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Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

• deleted 2y ago
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• paxys 2y ago
  > Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC) today announced that CEO Pat Gelsinger retired from the company after a distinguished 40-plus-year career and has stepped down from the board of directors, effective Dec. 1, 2024 Is it a "he retired" or a "we retired him"?
  • raverbashing 2y ago
    Sounds like the latter to be honest
  • baq 2y ago
    Rhetorical question. Brian’s affair with an underling was also surprisingly conveniently timed back then.
    • alexey-salmin 2y ago
      With Brian it was damn too late if you ask me.
  • perlgeek 2y ago
    If it were a planned, age-related retirement, it would've been announced half a year to a year ahead, no?
    • bluGill 2y ago
      Maybe. Sometimes it would be, but sometimes such things are not announced for various reasons.
  • stevenAthompson 2y ago
    Why does it matter? Let him have his dignity either way.
  • Cumpiler69 2y ago
    >Is it a "he retired" or a "we retired him"? Does it matter?
    • echelon 2y ago
      The latter implies the government money comes with strings attached and that the forces eager to see a turnaround will be active participants. It's good to see.
  • deleted 2y ago
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• markus_zhang 2y ago
  Stock jumps 5%+ initially.
  • timschmidt 2y ago
    Vultures
  • blitzar 2y ago
    Presumably in the hopes of a more "shareholder friendly" CEO being appointed. "shareholder friendly" and "good for the company" are not at all the same things.
  • baq 2y ago
    Cover the news event.
• MichaelZuo 2y ago
  I’ve heard rumors he was viewed as a lightweight, or at least not as much of a serious engineer as Morris Chang was in his 60s, but even still his tenure was surprisingly short…
• hbfdhfdhadfhnfa 2y ago
  This is not good. We already know what happened when CFO took over. It was a time when Intel totaly lost control. They are gona get bought for penies. OMG Instead of saying to AMD they will be in the rearview mirror, they should have been paranoid. Not do stupid GPUs. and destroy others where it mattered
  • merpkz 2y ago
    Are those GPUs really stupid? They seem like a great price for performance devices when ultra high level gaming is not the priority. EDIT: I personally always liked intel iGPUs because they were always zero bullshit on Linux minus some screen tearing issues and mumbo-jumbo fixes required in X11.
    • egeozcan 2y ago
      They can encode AV1 even. Really amazing, amazing chips for the price. The "stupid" thing with them (maybe) is that they cannot do anything exceptionally good, and that while having compatibility problems. They are cheap yes, but there are many other chips for the same price, and while they are less capable, they are more compatible. Make A380 cost 30% less or invest way more to the drivers and IMHO it'd been completely different.
    • bee_rider 2y ago
      Another nice thing—it looked like Intel was lagging AMD in PCIe lane counts, until somewhat recently. I suspect selling GPUs has put them in the headspace of thinking of PCIe lanes as a real figure of merit.
      • tpm 2y ago
        AMD AM5 are also not great at having enough PCIe lanes, hence at most one connected PCIe5 x16 GPU, if you need more it's x8 for 2 GPUs and so on, and that's before we connect fast M2 storage, fast USB4 slots etc. If you need more PCIe lanes, you have to buy a Threadripper or Epyc and that's easily 10 times the price for the whole system.
• htrp 2y ago
  Joined Feb 2021 and out within 4 years.
  • sebastianbk 2y ago
    He's been with Intel since 1979 (only interrupted by a stint as CEO of EMC/VMware).
    • htrp 2y ago
      That stint at EMC/VMWare started in 2009...
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
• Bilal_io 2y ago
  They wanted to preserve his dignity, so he was retired instead of being fired.
  • Invictus0 2y ago
    His dignity is fully intact imo. A great captain can't always right a ship that's already sinking.
• Seanambers 2y ago
  Anyone got the inside scoop?
• pasttense01 2y ago
  Time to split off Intel's foundry operations?
  • BirAdam 2y ago
    Intel can’t split due to the CHIPS Act.
  • mepian 2y ago
    I remembered Andy Grove's quote: "If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you think he would do?" Pat didn't do that, I guess.
  • phonon 2y ago
    Not really. https://www.reuters.com/technology/intels-786-billion-subsidy-deal-restricts-sale-its-manufacturing-unit-2024-11-28/ https://www.reuters.com/technology/intels-786-billion-subsid...
  • LittleTimothy 2y ago
    They've already been headed that way for a long time, the problem is that they need huge amounts of capital to complete their foundry road map and that is meant to be cross-subsidized by the other part of their business, but now it's looking shakey that they'll even have the capital to execute the plan - setting aside whether it would even work if they could.
• LittleTimothy 2y ago
  Difficult to see how this is anything other than a failure. I had high hopes when Gelsinger returned, but it seems that BK had done too much damage and Gelsinger didn't really get a grip on things. One of the things I heard that really highlighted the failure of this recovery was that BK had let Intel balloon in all sorts of ways that needed to be pared back and refocused, but head count under Gelsinger didn't just stay static but continued to significantly grow. It's no good giving the same politically poisonous, under-delivering middle management more and more resources to fail at the same job. They really need to clear house in a spectacular way but I'm not sure who could even do that at this point.
  • this_user 2y ago
    They have made too many bad choices, and everyone else has been eating their lunch for the last few years. They are a non-factor in the mobile space where ARM architectures dominate. They are a non-factor in the GPU market where NVDA dominates ahead of AMD. They were focused heavily on data centres and desktop/laptop CPUs where ARM is also increasingly making inroads with more efficient designs that deliver comparable performance. They are still struggling with their fab processes, and even they don't have enough money to make the investment needed to catch back up to TSMC. There is a good reason that even Global Foundries has given up on the bleeding edge some time ago. They are in a deep hole, and it is difficult to see a future where they can restore their former glory in the foreseeable future.
    • Workaccount2 2y ago
      The US government wants then making SOTA semiconductors. Biden wanted it and I highly suspect Trump will want it too.
      • leoc 2y ago
        I have to wonder if part of this is Intel wanting a Trumpier CEO so it can retain the favour of the US government, while Trump associates Gelsinger with the CHIPS act which he reflexively hates as a Biden thing.
