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Patrick Moorhead is a stock analyst for the chip industry. In Wall Street terms, he is aligned with Intel others who are shaking in their boots right now. He's

Patrick Moorhead is a stock analyst for the chip industry. In Wall Street terms, he is aligned with Intel others who are shaking in their boots right now. He's not going to say that the M1 is great until Intel/NVidia/etc. allow him to. These pundits know which side of his bread is buttered. He knows that his clients were caught off-guard by the M1 announcement. He needs to give his clients enough time to sell their Intel stock before it becomes conventional wisdom that the legacy chip makers have a business model that doesn't work. The history of the tech industry is dotted with pundits nay-saying anything new from companies they aren't in bed with. Eventually they can't deny reality any longer. Through the magic of the media's short-term memory they change their song and deny they've every said anything else. I remember in the 1980s when the top pundit of the industry was John C. Dvorak. Everyone read his column. EVERYONE. The Amiga was a potential threat to John, who was aligned with the MS-DOS world. He wrote many columns about how multitasking was stupid because "your desk can't fit more than one keyboard and mouse". Yeah, that was his reason. Of course, once MS-Windows arrived, suddenly his column was about how multitasking is this new thing, the best thing, the thing everyone should have. If you don't have it, you're an ignorant loser. I remember telling my friends that I wish I had saved his old, anti-Amiga/anti-multitasking, columns because I want to show up at one of his public appearances to ask how MS-Windows allows you to fit so many keyboards on his desk.

blunte 6y ago
Is Intel really so blind that they didn't see this coming or even have detailed inside info about it? I would wager that they knew, but execs chose to protect their personal short term interests overt those of the company and its long term shareholders. This is typical modern US publicly traded company behavior.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- detaro 6y ago
  What would have been the choice they should have made that was not protecting their short term interests and better for the company?
  - tolien 6y ago
    There's been comments here and elsewhere for a while saying that Intel's remuneration policy (i.e. salaries and benefits) have been uncompetitive and between that and the culture some of the best people have left (a number of them to Apple) so the answer's pretty obvious. Throw money at it - find the best and brightest people and stuff their mouths with gold to have them solve whatever problems Intel's still having with 10nm and beyond as quickly as possible and with honest timelines to when that'll happen (not "oh it'll totally work this quarter"). Intel blowing the lead they had on semiconductor process technology is an existential threat, especially if it's blocking them getting out improvements in IPC (i.e. see what AMD are doing) also, so it's impossible to overstate how important this should be to Intel's senior leadership (by which I mean if it's not solved real soon, the shareholders ought to be removing them from post).
- heimatau 6y ago
  > I would wager that they knew Same. It's pretty clear that they knew and those that were blindsided, earned to get a pink slip.
  - blunte 6y ago
    But unfortunately that's not how publicly traded companies operate. The highest paid execs just hang around for a few years, and almost regardless of how the company performs, they exit with a nice package and move into another company with a similar or better agreement.
    - heimatau 6y ago
      Maybe you should read Andrew Grove's book. Intel used to be this way and I suspect they just intentionally made the easy choice, not the socially/business good choice.
kag0 6y ago
I agree in general, but is this really true? > the legacy chip makers have a business model that doesn't work It seems like this implicitly assumes that everyone switching to Apple silicon is a possibility. But it doesn't seem likely that all the android users are going to switch to iphones or that all the windows/linux users are going to switch to macs. This is hugely embarrassing for Intel and Qualcomm in particular, and stocks will fall. But the business model outside the walled garden isn't necessarily going to change.
- mantap 6y ago
  Not sure. There are clearly some problems with the x86-64 ISA. If the world switches to ARM in the coming decade, that leaves Intel in a perilous position: no advantage in IP and no advantage in fabrication.
  - adewinter 6y ago
    The world may want to switch to ARM but right now there aren't really any options to switch _to_ right? Beyond Apple I can't think of any chip manufacturers offering desktop ARM cpus...
  - eins1234 6y ago
    Right, the problem for Intel & AMD is not that everybody will switch over to Apple chips (they can't, because Apple likely won't sell it to them), but rather that Apple has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that ARM chips _can_ be this good when scaled up to laptop-level power envelopes. That will probably prompt other ARM vendors and certain PC manufacturers (Microsoft who already has the ARM based SQ chips, for instance) to further invest in similar products that chip away at Intel/AMD's lead and likely eventually overtake them.
- mikepurvis 6y ago
  It proves the viability of ARM for desktops, laptops, and probably eventually servers too. Intel having been humiliated by this will loosen their grip on OEMs who will now be under pressure in the inevitable rush to produce appealing, performance-oriented ARM laptops, as the current market has basically been Chromebooks and some half-hearted Windows ARM tablets, all based on chips adapted from phones. And of course there will also be the rush on the fab side to produce a non-Apple chip that's actually suitable for these machines, which will in turn have performance characteristics far more suited to server use than any previous ARM chip, enabling that market and feeding back a demand for larger and more performant server ARM chips and mainboards— and who knows, maybe even some kind of socket standard so they aren't soldered down like it is today.
sokoloff 6y ago
Was it really that shocking for Apple to announce they were shipping their own silicon? That stuck me as a pretty open (non-)secret and I’m not even in that industry. I doubt Intel was actually caught unaware.
- internet2000 6y ago
  It wasn't a surprise they were doing it. It absolute was a surprise for Intel that it ended up being this good.
  - Oreb 6y ago
    But how can that be a surprise to anyone who has been following the development of the iPhone/iPad CPUs? The M1 is exactly what you would expect it to be by extrapolating from the performance of recent iOS chips.
    - trevor-e 6y ago
      I certainly wasn't expecting an M1 mac mini to compile our iOS app codebase in half the time compared to a 2018 super beefy MacbookPro.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  This is more about trying to soften the blow on Wall Street. I'm sure Intel had a good idea Apple's chip was going to blow the doors off their offerings.
  - bigbizisverywyz 6y ago
    But I don't really see how this will affect Intel financially in any meaningful way in the short term. They won't provide chips for Apple anymore, but that must have been a relatively small number of units, so no great financial loss to them. And Apple are never going to sell these chips generally, so there's no competition there. In the long term though it may actually benefit Intel (and AMD/NVidia) who might work out exactly what Apple have done and possibly replicate it in their own CPUs.
myrandomcomment 6y ago
Dvorak, IIRC was an OS/2 fan vs. Windows so..
jessaustin 6y ago
Is that the same John C Dvorak who is the older and crotchetier of the "two crotchety old men" podcast who spend half of each show hyping their "Amway meets PBS meets LARPing" monetization scheme? That podcast would actually be listenable if they just ran some ads... Still, he has landed on his feet, even if he no longer claims any particular tech expertise.
vr46 6y ago
You know, I would have sworn that Dvorak used to write a Mac column for an American Macuser or Macworld when I was a student in the 1990s, waxing lyrical about the Mac.
- savoytruffle 6y ago
  He was sometimes in the back page of one of those (I think MacUser) but just as ultimately wrong about everything as ever — for example, online shopping.
- sgerenser 6y ago
  He did write for a while in one of those publications, but he hardly waxed lyrical. It was mostly vaguely negative “insights” about Apples business strategy and how awesome they could be if they just listened to him.
  - vr46 6y ago
    Fair enough, it was a long long time ago. I guess he hasn't changed. Pundits never need to be right.
klelatti 6y ago
This is nearly right - I don't think he's a stock analyst but he clearly gets some work from Intel, Dell etc - so hardly an independent reviewer (not sure Gruber would claim to be either fwiw) although he's also written this on Arm over the last few days. https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2020/12/02/30-years-in-and-arm-looks-stronger-than-ever/?sh=7fc7ab9f49c3 https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2020/12/02/30-y... In any event he could have led with "Why you might want to wait" rather than "Why you might want to pass" given that most of the criticisms are likely to be fixed soon.

