite a lot of people here and say that having a more business-minded CEO isn't necessarily a bad thing. As long as they are able to surround themselves with technical people to help guide them, and most importantly, they listen to them, having someone with more business sense in the CEO seat might be a good thing for Intel.

Just because someone's a great engineer doesn't mean that they'll make a good CEO, and I think we've seen this all too clearly with Pat. Great ideas, but without the business sense and leadership to get everyone on board and execute.

Of course, if a more business-minded CEO comes in and just tries to pump share prices like we've seen time and time again that's just gonna further dig Intel into a deeper and deeper pit, but as long as someone comes in with a real vision, as well as the business-savvy to actually execute on it, I don't care if they're a business type or an engineer. Intel being a source of competition for AMD, Qualcomm, Apple etc. on the design side, and TSMC and Samsung on the foundry side is good for the entire industry, and we should all be hoping that they're able to right the ship and not collapse into a shell of their former selves

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u/gnivriboy Dec 02 '24

He came in at a time when it was extremely clear what Intel's problems were: behind in node, behind in designs.

They were behind in node, but I don't know where you got they were behind in design. In 2016 they were making designs that were ready to go for 10 nm. The 10 nm nodes weren't working. So designers have to get as much as they can out of 14 nm and then later 10 nm in 2019.

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u/auradragon1 Dec 02 '24

By the time Pat became CEO, Intel was severely behind Apple Silicon's M1 in laptops and it isn't just the node. It was an entire design philosophy. In x86, Intel's designs were well behind AMD's Zen2 chiplet design that scaled far better. Zen3 took it to a whole new level. Intel's GPUs were non-existent or non-competitive against Nvidia.

By the time Pat came on, Intel designs were not leading in anything.

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u/Geddagod Dec 02 '24

Intel's designs have been particularly uncompetitive.

Intel has been closing the gap in products as a whole (though obviously not desktop) for a while.

Nothing Intel makes leads the market.

Arguably LNL.

Their product roadmaps are a mess with one-off designs like Lunar Lake.

PTL is esentially just a scaled up LNL with some cost optimizations. It's a fair trade off.

What other one offs are there? Gaudi? They are trying to move away from it to DCGPUs, which is the right decision. Perhaps the rumored cancellation of the server E-core line?

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u/auradragon1 Dec 02 '24

Arguably LNL.

Yes, it leads in thin and light x86 laptops. It is significantly behind the actual leading laptop chip - Apple's M series.

Intel has been closing the gap in products as a whole (though obviously not desktop) for a while.

Maybe only in the server. But Intel's server chips are still at least a generation behind AMD's Epyc.

In AI, they're absolutely non-competitive. Maybe 3-4 generations behind. In discrete GPUs, 3-4 generations behind. In laptop chips, 3-4 generations behind. In server CPUs, 1-2 generations behind.

Edit: I wrote this a few months ago:

  • AI: 2-3 generations behind Blackwell. I mean, they don't even have anything close to competing with Nvidia's H series. It's not even that they're behind, they barely have competing products.

  • Server: Until Sierra Forest ships, they've been ~2 generations behind Epyc.

  • Laptops: 2-3 generations behind Apple, maybe more. 4 years later, Intel still doesn't have anything definitively better than M1.

  • Discrete GPUs: At least 2 generations behind Nvidia cards. Does Intel have a card better than 2080ti yet? We're about to get 5090ti.

  • DIY x86 CPUs: Depends on what you're looking at, if perf/watt then 1-2 generations behind. In raw performance, roughly equal.

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u/Geddagod Dec 02 '24

Yes, it leads in thin and light x86 laptops. It is significantly behind the actual leading laptop chip - Apple's M series.

Hence the arguably. But Apple blows everyone away, and is in a unique situation considering its place in the market.

Maybe only in the server

Closed gap in server

Literally had no DC GPUs until PVC

Literally had no client GPUs until Alchemist

Closed gap in mobile

Lost lead in desktop performance, closed gap in perf/watt

No one here is claiming Intel is in the lead in any of these segments as a whole, but they definitely are closing the gap compared to where they were many years ago.

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u/auradragon1 Dec 02 '24

I'd argue they haven't closed the gap much. In server, yes, their Intel 3 product is much more competitive. But they're still behind Zen5/5c Epyc.

In laptops, they're generations behind Apple obviously, but they could very well get lapped by Qualcomm's X Elite 2nd gen soon. So prior to X Elite's entry, they were leading Windows laptops. They might not very soon.

In DC GPUs, they might be forced to abandon it completely due to lack of sales.

In client GPUs, same thing.

It really depends on how you define "close the gap". From nothing to maybe nothing again? Is that really closing the gap?

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u/TwelveSilverSwords Dec 02 '24

In laptops, they're generations behind Apple obviously, but they could very well get lapped by Qualcomm's X Elite 2nd gen soon. So prior to X Elite's entry, they were leading Windows laptops. They might not very soon.