• mythz 2y ago
  Well their stock is already in the dumps, they can't do much worse than they already have been. Divesting from their discrete GPUs just as they were starting to become a viable value option was one of their most recent asinine decisions. No idea why they didn't try test the market with a high RAM 64GB+ card before bowing out to see how well they'd do. Nvidia's too busy printing money to add more RAM to their consumer GPUs, they'd have the cheap GPU VRAM market all to themselves.
  • NKosmatos 2y ago
    Exactly, I was discussing this with a friend the other day. I'm sure there must be a market for high RAM GPUs, even if they're not as fast as NVIDIA GPUs.
    • JonChesterfield 2y ago
      Definitely is. That's what the various LLMs are running inference on.
    • deleted 2y ago
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  • fancyfredbot 2y ago
    They aren't divesting from discrete GPUs. The Battlemage launch is tomorrow.
    • riskable 2y ago
      Gelsinger doesn't think there will be any demand at all for GPUs in the near future! > "Gelsinger said the market will have less demand for dedicated graphics cards in the future." From: https://www.techspot.com/news/105407-intel-not-repeat-lunar-lake-integrated-memory-design.html https://www.techspot.com/news/105407-intel-not-repeat-lunar-... He may have been talking about something like, "all GPU stuff will just be integrated into the CPU" but I highly doubt that's realistic. Nvidia's latest chip die size is enormous! Their new 5090 die is reportedly 744mm squared: https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/the-rtx-5090s-gb202-gpu-will-reportedly-be-the-largest-desktop-chip-from-nvidia-since-2018-coming-in-at-744mm-squared-22-percent-larger-than-ad102-on-the-rtx-4090 https://www.tomshardware.com/pc-components/gpus/the-rtx-5090... There's no way you're going to be getting an equivalent level of performance from a CPU with integrated GPU when the GPU part of the die needs to be that big.
• jarbus 2y ago
  Not an insider, but this doesn't seem good. I more or less agreed with every call Intel's made over the past few years, and was bullish on 18A. I liked that Pat was an engineer. His interim replacements don't seem to have that expertise. Intel wasn't doing great to start, but Pat put it on the path, potentially, towards greatness. Now even that is in major jeopardy.
  • mepian 2y ago
    >His interim replacements don't seem to have that expertise. MJ has a pretty good reputation inside the company.
• ridruejo 2y ago
  I got to meet and interact with Pat a few times while he was the CEO of VMware. I really liked him and his approach to things. He has done the best he could with the hand that was dealt to him.
• _lvbh 2y ago
  Is this not a bit too short a time for results to show yet? Turning a ship too many times would just result in it spinning in circles around the same position
  • n144q 2y ago
    Part of me is wondering if in an imaginary world, these same people are on AMD's board, would Lisu Su have already been fired a few years ago?
  • mrandish 2y ago
    >Is this not a bit too short a time for results to show yet? Pat so suddenly getting "retired" like this isn't based on the success or failure of the new foundry nodes. You're correct that they weren't supposed to ship yet anyway. With this news most are expecting they'll be (further) delayed soon, but the real cause of today's action is strategic. Things at Intel are so far gone that there's now no choice but to look at splitting up the company and/or selling/merging key parts off. Pat didn't want to preside over breaking up Intel, he wanted to save the company by shipping the new nodes. This was always a long shot plan which would require the existing businesses to do well and new things like GPUs to contribute while massively cutting costs in other areas. Those things didn't work out. The GPUs were late and under performed forcing them to be sold near break even. The market for desktop and laptop CPUs was much softer than expected for macro economic reasons and, worse, there were massive, delayed death field failures of the last two gens of desktop CPUs. Competitors like AMD generally took more share from Intel faster than expected in other markets like data center. The big layoffs announced last Summer should have been done in 2021. Those things combined caused time and money to run out sooner than the new nodes could show up to save the day. This is reality finally being acknowledged. Frankly, this should have happened last Summer or even earlier. Now the value has eroded further making it even harder to save what's left.
• osnium123 2y ago
  This is very bad news for any hopes of establishing a homegrown foundry in the US.
• not_your_vase 2y ago
  Unfortunately not surprising, looking at the past year or so. When he took over, I remember the enthusiasm and optimism, not only in business, but in hacker circles also. It's a pity it didn't work out. I wonder if it is even possible to save Intel (not trying to imply that "if Gelsinger can't do it, than no one can", just wondering if Intel is just doomed, regardless of what their management does).
• NKosmatos 2y ago
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• Dalewyn 2y ago
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  • mepian 2y ago
    The market already figured out that it doesn't want leading edge manufacturing in the US.
    • bluGill 2y ago
      Politicians and the military disagree though. They can place plenty of pressure on the market to change the market's mind if they care to.
      • tokioyoyo 2y ago
        They’ll need to dump a lot more money than $8B to Intel to compete in all fronts of manufacturing with China, and focus on it for a decade. Those time horizons are politically impossible, since next elections are less than 4 years away. That being said, competition is good.
        • bluGill 2y ago
          There are a number of things they are doing other than direct money. Buy American acts, sanctions (and other taxes/deductions). Even the threat to do something that isn't done is a powerful tool.
    • tivert 2y ago
      > The market already figured out that it doesn't want leading edge manufacturing in the US. Exactly. The market figured out there's a lot of short-term profit to be made for shareholders in selling off the nation's industry, and moving it down the value chain. They're running the country like a legacy business they're winding down. Give Wall Street a few more decades, and the US will have an agriculture and resource extraction economy.
      • 2y ago
• deleted 2y ago
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• highwaylights 2y ago
  The market seems to think this is great news. I disagree strongly here, but I can see why traders and potentially the board thought this was the right move. A lot of hate for Pat Gelsinger on Reddit and YouTube from armchair experts who don't really grasp the situation Intel were in or what was needed to turn the ship around, so if he was pushed it seems like it might be to pacify the (not particularly informed) YouTube/gamer community and bump the share price. That's all speculation, though. I'd be interested to see who Intel intends to get to run the company in his place, as that would signal which audience they're trying to keep happy here (if any).
  • rsanek 2y ago
    why would the board care about "pacifying the YouTube/gamer community"? seems like a very unlikely reason for a CEO to be fired.