blunte 6y ago

Is Intel really so blind that they didn't see this coming or even have detailed inside info about it? I would wager that they knew, but execs chose to protect their personal short term interests overt those of the company and its long term shareholders. This is typical modern US publicly traded company behavior.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
detaro 6y ago
What would have been the choice they should have made that was not protecting their short term interests and better for the company?
- tolien 6y ago
  There's been comments here and elsewhere for a while saying that Intel's remuneration policy (i.e. salaries and benefits) have been uncompetitive and between that and the culture some of the best people have left (a number of them to Apple) so the answer's pretty obvious. Throw money at it - find the best and brightest people and stuff their mouths with gold to have them solve whatever problems Intel's still having with 10nm and beyond as quickly as possible and with honest timelines to when that'll happen (not "oh it'll totally work this quarter"). Intel blowing the lead they had on semiconductor process technology is an existential threat, especially if it's blocking them getting out improvements in IPC (i.e. see what AMD are doing) also, so it's impossible to overstate how important this should be to Intel's senior leadership (by which I mean if it's not solved real soon, the shareholders ought to be removing them from post).
heimatau 6y ago
> I would wager that they knew Same. It's pretty clear that they knew and those that were blindsided, earned to get a pink slip.
- blunte 6y ago
  But unfortunately that's not how publicly traded companies operate. The highest paid execs just hang around for a few years, and almost regardless of how the company performs, they exit with a nice package and move into another company with a similar or better agreement.
  - heimatau 6y ago
    Maybe you should read Andrew Grove's book. Intel used to be this way and I suspect they just intentionally made the easy choice, not the socially/business good choice.

