More or less all big companies including tech giants have seen good days and bad days. With due respect, I am wondering to know why people think Intel will not comeback as a leader?
This is my question as well. What are the reasons why you think it is almost impossible for this to happen?
Pat is coming up on 2 years now. There has been plenty of time to fix issues, yet….
Where are the foundry customers?
What is the plan to defend against a strong AMD?
What is Intel’s answer to the Apple silicon threat?
How have execution issues still persisted on his watch (SPR, ARC etc)?
How did he manage to cut shareholder value by more than half under his tenure? Even Texas Instruments is bigger than Intel now.
What is the plan to address the brain drain of key people with decades of institutional knowledge?
This guy is ALL TALK. The results speak for themselves.
If anyone can turn the ship around, it's probably Pat given that he has an semiconductor engineering background (like Grove/Noyce/Moore/Barrett) and was a key Intel employee back during Intel's "glory days" and thus has the experience of traditional Intel culture. Good to hear that he's finally returning to a "Grovian culture", but he should have done when he was hired back in Feb 2021. It's going to take years for Intel to get back to where it was. They might not get back to being #1 again but they could at least become a key player in the industry once again like IBM transformed itself back in the 90's/00's. And it's going to require Intel to slim down and become "lean and mean". That means getting rid of 'dead weight' : non-performers, anyone associated with "wokeness" and "DEI" (which have been a Major wasteful, non-businesss related distraction for the company over the last 10 yrs), any businesses that aren't generating good revenue or aren't strategically "key" to Intel's future business, and also much of the bloated ranks of top-level VP's, execs, and middle management. The people who are left should then be compensated well as they are going to have to be focused and work harder (like Intel in the 70s/80s/90s) and do focused hiring of good people with strong work ethic who have knowledge/skills aligned to Intel's remaining business endeavors. Again, this won't be easy. It took many years for Intel to slowly lose the Grovian culture that once made it so successful, so it's going to take years to get it back.
BoD has turned over quite a bit actually in past 3 years.
Problem is they bought into Pat's BS..
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different outcome. As long as we have the same washed up BoD relics, (who should of retired decades ago), nothing is going to change and don't hold your breath for a comeback.
Impossible why, so obvious, LOL.
Loss of technology leadership and at best will match in a couple years. Intel has no corner on tools, process or special knowledge. Actually they are at a deficit for all those. No clue how they think they become outright leader again.
Lost of scale an no chance to regain. Today TSMC fabs are far larger and run far more diverse set of products, huge volume driving faster learning and lower cost than Intel can ever hope to achieve. This means AMD, Nvidia, Apple and others will always have an advantage.
No ecosystem, Intel is custom everything that makes it narrow and less flexible and more expensive.
Any other questions why IDM and IFS is dead before it starts
The answer for why Intel’s comeback lies outside. The outsiders have done wonderfully. Intel was basking in their x86 prowess and the eco system is around x86. When PC dried up, it was server. Even in the server market, Intel didn’t quite shine as others did far better. Whatever technology that developed whether in the Labs or the Fabs, it is too little and too late. The ARM race - that was p-o-poohed way back. The leadership parroted the age-old x86 mantra. You have to see the kinds of stupid questions people asked in forums as softball questions acting as echo chamber to the management. Those who were critical of the direction were displaced. Arrogance is built into this culture. You talk to the people in LTD and you will see how boastful they are knowing all the ins and outs. But years of missteps and failures have led to the decline. Come to the software and enabling front as services - same substandard story. Graphics - ditto, they talked all along and failed miserably. Intel ki---d innovation, ki---d the employees to think out of the box. Look at the acquisitions and how they were overpaid and driven down the ditches.
Intel is bloated with leaders, Fellows and financial wizadry. It is too late for this big ship that doesn’t have good leaders who will take the heat. It is devoid of leaders who will work like engineers without the huge perks and compensations. Flatten the hierarchy and let the CEO and down the hierarchy face reality and be in the same boat as equal weights and not as superheroes who talk but not walk. It is a monumental insurmountable task. Intel will reap the wrongs done, mistakes committed in a very brutal fashion.
Sorry, I forgot to mention that the snippet I quoted is from @1vda+1kcXRbne's post
Refer to @1mvb+1kcXRbne
What was Intel’s competitive advantage when it was on top of its game?
It was the virtuous cycle of PC demand increasing, which fed into better fabs which kept Intel on top. Once PC demand stalled - somewhere circa 2012, you saw the wheels come off. The virtuous cycle was broken.
Intel focused more on costs and accounting games since growth was gone. The market was saturated. Necessary risks and investments in fab were not pursued ( like EUV ) since they were too expensive to justify ROI in a flat market. Recall the overcapacity problems of that era. Intel has struggled for 15 years to enter new markets, only to fail due to rigid culture and arrogance.
The fundamental problem of PC market saturation has not been solved all of these years later. Intel needs a new, very large silicon market to reclaim leadership. It missed mobile phones. It missed the GPU/AI revolution.
Now its only shot is to fab for these big fabless players. However, you need big bucks to play that game. Huge sustained investments and no customers in sight. TSMC and Samsung are way better capitalized and have huge tech ecosystems and economies of scale that will be very difficult to overcome.
Intel couldn’t do it alone and needs government funding. We all know how most government programs turn out…
I don’t follow the logic of - we were on top before, therefore we will be on top again. It’s a totally different game and radically different business model. It requires not only technology, but a cultural shift.
Remember when Michael Jordan tried to play Major League Baseball? Sure he was awesome at basketball, but was really bad at baseball. That’s like Intel entering foundry.