    • dragontamer 2y ago
      If anything, the streams are reversed. I'd expect Intel marketing and Public Relations to be paying YouTube Influencers to have a particular opinion, the one most favorable to the board.
  • etempleton 2y ago
    Both of the Co-CEOs have a finance background. I think that is rather telling. They are trying to appeal to Wallstreet and potentially have people that are equipped to manage an M&A deal.
    • bee_rider 2y ago
      The guy that got them into this situation started as an engineer. Swan was a money guy, but he did better than Krzanich. So, I think it is just hard to guess based on somebody’s background how they’ll do. However, IMO: they need somebody like Lisa Su, somebody with more of an R&D-engineering background. Gelsinger was a step in the right direction, but he got a masters degree in the 80’s and did technically hardcore stuff in the late 80’s, early 90’s. That was when stuff just started to explode. Su finished her PhD in the 90’s, and did technically interesting stuff through the computer revolution. It appears to have made a world of difference.
• hunglee2 2y ago
  Gelsinger got screwed by the CHIPS Act. The promise of state backing for a US champion SC fab was taken seriously by Gelsinger, who went all-in in trying to remake Intel as TSMC 2.0. But the money turned out to be way too late and far more conditional than Gelsinger thought. This is bad news for Intel, bad news for US industrial policy
  • eigenvalue 2y ago
    It was a big mistake to rely on Government handouts to save the company then. You never want to rely on something you have almost no control over.
    • hunglee2 2y ago
      yeah true. Also the govt prob not used to state intervention in this way - learning a lot of new lessons on how to do it, on the fly
• jordanmorgan10 2y ago
  Enjoy retirement Pat! His book "The Juggling Act" was very formative for me in my early years in tech, I really enjoyed it.
• 627467 2y ago
  These large troubled incumbents seems to have infinite lives to linger on towards a slow death path destroying value in their journey. Like Boeing, why does intel hangs around taking up space, opportunities, resources, one failed attempt after another failed attempt instead of making space for newer ideas, organizations? at this point is so clear these public companies are just milking the moat their predecessors built around them and the good will (or is it naive will) of their new investors who continue to pour money buying out the ones jumping ship
  • chang1 2y ago
    Reminds me of Jobs quoting Gil Amelio at D5[1]: > Gil was a nice guy, but he had a saying. He said, 'Apple is like a ship with a hole in the bottom, leaking water, and my job is to get the ship pointed in the right direction.' [1]: https://youtu.be/wvhW8cp15tk?t=1263 https://youtu.be/wvhW8cp15tk?t=1263
• etempleton 2y ago
  I feel like this is a mistake. Pat's strategy is aggressive but what the company needs. Intel's stock is jumping at this announcement, but I look at it as a bad signal for Intel 18a. If 18a was looking to be a smash hit then I don't think Pat gets retired. If 18a is a success then it is an even more short-sighted decision by the board. What this likely means is two-fold: 1. Intel 18a is being delayed further and/or there are significant issues that will hamstring performance. 2. Pat is/was unwilling to split the foundry and design business / be part of a M&A but the board wants to do one or the other. If 18a is not ready I think the best case scenario for Intel is a merger with AMD. The US Govt would probably co-sign on it for national security concerns overriding the fact that it creates an absolute monopoly on x86 processors. The moat of the two companies together would give the new combined company plenty of time to ramp up their fabs.
  • XenophileJKO 2y ago
    It's so much worse. They put a CFO and a Marketing/Sales professional in charge.
  • KeplerBoy 2y ago
    Why would the US govt allow a merge with AMD? Sure they won't allow Intel to be bought by a foreign company, but surely everyone would much rather see Intel being bought by literally any other company than AMD and Nvidia.
    • CuriousCosmic 2y ago
      Maybe they'll sell Intel to Northrop Grumman /hj
      • Cumpiler69 2y ago
        Boeing should buy Intel the way they bought McDonald Douglass. It's gonna be a success, trust me.
        • CuriousCosmic 2y ago
• age1mlclg6 2y ago
  Text book CEO. He came, he did all these things, he left (likely with golden parachutes): https://kevinkruse.com/the-ceo-and-the-three-envelopes/ https://kevinkruse.com/the-ceo-and-the-three-envelopes/
• leeman2016 2y ago
  Is it just me or the latest chips from Intel look relatively better? I meant the Ultra Core 1 and 2.
  • guardian5x 2y ago
    Better than what they previously had: Yes, with a but. Better than the competition: Overall no.
  • Night_Thastus 2y ago
    More power efficient, yes. "Better" no. They're objectively slower than the 14th gen, which is pretty pathetic for a new CPU release.
  • deleted 2y ago
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  • JeffAllen 2y ago
    It's because the 'core' compute part of the chip is actually made by TSMC. The surroundings are made by Intel it's own fab.
• kjellsbells 2y ago
  Sad to see Gelsinger go, but despite the churn, I don't think Intel is doomed. At worst, per their most recent Q3 results, I see $150Bn in assets and $4Bn in outstanding stock, and I see the US Gov (both incoming and outgoing) gearing up for a long war against China where Intel would be an asset of national importance. My back of envelope calculation says Intel should be about $35 a share (150/4). If they stumble when they report Q4, I think the US Gov will twist some arms to make sure that fresh ideas make it onto the board of directors, and perhaps even make Qualcomm buy them. I do think that Intel need to ditch some of their experiments like Mobileye. Its great (essential) to try and "rebalance their portfolio" away from server/pc chips by trying new businesses, but Mobileye hasnt grown very much.
  • cedws 2y ago
    Interested in your opinion, since TSMC has fabs in the US now, are Intel still relevant even in the context of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan?
    • nxobject 2y ago
      I imagine it takes a lot behind the scenes - especially priceless professional experience concentrated at HQ - to know how to set up new sites, set the future direction at all levels of the organization/timeframes, etc. etc. etc. What happens to the fabs long-term if leadership from Taiwan is decapitated?
    • noahbp 2y ago
      TSMC's US fabs cannot produce enough to replace all that they produce in Taiwan, nor are the US fabs producing a leading-edge node.
