this post was submitted on 02 Dec 2024
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Intel Announces Retirement of CEO Pat Gelsinger (www.intc.com)
submitted 3 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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[–] [email protected] 47 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (17 children)

So what IS their strategy now?

Some of Pat's initiatives were good (stay the course with Xe and fabs, which take a long time to pan out), but they kept delaying everything!

Yet Intel is kind of screwed without good graphics or ML IP.

If they spin off the fabs, I feel like they are really screwed, as they will be left with nothing but shrinking businesses and no multi year efforts to get out of it.

Like... Even theoretically, I dont know what I would do to right Intel as CEO unless they can fix whatever is causing consistent delays, and clearly thats not happening. What is their path?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (12 children)

unless they can fix whatever is causing consistent delays

Yup, that's their #1 goal right now. If I were CEO, I'd cut/sell any part of the business that doesn't directly support CPU and GPU sales, which is basically what Intel is doing. My priorities would be:

  1. rescue server CPU business - this is their main money printing machine, and while they may lose to ARM in the future, they need a cash cow in the medium term
  2. get a competent server-oriented GPU product out - they're late to the game, but they can bundle them w/ their server CPU contracts to get some market share; overwhelm these corporate customers with first class driver support
  3. get something to compete w/ Apple's M1 - this means super low-power CPU that can scale to gaming workloads, and capable-enough graphics (something a bit better than AMD's APUs); sell this near cost to keep a foot in the door in the mobile space
  4. sell domestic fab capacity - now is the time to get Sony and Microsoft on board with their next gen consoles, and it might not be too late for Nintendo

I would essentially ignore desktop workloads and solve workstation workloads w/ server chips. To me, those sound like the highest margin businesses that they could potentially still capture, and at least 1 & 2 are a bit less sensitive to being behind on their fab process (corporate contracts respond pretty well to bundle discounts).

This probably wouldn't work though, especially since I'm an outside observer with zero industry experience. But I think a good CEO would do something along those lines, which seems to be what Pat Gelsinger was going for as well.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If I were CEO, I’d cut/sell any part of the business that doesn’t directly support CPU and GPU sales, which is basically what Intel is doing.

That's pretty much what they did. They sold off most of the "other" stuff, like their modem division, shut down their SSD division, sold part of Mobileye shares in the IPO, and reportedly Intel is looking to sell part of Altera, their FPGA division.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Yeah, and I generally agree with Gelsinger's direction. I'm interested in the reason for him retiring, as well as who is likely to replace him.

It would be really funny though if Intel tanks and AMD buys their fabs from them.

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