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It seems that what happened to Intel was a lot worse than just missing Andy Grove's paranoia... - They missed the mobile market - They missed the gaming marke

It seems that what happened to Intel was a lot worse than just missing Andy Grove's paranoia... - They missed the mobile market - They missed the gaming market - They missed the AI/ML market - They got multiple generations behind TSMC and Samsung in the fab business - They lost a whole bunch of market share to AMD, including datacenter The NY Times article is paywalled, so I can't read it, but I have to wonder what kind of fabs they are meant to be building for our (taxpayers) $8.5B ? I wouldn't have any faith in them building a SOTA fab at this point.

chiefalchemist 3y ago
When you connect those dots this feels more like a pseudo bailout in disguise.
- rhelz 3y ago
  Oh, its not a pseudo bailout. It's a bailout full stop. Doesn't mean its a bad idea.
  - inemesitaffia 3y ago
    8 billion can't build half a fab though.
- coliveira 3y ago
  This is exactly what it is. With the added issue that, in all likelihood, $8B is not even enough to start making a change. The US gov would have a better time giving these $8B to startup companies in the chip space. Intel will just squander this money and give some of it to shareholders.
rhelz 3y ago
You are forgetting two things: 1. All those happened after Andy Grove's time. 2. And when Andy Grove was at the helm, Intel did not miss opportunities like that. E.g. when Intel's memory chip business started losing market share to the Japanese (who were at the time a low-wage country), they were able to transition to CPUs in time.
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago
  Yeah, but what I meant is that these can't all be explained by not being paranoid (letting the competition creep up on you), or even by not having an exceptional CEO. If you are in the business of making CPUs, and obviously aware of how fast things move in the tech world, then how can you not be aware of industry trends going on like smart phones, gaming and AI? If you are somehow late to see the trend then double down and catch up. What about getting behind on process nodes/generations? This used to be one of Intel's core strengths, and you'd have thought they'd have institutionalized the things you do and don't take on in a new process to keep the change manageable. So, I wouldn't say it just a matter of not having Andy Grove - it seems like a matter of having incompetence at many levels.
sevagh 3y ago
Actually, Intel has been consistent with their specialized CPU DNN libraries and whatnot for years. MKL and the likes are pervasive in modern deep learning stacks. Pretty sure they've captured as much of the AI/ML business as CPUs possibly can. Also, by gaming do you mean gaming consoles or gaming PCs? Because Intel is popular in gaming PCs also.
- HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago
  Sure, but those are CPU libraries, but what has grown NVIDIA into a $2T company wasn't building CPUs - it was building processors specific to this new and exploding field of ML/AI, which grew out of them building processors (GPUs) specific to the growing field of realtime PC-based gaming... Is the problem that Intel saw themselves too narrowly as in the CPU business rather than as in the compute business? I've no idea - it'd be interesting to hear the inside story of how all these missed opportunities went down.
  - sevagh 3y ago
    I mean, if your benchmark is "not being as successful as NVIDIA", then yes, a lot of companies are failures.
    - HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago
      You're missing the point - it's not about comparing Intel to anyone else, but rather about Intel's missed market opportunities. They make processors but missed all the new market opportunities for processors.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- xcv123 3y ago
  > Pretty sure they've captured as much of the AI/ML business as CPUs possibly can. Which is exactly how they missed out on AI/ML. CPU is irrelevant in that market. > Because Intel is popular in gaming PCs All gaming consoles use AMD or Nvidia hardware. Gaming PCs use AMD or Nvidia GPUs.

chiefalchemist 3y ago

When you connect those dots this feels more like a pseudo bailout in disguise.

rhelz 3y ago
Oh, its not a pseudo bailout. It's a bailout full stop. Doesn't mean its a bad idea.
- inemesitaffia 3y ago
  8 billion can't build half a fab though.
coliveira 3y ago
This is exactly what it is. With the added issue that, in all likelihood, $8B is not even enough to start making a change. The US gov would have a better time giving these $8B to startup companies in the chip space. Intel will just squander this money and give some of it to shareholders.

rhelz 3y ago

You are forgetting two things: 1. All those happened after Andy Grove's time. 2. And when Andy Grove was at the helm, Intel did not miss opportunities like that. E.g. when Intel's memory chip business started losing market share to the Japanese (who were at the time a low-wage country), they were able to transition to CPUs in time.

HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago
Yeah, but what I meant is that these can't all be explained by not being paranoid (letting the competition creep up on you), or even by not having an exceptional CEO. If you are in the business of making CPUs, and obviously aware of how fast things move in the tech world, then how can you not be aware of industry trends going on like smart phones, gaming and AI? If you are somehow late to see the trend then double down and catch up. What about getting behind on process nodes/generations? This used to be one of Intel's core strengths, and you'd have thought they'd have institutionalized the things you do and don't take on in a new process to keep the change manageable. So, I wouldn't say it just a matter of not having Andy Grove - it seems like a matter of having incompetence at many levels.

sevagh 3y ago

Actually, Intel has been consistent with their specialized CPU DNN libraries and whatnot for years. MKL and the likes are pervasive in modern deep learning stacks. Pretty sure they've captured as much of the AI/ML business as CPUs possibly can. Also, by gaming do you mean gaming consoles or gaming PCs? Because Intel is popular in gaming PCs also.

HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago
Sure, but those are CPU libraries, but what has grown NVIDIA into a $2T company wasn't building CPUs - it was building processors specific to this new and exploding field of ML/AI, which grew out of them building processors (GPUs) specific to the growing field of realtime PC-based gaming... Is the problem that Intel saw themselves too narrowly as in the CPU business rather than as in the compute business? I've no idea - it'd be interesting to hear the inside story of how all these missed opportunities went down.
- sevagh 3y ago
  I mean, if your benchmark is "not being as successful as NVIDIA", then yes, a lot of companies are failures.
  - HarHarVeryFunny 3y ago
    You're missing the point - it's not about comparing Intel to anyone else, but rather about Intel's missed market opportunities. They make processors but missed all the new market opportunities for processors.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
xcv123 3y ago
> Pretty sure they've captured as much of the AI/ML business as CPUs possibly can. Which is exactly how they missed out on AI/ML. CPU is irrelevant in that market. > Because Intel is popular in gaming PCs All gaming consoles use AMD or Nvidia hardware. Gaming PCs use AMD or Nvidia GPUs.