      • astrange 2y ago
        The next step companies (for packaging etc) are also still in Taiwan iirc, but they're more replaceable.
    • kjellsbells 2y ago
• chvid 2y ago
  Gelsinger seemed well connected to Washington / the democratic administration in particular and the CHIPS act seemed to be designed to save/bail out Intel. Perhaps this is a fall out from the election.
  • fodkodrasz 2y ago
    IMO Intel is far more of a strategic asset to allow such short-sighted policy from whatever administration. The upcoming administration surely knows that, and as far as I know Intel has never made strong steps that would alienate the coming administration from them. Also getting it back on its feet is actually inline with the narrative, it is easy to give it such spin, even if some personal differences are at play, this is more important than that.
    • chvid 2y ago
      It is strategically important for the US to be ahead in technology; however Intel is no longer ahead and is not really the strategic asset it used to be.
      • fodkodrasz 2y ago
        It is still strategically important to be able to supply domestic civilian, industrial, and military computation needs with good enough chips. If you are not ahead, but still good enough, than you have sovereignty, and have a good chance to get back to the top eventually (in the sort/mid term). China is not ahead. Still they are capable of mass-producing somewhat capable chips, with good enough yields for strategic projects. Also they can mass produce now outdated designs, which are still good enough for "office use" to provide continuity of the government bureaucracy's operation. China has less advanced nodes where it can produce for industrial applications. They have the potential to eventually get ahead, but now a total embargo you only slow them down, but not cripple them. This situation is acceptable for any state as a temporary measure until reorganizing efforts. Also Intel is still producing better stuff then the chineese can. It is still ahead. And as I detailed above, I think it would need to fall behind way more to loose its strategic nature. Also capacities in Taiwan and in South-Korea are very fragile from a strategic perspective, even if they are/were more advanced than what Intel has.
• nabla9 2y ago
  Gelsinger retires before Intel Foundry spin is ready. This means trouble. Intel invested tens of billions into A20 and A18 nodes, but it has not paid off yet. News about yield seemed promising. Massive investments have been made. If somebody buys Intel foundries now, they pay one dollar and take debt + subsidies. Intel can write off the debt but don't get potential rewards. Foundry is the most interesting part of Intel. It's where everything is happening despite all the risk.
  • consp 2y ago
    > Massive investments have been made. If somebody buys Intel foundries now, they pay one dollar and take debt + subsidies. Intel can write off the debt but don't get potential rewards. You are describing the start of the Vulture capitalist playbook for short term profits and dividents right there, take subsidies and loans and sell everything to pay dividents (or rent back to yourself via a shell company) then let the remaining stuff die and sell of for an aditional small profit. Don't know how it works here but it sure sounds like it.
    • nabla9 2y ago
      I'm describing massive investment to fundamental manufacturing infrastructure. Deprecating that capital expenditure takes long time. Exact opposite of vulture capitalism and short determinism. > Don't know how it works here but it sure sounds like it. Thank you for being honest and saying that you are describing how things you don't understand sound for you.
• BadHumans 2y ago
  Pat returned as CEO in 2021. I don't think that 3 years is enough time to clean out the internal rot that has led Intel to where it is today and a lot of problems have been in motion for a while. Short-term this might be better for Intel but this move lacks long term vision. Intel also just got a big hand-out from the government that would've kept them moving in the right direction regardless of what CEO is leading the pack.
  • tiahura 2y ago
    How long would you give him to run it into the ground?
    • BadHumans 2y ago
      I'm not sure but from the outside it seems his biggest sin was not clearing out the executives that let the rot get to this point to begin with.
      • mrguyorama 2y ago
        How is 3 years not enough time to dump some mediocre middle management?
        • AdrianB1 2y ago
          Some of these people have strong contracts with clauses against being fired. It is also very difficult to replace them if capable people left the company. Especially if they are the majority of middle management.
• phkahler 2y ago
  Has Intel ever made a production chip using their own EUV process? They keep moving the goal post so they'll be state of the art when they get there - currently aiming for "18A" with high NA using the absolute latest equipment from ASML. But I don't think they've demonstrated mastery of EUV at any node yet.
  • scrlk 2y ago
    Yes, Intel 4 is in HVM and used for Meteor Lake: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_Lake#Process_technology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meteor_Lake#Process_technology
  • 654wak654 2y ago
    18A isn't going to use high NA yet, it's just EUV. Intel is hoping to start using high-NA with their 14A process in 2026. Obviously with their current state that 2026 deadline might get pushed further. [1]: https://wccftech.com/intel-adds-14a-process-node-to-its-roadmap-updates-to-18a-intel-3-nodes-unveiled/ https://wccftech.com/intel-adds-14a-process-node-to-its-road...
• ksec 2y ago
  I am perhaps one of Pat's biggest fan. Was in tears when I knew he is back at Intel [1]; >"Notable absent from that list is he fired Pat Gelsinger. Please just bring him back as CEO." - 2012 on HN, when Paul Otellini Retired. >"The only one who may have a slim chance to completely transform Intel is Pat Gelsinger, if Andy Grove saved Intel last time, it will be his apprentice to save Intel again. Unfortunately given what Intel has done to Pat during his last tenure, I am not sure if he is willing to pick up the job, especially the board's Chairman is Bryant, not sure how well they go together. But we know Pat still loves Intel, and I know a lot of us miss Pat." [2] - June, 2018 I am sad to read this. As I wrote [2] only a few hours ago about how the $8B from Chip ACT is barely anything if US / Intel wants to compete with TSMC. Unfortunately there were lot of things that didn't go to plan. Or from my reading of it was out of his control. Cutting Dividends was a No No from Board until late. Big Cut of headcount wasn't allowed until too late. Basically he was tasked to turn the ship around rapidly, not allow to rock the ship too much all while it has leaky water at the bottom. And I will again, like I have already wrote in [1], point the finger at the board. My reading of this is that it is a little too late to save Intel, both as foundry and chip making. Having Pat "retired" would likely mean the board is now planning to sell Intel off since Pat would likely be the biggest opponents to this idea. At less than $100B I am sure there are plenty of interested buyers for various part of Intel. Broadcomm could be one. Qualcomm or may be even AMD. I am just not sure who will take the Foundry or if the Foundry will be a separate entity. I dont want Pat and Intel to end like this. But the world is unforgiving and cruel. I have been watching TSMC grow and cheer leading them in 2010 before 99.99% of the internet even heard of its name and I know their game far too well. So I know competing against TSMC is a task that is borderline impossible in many aspect. But I would still wanted to see Pat bring Intel back to leading edge again. The once almightily Intel..... Farewell and Goodbye Pat. Thank You for everything you have done. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25765443 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25765443 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42293541 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42293541
  • crowcroft 2y ago
    I hope they sell off some more distracting/minor parts of the business, and then work with a fund to take the company private. Similar to Yahoo a number of years ago, there's some real business still there, they just need to remove the expectation of constant quarterly calls and expectations and make long term, consistent investments again.