kag0 6y ago

I agree in general, but is this really true? > the legacy chip makers have a business model that doesn't work It seems like this implicitly assumes that everyone switching to Apple silicon is a possibility. But it doesn't seem likely that all the android users are going to switch to iphones or that all the windows/linux users are going to switch to macs. This is hugely embarrassing for Intel and Qualcomm in particular, and stocks will fall. But the business model outside the walled garden isn't necessarily going to change.

mantap 6y ago
Not sure. There are clearly some problems with the x86-64 ISA. If the world switches to ARM in the coming decade, that leaves Intel in a perilous position: no advantage in IP and no advantage in fabrication.
- adewinter 6y ago
  The world may want to switch to ARM but right now there aren't really any options to switch _to_ right? Beyond Apple I can't think of any chip manufacturers offering desktop ARM cpus...
- eins1234 6y ago
  Right, the problem for Intel & AMD is not that everybody will switch over to Apple chips (they can't, because Apple likely won't sell it to them), but rather that Apple has proven beyond any reasonable doubt that ARM chips _can_ be this good when scaled up to laptop-level power envelopes. That will probably prompt other ARM vendors and certain PC manufacturers (Microsoft who already has the ARM based SQ chips, for instance) to further invest in similar products that chip away at Intel/AMD's lead and likely eventually overtake them.
mikepurvis 6y ago
It proves the viability of ARM for desktops, laptops, and probably eventually servers too. Intel having been humiliated by this will loosen their grip on OEMs who will now be under pressure in the inevitable rush to produce appealing, performance-oriented ARM laptops, as the current market has basically been Chromebooks and some half-hearted Windows ARM tablets, all based on chips adapted from phones. And of course there will also be the rush on the fab side to produce a non-Apple chip that's actually suitable for these machines, which will in turn have performance characteristics far more suited to server use than any previous ARM chip, enabling that market and feeding back a demand for larger and more performant server ARM chips and mainboards— and who knows, maybe even some kind of socket standard so they aren't soldered down like it is today.

sokoloff 6y ago

Was it really that shocking for Apple to announce they were shipping their own silicon? That stuck me as a pretty open (non-)secret and I’m not even in that industry. I doubt Intel was actually caught unaware.

internet2000 6y ago
It wasn't a surprise they were doing it. It absolute was a surprise for Intel that it ended up being this good.
- Oreb 6y ago
  But how can that be a surprise to anyone who has been following the development of the iPhone/iPad CPUs? The M1 is exactly what you would expect it to be by extrapolating from the performance of recent iOS chips.
  - trevor-e 6y ago
    I certainly wasn't expecting an M1 mac mini to compile our iOS app codebase in half the time compared to a 2018 super beefy MacbookPro.
ogre_codes 6y ago
This is more about trying to soften the blow on Wall Street. I'm sure Intel had a good idea Apple's chip was going to blow the doors off their offerings.
- bigbizisverywyz 6y ago
  But I don't really see how this will affect Intel financially in any meaningful way in the short term. They won't provide chips for Apple anymore, but that must have been a relatively small number of units, so no great financial loss to them. And Apple are never going to sell these chips generally, so there's no competition there. In the long term though it may actually benefit Intel (and AMD/NVidia) who might work out exactly what Apple have done and possibly replicate it in their own CPUs.

myrandomcomment 6y ago

Dvorak, IIRC was an OS/2 fan vs. Windows so..

jessaustin 6y ago

Is that the same John C Dvorak who is the older and crotchetier of the "two crotchety old men" podcast who spend half of each show hyping their "Amway meets PBS meets LARPing" monetization scheme? That podcast would actually be listenable if they just ran some ads... Still, he has landed on his feet, even if he no longer claims any particular tech expertise.

vr46 6y ago

You know, I would have sworn that Dvorak used to write a Mac column for an American Macuser or Macworld when I was a student in the 1990s, waxing lyrical about the Mac.

savoytruffle 6y ago
He was sometimes in the back page of one of those (I think MacUser) but just as ultimately wrong about everything as ever — for example, online shopping.
sgerenser 6y ago
He did write for a while in one of those publications, but he hardly waxed lyrical. It was mostly vaguely negative “insights” about Apples business strategy and how awesome they could be if they just listened to him.
- vr46 6y ago
  Fair enough, it was a long long time ago. I guess he hasn't changed. Pundits never need to be right.

klelatti 6y ago

This is nearly right - I don't think he's a stock analyst but he clearly gets some work from Intel, Dell etc - so hardly an independent reviewer (not sure Gruber would claim to be either fwiw) although he's also written this on Arm over the last few days. https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2020/12/02/30-years-in-and-arm-looks-stronger-than-ever/?sh=7fc7ab9f49c3 https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2020/12/02/30-y... In any event he could have led with "Why you might want to wait" rather than "Why you might want to pass" given that most of the criticisms are likely to be fixed soon.