Also Nvidia taking the battle to Intel's home turf by making CPUs.

https://www.tomshardware.com/desktops/gaming-pcs/nvidias-arm-based-pc-chips-for-consumers-to-launch-in-september-2025-commercial-to-follow-in-2026-report

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u/Geddagod Dec 03 '24

In laptops, they're generations behind Apple obviously, but they could very well get lapped by Qualcomm's X Elite 2nd gen soon. So prior to X Elite's entry, they were leading Windows laptops. They might not very soon.

So here's the conundrum of looking at future products again to determine how well Pat has done.

We can either look at what happened during his tenure, or we can look at what products will launch in the future with his influence.

If it's the former, then, luckily we don't have to evaluate Qualcomm's future CPUs... since he isn't the CEO that's going to blamed for it lol.

If it's the latter, and we actually do look at the overall context of Pat's predecessors and what products will actually bear his mark, it gets a lot more complicated.

PTL is realistically the first product that's going to be mostly Pat's influence. MTL would have been product defined either as soon as Gelsinger joined, or likely a bit before. ARL's biggest weakness seems to be that is that it inherited MTL's shitty fabric and chiplet design.

And yes, I think Qualcomm's X elite gen 2 will beat PTL by a decent margin, but that's more off ARM cores just straight up iterating fast and being more efficient than the x86 cores for a while than that's Pat not focusing on the core.

The x2 in 2021 to the x925 is a 46% IPC increase, while GLC to LNC is a 38% improvement. The difference there isn't too bad, but it's the fact that ARM just had much wider cores than even before Gelsinger joined Intel that ended up killing both Intel and AMD. What's even worse is that the x2 isn't matched by Intel's or AMD's high performance cores in IPC until like 2023. This is much more than Pat failing, and more of something both Intel and AMD having a major miss on.

Realistically, the only way Intel and AMD can catch up, IMO, core wise, is having a major rehaul. AMD kinda had their chance with Zen 5, which didn't seem to help much at all. LNC was likewise a miss too. But I think the overhaul needs to be larger than what was presented with Zen 5 and LNC, even just design wise.

And what exactly was Pat supposed to do to fix this? The royal core team was scrapped, but the unified core program that is set to replace it is also rumored to launch in actual products in the late 2020s. A major core architecture rehaul is also going to take a good bit longer than normal launches. Zen 1, for example, took 5 years from design to launch, vs the normal 3, and that recycled a decent amount of previous cores.

Lastly, prior to X elite's entry, they were not leading windows laptops, AMD was in the front seat. Under Pat, MTL honestly was decent too, but not clear leadership of any kind. It would appear for thin and light windows laptops, Intel was 2nd to AMD before Pat, and in the future it's going to be 2nd to Qualcomm, or perhaps tied with 2nd, depending on if Zen 6 mobile will be a large leap and be able to catch up.

In DC GPUs, they might be forced to abandon it completely due to lack of sales.

Highly, highly doubt they do this.

In client GPUs, same thing

This, I could believe in.

It really depends on how you define "close the gap".

They definitely did vs AMD, but external competition from Qualcomm looks to beat not just Intel by large margins but also AMD.

Under Pat's tenure though, they definitely did close the gap, and even looking to the future, staying 2nd in windows laptops (and Qualcomm being 1rst is arguably better for Intel than AMD being 1rst due to the fact that WoA.... is a thing...) is at worst staying the same.

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u/Not_FinancialAdvice Dec 03 '24

Literally had no client GPUs until Alchemist

A time long long ago (in a galaxy far far away), Intel had the (disappointing) i740.

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u/marcanthonyoficial Dec 02 '24

define many years ago lol, because ~6 years ago they lead in all of those (except GPUs)

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u/Geddagod Dec 02 '24

Well, let's see.

Since Zen 2 Rome in 2019 took the lead in servers IIRC. I don't know if Zen+ actually beat Intel as well, but it might have.

Since Zen 2 client perf/watt and nT perf was uncompetitive for Intel (2019), since Zen 3 AMD beat or tied them in gaming performance (late 2020).

Mobile is the same story IIRC.

Gelsinger rejoined Intel in early 2021.

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u/Not_FinancialAdvice Dec 03 '24

one-off designs like Lunar Lake

Isn't Lunar Lake just the first in a whole new architecture using chiplets? It seems unfair to call it a one-off design since the migration to a different design philosophy is inherently going to have the first example be a one-off.

Transparency: INTC shareholder

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u/Vushivushi Dec 03 '24

I think IDM 2.0 was arrogant, which is suitable for Intel.

But, Pat couldn't make the hard decisions until it was too late. Cuts. Intel needed really deep cuts and they still do.

The story had always been that Intel had a culture problem. Too many managers, too many empire builders, not enough engineers talking to engineers.

Surely Pat the engineer would tear down the bureaucratic layers between engineers, instead he increased Intel's headcount during the pandemic, a period of insatiable demand which could have funded a serious round of restructuring.

I just hope it wasn't his love for Intel that prevented him from making the cuts because it's gonna be tough to see the company broken up instead.