• crowcroft 2y ago
  Stock moving up slightly? In the context of the last week even it seems like Wall Street mostly doesn't care either way. At this stage in Intel's life I think having a financier overseeing the company might actually be a good move. Engineering leadership is of course critical across the business, but they company has historically paid large dividends and is now moving into a stage where it's removing those pay outs, taking on debt and managing large long-term investments across multiple parts of the business. Someone needs to be able to manage those investments and communicate that to Wall Street/Investors in a way that makes sense and doesn't cause any surprises. Pat's error isn't that Intel revenues are slowing or that things are struggling, it's the fact he continued to pay dividends and pretend it wasn't a huge issue... until it was.
• neverartful 2y ago
  Intel has had some big failures (or missed opportunities) over the years. Just going from memory - Pentium 4 architecture, not recognizing market opportunities with ARM, Itanium, AMD beating them to 64 bits on x86, AMD beating them to chiplets and high number of PCIe lanes with EPYC, poor battery life (generally) on laptops. The innovations from Apple with Apple Silicon (ARM) and AMD with EPYC make Intel look like they're completely lost. That's before we even touch on what RISC-V might do to them. It seems like the company has a long history of complacency and hubris.
  • neverartful 2y ago
    There was also a big flop with the 80860 (sometimes referenced as i860) RISC CPU back around 1990 or so. There was a lot of hype about it being a Cray on a chip. On paper, the CPU looked awesome. The problem was that there were no compilers that were good enough to produce the type of executables to leverage its design.
• guardian5x 2y ago
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  • jhickok 2y ago
    I would be surprised if he made any official decisions based on his faith.
    • ar_lan 2y ago
      It’s odd to me someone would come in here and blame his Christianity over every other problem Intel has had before and during his tenure. Edit: Ah, not their first time. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40704262 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40704262
• guardian5x 2y ago
  Pretty much missing out on AI completely was and is a problem for Intel.
  • Night_Thastus 2y ago
    [flagged]
• ZeroCool2u 2y ago
  Full disclosure, the day Bob Swan announced his exit was the day I purchased Intel stock. Pat had the mandate from both the board and the market to do whatever he deemed necessary to bring Intel back to the forefront of semiconductor manufacturing and a leading edge node. Frankly, I don't think he used that mandate the way he should have. Hindsight is 20/20 and all, but he probably could have used that mandate to eliminate a lot of the middle management layer in the company and refocus on pure engineering. From the outside it seems like there's something rotten in that layer as the ship hasn't been particularly responsive to his steering, even with the knowledge of the roughly 4-5 year lead time that a company like Intel has to deal with. Having been there for so long though, a lot of his friends were probably in that layer and I can empathize with him being a bit over confident and believing he could turn it around while letting everyone keep their jobs. The market reaction really does highlight how what's good for Intel long term as a business is not necessarily what the market views as good. Folks in this thread are talking about a merger with AMD or splitting the foundry/design business. I doubt AMD wants this. They're relatively lean and efficient at this point and turning Intel around is a huge project that doesn't seem worth the effort when they're firing on all cylinders. Splitting the business is probably great for M&A bankers, but it's hard to see how that would actually help the US keep a leading semi-conductor manufacturer on shore. That business would likely end up just going the same way as GlobalFoundries and we all know that didn't really work out. The most bizarre thing to me is that they've appointed co-CEO's that are both basically CFO's. That doesn't smell of success to me. I think one of the more interesting directions Intel could go is if Nvidia leveraged their currently enormous stock value and moved in for an acquisition of the manufacturing division. (Quick glance shows a market cap of 3.4 trillion. I knew it was high, but still, wow.) Nvidia has the stock price and cash to support the purchase and rather uniquely, has the motive with the GPU shortage to have their own manufacturing arm. Plus, they've already been rumored to be making plays in the general compute space, but in ARM and RISC-V, not x86. Personally, Jensen is one of the few CEO's that I can imagine having the right tempo and tenor for taming that beast. I'm curious what others think of the Nvidia acquisition idea.
  • deleted 2y ago
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• steveBK123 2y ago
  Seems like the board is going for a breakup strategy..
• xyst 2y ago
  Pat was at the helm for just a few years and has already been sent to the guillotine. Maybe it isn’t wise that the USA dump billions into private companies that can’t even get their own house in order. I wouldn’t be surprised if the next CEO installed by the board will be hellbent on prepping INTC for sale. A few of the board of directors of INTC are from private investment firms.
• MangoCoffee 2y ago
  Intel either go the IDM route or split the company into two. Intel can't afford to fuck around and find out. AMD is gaining ground on x86 without the burden of fab, and Apple has demonstrated that desktop ARM is viable. Nvidia is showing the world that GPUs can handle parallel computing better.
• readyplayernull 2y ago
  Break their fabs up, make one of those focus on GPUs, another on NPUs, so FPGAs, and robotics. Some will die some will yield new "Intel's."
  • eYrKEC2 2y ago
    TSMC handles AMD chips and NVidia chips. Why do you think Intel needs a special fab _for_ GPUs? It's the same lithography process.
    • readyplayernull 2y ago
      It's not about it needing special fabs, but about breaking it up into market segments.
• shrubble 2y ago
  Here are 2 things I have noticed that seem obvious weaknesses: 1. Looking at the CyberMonday and BlackFriday deals, I see that the 12900K and 14900* series CPUs are what is being offered on the Intel side. Meanwhile AMD has released newer chips. So Intel has issues with either yield, pricing or other barriers to adoption of their latest. 2. The ARC GPUs are way behind; it seems obvious to me that a way to increase usage and sales is to simply add more VRAM to the GPUs - Nvidia limits the 4090 to 24GB; so if Intel shipped a GPU with 48 or 64GB VRAM, more people would buy those just to have the extra VRAM. It would spur more development, more usage, more testing and ultimately result in ARC being a better choice for LLMs, image processing, etc.
  • hedora 2y ago
    For that to work, they need a software stack to compete with CUDA. Nvidia is so far ahead that a single manufacturer won’t be able to compete for developers. Instead, the only chance the rest of the AI GPU market has is to build some portable open source thing and use it to gang up on Nvidia. That means bigger GPU players (AMD, hyperscalers) will need to be involved.
    • Wytwwww 2y ago
      > For that to work, they need a software stack to compete with CUDA. Doesn't Intel have pretty decent support in PyTorch? It's not like most people working on/with AI use CUDA directly. And especially for stuff like LLMs software is hardly the main or even a significant barrier.
    • shrubble 2y ago
      I am not a PyTorch user, but there is already Intel-supplied ARC acceleration for PyTorch: https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/technical/stable-diffusion-with-intel-arc-gpus.html https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/developer/articles/t... Having half the number of GPUs in a workstation/local server setup to have same amount of VRAM might make up for whatever slowdown there would be if you had to use less-optimized code. For instance running or training a model that required 192GB of VRAM would take 4x48GB VRAM but 8x24GB VRAM GPUs.
• Kon-Peki 2y ago
  It seems really strange to me that the CEOs of two major companies have announced immediate retirements on the same day (the other being Carlos Tavaris of Stellantis).
  • rasz 2y ago
    From what I heard Stellantis is soo screwed its not even funny anymore.
  • dreamcompiler 2y ago
    I'm more surprised about Gelsinger than Tavares. Gelsinger seemed to have a viable plan going forward, even if progress was slow. But Tavares has been doing a terrible job for the past year: New Jeep inventories stacking up on dealer lots for over a year, mass layoffs, plant closings, unreliable cars, and no meaningful price reductions or other measures to correct the situation. You couldn't pay me to take a new Jeep or Ram truck right now.
• ngneer 2y ago
  I see a lot more speculation on this thread than data.
• centiromi 2y ago
  Does Nvidia use Intel foundry? No. Does Apple use Intel foundry? No. The two largest fabless companies in the world never used, and have no plans to use Intel foundries. "Intel foundry" as a service is a fiction, and will remain so. Intel can't get others to use their weird custom software tooling.
  • cwoolfe 2y ago
    Amazon AWS said they'd use the hypothetical Intel foundry to fab their chips. https://press.aboutamazon.com/aws/2024/9/intel-and-aws-expand-strategic-collaboration-helping-advance-u-s-based-chip-manufacturing https://press.aboutamazon.com/aws/2024/9/intel-and-aws-expan...
    • centiromi 2y ago
      The AWS deal is not a "Foundry win" in the true sense. It is still a chip designed and built by Intel for AWS: custom Xeon chip and custom Intel Clearwater Forest AI chip. Unlike true foundries which manufacture chips designed by customers.
  • astrange 2y ago
    > The two largest fabless companies in the world never used, and have no plans to use Intel foundries. Such plans would be something like 4-5 years ahead, so you wouldn't have heard of it yet unless they decided to talk about it. Chip development takes a long time. Of course, that means you have to expect the foundry to still be there in 5 years.
• RandyOrion 2y ago
  From a customer's perspective: NO, I don't like the BIG-little core architecture of CPUs on desktop platforms, and I don't enjoy the quality issues of the 13-14th gen CPUs; I also don't like the lack of software support for middling performing GPUs. I used to like intel's SSD, but the division was sold.
  • hedora 2y ago
    They were just rebranded micron ssd’s the last time I checked.
    • wtallis 2y ago
      They weren't. Intel and Micron used to co-develop the flash memory but had different strategies for SSD controllers, and Intel did a full generation of flash memory after breaking up with Micron and before selling their SSD business to Hynix.
• hitekker 2y ago
  A few years, Pat said Intel had internally rebuilt their "Grovian execution Engine". I found those words empty, a far cry from Andy Grove's hard decision to dump memory in favor of microprocessors. Andy Grove's decisions made Intel, Intel, not "execution". It's unfortunate the situation is beyond almost anyone's grasp but I wonder if Pat should have talked less, and done more.
• bcantrill 2y ago
  I am amazed -- stunned -- how many people here seem to think that Gelsinger was the right person for the job, but wronged by the people who pre-dated him (BK?!) or the CHIPS act (?!) or other conditions somehow out of his control. Gelsinger was -- emphatically -- the wrong person for the job: someone who had been at Intel during its glory days and who obviously believed in his heart that he -- and he alone! -- could return the company to its past. That people fed into this messianic complex by viewing him as "the return of the engineer" was further problematic. To be clear: when Gelsinger arrived in 2021, the company was in deep crisis. It needed a leader who could restore it to technical leadership, but could do so by making some tough changes (namely, the immediate elimination of the dividend and a very significant reduction in head count). In contrast, what Gelsinger did was the worst of all paths: allowed for a dividend to be paid out for far (FAR!) too long and never got into into really cutting the middle management undergrowth. Worst of all, things that WERE innovative at Intel (e.g., Tofino) were sloppily killed, destroying the trust that Intel desperately needs if it is to survive. No one should count Intel out (AMD's resurrection shows what's possible here!), but Intel under Gelsinger was an unmitigated disaster -- and a predictable one.
  • baq 2y ago
    let's not pretend BK did any good for the company though, you sound like he did an ok job
    • bcantrill 2y ago
      I definitely have some issues with BK, but it's more that there is another entire CEO between BK and Gelsinger (Bob Swan!) -- and I think it's strange to blame BK more than Swan?
    • B1FF_PSUVM 2y ago
      I had forgotten who "BK" was , so I dove into https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel "On May 2, 2013, Executive Vice President and COO Brian Krzanich was elected as Intel's sixth CEO [...]" The next paragraph is ominous ... 'As of May 2013, Intel's board of directors consists of Andy Bryant, John Donahoe, Frank Yeary, Ambassador Charlene Barshefsky, Susan Decker, Reed Hundt, Paul Otellini, James Plummer, David Pottruck, and David Yoffie and Creative director will.i.am. The board was described by former Financial Times journalist Tom Foremski as "an exemplary example of corporate governance of the highest order" and received a rating of ten from GovernanceMetrics International, a form of recognition that has only been awarded to twenty-one other corporate boards worldwide.'
• sgerenser 2y ago
  Latest story from Bloomberg confirms "He was given the option to retire or be removed, and chose to announce the end of his career at Intel" https://finance.yahoo.com/news/intel-ceo-gelsinger-leaves-chipmaker-140147477.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/intel-ceo-gelsinger-leaves-ch...
• lawrenceyan 2y ago
  If AMD can come back from the brink of bankruptcy, then Intel can too. I believe. [Edit]: Though it might have to be that Intel literally has to come to the brink of bankruptcy in order for that comeback to happen.
  • pie420 2y ago
    AMD had Lisa Su, who does intel have?
    • h_tbob 2y ago
      Didn’t they get Jim Keller to design Zen?
• deleted 2y ago
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• paxys 2y ago
  The CEO of a public company is a glorified cheerleader. Doing the right things is half the job, convincing people you are doing the right things is the other half. Considering Intel's share price dropped 61% under Gelsinger's tenure, no matter the work he did towards the first half, it's pretty clear he thoroughly failed at the second. They desperately need someone who will drive back investor confidence in the company, and fast.
  • dralley 2y ago
    January 18, 2022 - "Intel CEO says AMD is in the rearview mirror and 'never again will they be in the windshield'" https://www.pcgamer.com/intel-ceo-says-amd-is-in-the-rearview-mirror-and-never-again-will-they-be-in-the-windshield/ https://www.pcgamer.com/intel-ceo-says-amd-is-in-the-rearvie...
  • nine_k 2y ago
    Intel has no GPU. Intel has no mobile processors / SOCs. These seem to be the drivers of growth nowadays. And their CPUs have hard time competing with AMD now. I'm not sure that the 3 years which Geslinger had were enough to turn the tide.
    • 999900000999 2y ago
      >Intel has no GPU. I own one, Arc isn't the best, but it's still able to compete with lower end Nvidia and AMD GPUs. They ended up having to mark them down pretty drastically though. I actually owned an Intel Zenphone about 8 years ago. Aside from being absolutely massive, it was decent. I think Intel got arrogant. Even today, with all the benchmarks showing Intel isn't any faster than AMD, Intel is still more expensive for PC builds. Check Microcenter, at least in the US, the cheapest AMD bundle is 299 vs 399 for Intel. They're lagging behind in every metric.
      • nine_k 2y ago
        Yes. Intel might have a GPU, and maybe even a phone SOC, if they tried hard enough. Intel's integrated GPU cores are quite decent; I had high hopes on Arc eventually becoming the third major discrete offering. Alas. Intel indeed rested too long on their laurels from early 2000s. It's one of the most dangerous things for a company to do.
• _zoltan_ 2y ago
  I don't know why everybody is talking nicely of him and being boohoo. The guy thumped religious stuff on his twitter, didn't acknowledge competition, didn't reform company culture and was left in the dust. Intel is better off without him.
• honkycat 2y ago
  The Intel story is very simple folks: they spent all of their cash on stock purchases instead of upgrading equipment.
• KaoruAoiShiho 2y ago
  18A is an absolute disaster, it's investor lawsuit worthy. When the news came out that 20A was canceled the spin was 18A was so advanced that they no longer needed an in-between node. NOPE, what happened was that 18A was a failure, and they renamed 20A to 18A.
  • WoodenChair 2y ago
    How do you know this?
• bionade24 2y ago
  Plenty of people here talk about the mistakes from Intel CEOs. But do they really have so much influence over the success of new production lines? Or is this maybe caused by some group of middle-management that backed each other's ass the last 10 years? How high is the possibility that the production problems with new nodes are mostly bad luck? I haven't seen anything trying analyse and quantise those questions.
• efitz 2y ago
  Dear Intel Executive Search Team, Hi! CEOing has always been a hobby of mine, but with the recent news, I thought this would be a great opportunity for us to synergize. Sure, I don’t have much experience in the chip making world but I did buy a Pentium when I built my own computer. I also have never run a multinational company but I visited several other countries on a Disney cruise. Let me lay it out- you would get a dynamic new CEO at a fraction of the going market rate, and I’d get to take my Chief Executiving skills to the next level. Let’s do this together! You can reply here and let me know if you’re interested.
  • doctorpangloss 2y ago
    You joke, but the media-to-leadership pipeline is coming for US business.
• pharos92 2y ago
  You always hope as a technical person to see an engineer running a company. This move, in these circumstances do little to inspire confidence for engineers occupying c-suite positions. I had high hopes for Pat, given his previous track record. But it appears the damage to Intel had already been done.
• Koshkin 2y ago
  Someone should get fired for discontinuing ifort...
• MPSFounder 2y ago
  I worked for 3 months for Intel. I can genuinely say that there is no saving that company. Recently, they are hiring many PhDs from various US universities (particularly Indians) to try to compensate (they offer generous stocks and are hiring like crazy right now). There are two major problems I saw: lack of genuine interest in fabs (most people are there for the Intel name and then leave or in the case of Indians, they are there for Visa purposes. Mind you, we were not allowed to hire people from China since Intel is subject to Export laws). The biggest problem by far is lack of talent. Most of the talent I know is either at Apple or Facebook/Google, including those trained in hardware. Intel is bound to crumble, so I hope we as taxpayers don't foot the bill. There was unwillingness to innovate and almost everyone wanted to maintain the status quo. This might work in traditional manufacturing (think tennis rackets, furniture...), but fabs must improve their lithography manufacturing nodes or they get eaten by the competition
  • osnium123 2y ago
    Were you working on the fab side of things?
    • MPSFounder 2y ago
      Don't want to dox myself, but I worked at one of the fabs (Fab11X)
  • bentcorner 2y ago
    > Most of the talent I know is either at Apple or Facebook/Google A relative of mine with a PhD sounds exactly like this. Worked for Intel on chip-production tech then was hired by Apple about 10 years ago, working on stuff that gets mentioned in Apple keynotes.
  • AdrianB1 2y ago
    A few years ago a CEO of Intel (not Gelsinger) said something like "our CPU architecture is so well-known every college student can work on it". A friend working at Intel at that time translated it to me: "we will hire cheap students to work on chips and we will let the expensive engineers leave". At least in his department the senior engineers left, they were replaced by fresh graduates. It did not work, that department closed. I have no idea how widespread this was inside Intel, but I saw it in other big companies, in some with my own eyes.
• whinvik 2y ago
  Feels like the wrong move. Turning a chip company around has timescales of a decade. Getting rid of a CEO 3 years in simply means no turnaround is going to happen.
• sys_64738 2y ago
  Maybe this is part of their Tick-Tock CEO strategy?
• aiinnyc 2y ago
  What timescale are we looking at to decide if building foundries and manufacturing chips in the States is a good idea? There's an argument that there aren't nearly enough skilled workers to do high tech manufacturing here. Didn't TSMC also struggle to hire enough skilled workers in Arizona?
  • astrange 2y ago
    It's a good idea because otherwise China will bomb your foundry or steal your designs. Besides, you don't ever get skilled workers if you don't try to develop them. > Didn't TSMC also struggle to hire enough skilled workers in Arizona? That was mostly marketing so they could ask for more tax credits. In practice it seems to be going okay.
• alecco 2y ago
  So the new interim co-CEOs are the CFO and a sales/marketing woman nobody heard of? Intel is beyond saving.
• grahamj 2y ago
  Register article: https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/02/intel_gelsinger_leave/ https://www.theregister.com/2024/12/02/intel_gelsinger_leave... "At least he'll have company as he joins 15K colleagues headed for the door" Heyoo!
• Panzer04 2y ago
  Eh. Pat hasn't seemed to be doing anything special. Presided over a bunch of hiring and firing (pointlessly), plowing money into fabs like anyone else would, often misleads during presentations, hasn't managed Intel's cash very well... I have to agree with a few others, don't really see why people looked up to him. Seems like a pretty mediocre CEO overall. I also, personally, do not actually see the problem with a financial CEO. Ultimately I don't believe technical acumen is that important to the decisions a CEO makes - they should be relying on subordinates to correctly inform them of the direction and prospects of the company and act accordingly. I am concerned about Intel's long term prospects - obviously he wouldn't be leaving if everything was looking up, IMO.
• zoofrak 2y ago
  [flagged]
• mindwok 2y ago
  Echoing the sentiment this is a huge mistake. Something I was thinking about the other day: All the mega successful chip companies at the moment: TSMC, Nvidia, Samsung - are all lead by founders or family of founders. It got me wondering that if you really want to innovate in the most innovative industry in the world, you need more skin in the game than stock options. Gelsinger was the closest thing Intel had to a founder-leader, someone who deeply cared about the company and its legacy beyond what they paid him, and was willing to make tough decisions rather than maintain the status quo until his options vest. I wonder if this is the nail in the coffin.
• system7rocks 2y ago
  I do think it is time for me to throw my hat in to the Silicon Valley ring. I could be an amazing Intel CEO. Give me a call.
• russli1993 2y ago
  US should sanctions TSMC or put 100% tariffs
• vondur 2y ago
  Is it as simple as Intel purchasing the equipment from ASML to make their chips?
  • plxxyzs 2y ago
    No, they already do. None of the fabs (intel, tsmc, Samsung, etc.) build their own equipment. The secret sauce comes in designing the processes to integrate these machines into a cohesive months-long manufacturing process, building out the IP (aka what types of transistors and low-level features they can build) and so on. Companies like ASML and AMAT make machines with guarantees like “we can draw lines this small and deposit layers this thin” and it is up to intel or any other fab to figure out the rest.
• acyou 2y ago
  I am old enough to remember when AMD was nowhere, and Intel was the only game in town for both consumer and server chips, laptop and desktop. I think it was 2011. Then 2013 rolled around and I built a desktop with an AMD processor, because it was dirt cheap. I remember people saying that they were excited and looking forward to the upcoming AMD architectures and roadmap. I couldn't understand how AMD could possibly have come from behind to beat Intel. Realistically, you just need to come up with a good roadmap, get good people, get the resources, execute. Roadmap is good, people - not so sure about this one, resources - seem a little low, execution - seems hampered by too many cooks. If Intel broke up into smaller companies and their new leading edge chip design group had 500 good people, I honestly think they would have a better shot. So I think we are seeing what makes the most sense, Intel must die and let the phoenixes rise from the ashes. Fast forward to 2024/2025, and remember, anything is possible if AMD beat 2011 Intel.
  • thijson 2y ago
    AMD doesn't have the burden of capital expense that a fab is. It did take several years for AMD to capitalize on the freedom this enables though. As far as I know Intel is the only company left that is vertically integrated. This might be the last domino to fall. Arrow Lake uses TSMC heavily. Maybe that's a sign of things to come. Andy Grove said only the paranoid survive. It didn't seem like Intel management was that paranoid. They didn't invent 64bit x86, had to license it from AMD. Spent so much money on stock buy backs, when it should have been funneled back into the fab, getting yields up on the next process node. It's easy for me to be an armchair quarterback though, I'm not aware of everything that happened behind the scenes. I saw D1X being built, and the future seemed bright.
• gigatexal 2y ago
  Only CEOs get to press release their firings as something else: retirement, wanting to spend more time with family, voluntarily leaving etc. He was sacked. The board fired him. Tell it like it is. What does this mean for Intel? I think they’re too important to get bought or broken up because they have fabs in the US. They’re like Boeing in that sense. Or a big bank. They’re too big (strategically important) for the US to let them fail. But maybe they’ll get bought by another US company or investor. I dunno.
• lincpa 2y ago
  [dead]
• djmips 2y ago
  Quick put the financial and sales and marketing people back in charge because we all know how that worked so well in the past.