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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 Gelsinge

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.
    - Workaccount2 2y ago
      [flagged]
  - phkahler 2y ago
    Traditionally if you wanted SOTA semiconductors you'd go to IBM for the technology and then build your own fab. I'm not sure how true that is today but I wouldn't be surprised if it is.
    - my123 2y ago
      That's what Rapidus is doing
- kllrnohj 2y ago
  > where ARM is also increasingly making inroads with more efficient designs that deliver comparable performance. ARM isn't doing any such thing. Apple & Qualcomm are, though. ARM itself if anything looks weak. Their mobile cores have stagnated, their laptop attempts complete failures, and while there's hints of life in data center it also seems mediocre overall.
  - rwmj 2y ago
    Don't forget their "brilliant" strategy of suing their own customers.
    - dagmx 2y ago
      Being a customer shouldn’t protect a company from lawsuits. ARM feels they have merit here , just like Qualcomm did when they sued Apple. It’s not that rare in the corporate setting to have suits between companies with otherwise amicable relationships.
      - rwmj 2y ago
        The optics can still be terrible. Qualcomm (or more accurately, Nuvia, the company they acquired) produced some stunning chips with almost unheard of battery life for a laptop, and Arm are suing them to use their own inferior designs. They even tried to have end user laptops recalled and destroyed! There's no world where this looks good for Arm.
        dagmx 2y ago
        There’s a very clear bias and idolization in this comment of yours which is based on a misunderstanding of the case at hand. ARM aren’t trying to force Qualcomm to use ARMs cores. They’re trying to force them to update the licensing royalties to make up for the (as ARM sees it) licensing term violations of Nuvia who had a design license for specific use cases. The part you reference (using ARM designs) is the fallback if Qualcomm lose their design license. The destruction of the chips is standard practice to request in cases of license and IP infringement .
- kranke155 2y ago
  Apple saw the writing on the wall and bailed years ago, built their own chips and denied them a large customer. It’s a really bad sign when a customer decides it can out innovate you by internally copying your entire business and production line.
  - sofixa 2y ago
    > It’s a really bad sign when a customer decides it can out innovate you by internally copying your entire business and production line. Not necessarily, at scale, especially Apple's scale, vertical integration can make a ton of sense - for control, innovation, price, risk hedging.
    - manquer 2y ago
      It is not apple's decision that is the bad sign. There can be plenty of reasons for that as you mention and wouldn't be of note if their chips were poorer or even similar to intel in performance It is the fact they can build a much better chip in almost any metric so far ahead of Intel is the red flag.
  - jayd16 2y ago
    They haven't made their own fabs. Not yet, anyway. And historically, wasn't this juts an extension of their fight with Samsung in the mobile space more than a rejection of Intel?
    - eric-hu 2y ago
      Re: fabs, Apple did by way of TSMC. Apple provided TSMC with massive amounts of cash in the 2010’s to fund new fabs. These were loans, but with very generous low interest terms that TSMC couldn’t have gotten elsewhere. I think you’re correct that this was initially because Apple didn’t want to be at the behest of Samsung. But as Apple iterated on their mobile and tablet chips, they had the choice to bring them to their desktop and laptop lines or not to. They took that gamble and here we are today with non Intel Macs.
- tiahura 2y ago
  last few years. It's pretty much two decades at this point.
rwmj 2y ago
Intel needed to be split in two as well, which Gelsinger only half-heartedly did. He split the company into two functions - foundry and design, but didn't take that to its logical conclusion and split up the company completely.
- BirAdam 2y ago
  They legally cannot split due to the CHIPS Act.
  - rwmj 2y ago
    No idea if that's true or not, but the CHIPS Act didn't exist when he started as CEO.
  - ethbr1 2y ago
    Not entirely true. It just requires that Intel retain a 51% stake in any split foundry company.
    - CoastalCoder 2y ago
      I wonder about the details of this. For example, could "Intel A" continue to own the foundries, split off "Intel B" as the owner of the product lines, and then do some rebranding shenanigans so that the CPUs are still branded as "Intel"?
      - __d 2y ago
        eg. HP and HPE. I don’t know if it’s legally possible, but HP shows the branding bit can kinda work.
- paulpan 2y ago
  Agree with OP that Intel was probably too deep into its downward spiral. While it seems Pat tried to make changes, including expanding into GPUs, it either wasn't enough or too much for the Intel board. Splitting Intel is necessary but probably infeasible at this point in the game. Simple fact is that Intel Foundry Services has nothing to offer against the likes of TSMC and Samsung - perhaps only cheaper prices and even then it's unproven to fab any non-Intel chips. So the only way to keep it afloat is by continuing to fab Intel's own designs, until 18A node becomes viable/ready.
bell-cot 2y ago
Oh, yes. They spent too many years as the obvious #1, with a license to print money...when, longer-term, staying there required that Intel remain top-of-league in two profoundly difficult and fast-moving technologies (10e9+-transistor CPU design, and manufacturing such chips). Meanwhile, the natural rot of any large org - people getting promoted for their ladder-climbing skills, and making decisions for their own short-term benefit - were slow eating away at Intel's ability to stay at the top of those leagues.
tonetegeatinst 2y ago
Who/what is BK? Are they the previous person who held Pat Gelsingers position?
- _huayra_ 2y ago
  Brian Krzanich, the CEO before Pat
  - davidczech 2y ago
    Don't forget Bob Swan
    - aryonoco 2y ago
      Bob Swan was fine. He was no visionary, but he was trying to do the right thing with the advice he was being given, and actually started the cleanup of a lot of BK's mess. BK will go down in history as the person who destroyed a once great engineering firm.
twoodfin 2y ago
They really need to clear house in a spectacular way but I'm not sure who could even do that at this point. An alien from Vega looking at our constellation of tech companies and their leadership might point at an obvious answer…
alecco 2y ago
I would argue there were many good things but not well delivered. The Optane persistent memory should've been revolutionary for databases but Intel just put it out and expected people to do all the software. I'm seeing the same thing now with Intel QAT / IAA / DSA. Only niche software support. Only AWS seems to have it and those "bare metal" machines don't even have local NVMe. About 10 years ago Intel Research was publishing a lot of great research but no software for the users. Contrast it with Nvidia and their amazing software stack and support for their hardware.
- gondo 2y ago
  > Nvidia and their amazing software stack and support for their hardware. Linus seems to disagree https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tQIdxbWhHSM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tQIdxbWhHSM
  - mnau 2y ago
    His comment has nothing to do with quality of software or quality of support, but is about dealing with NVidia. Trying to work with NVidia (as a hardware manufacturer) must have been frustrating, but that has nothing to do with quality of the software. The video is 12 years old. A lot changed in the meantime. AMD has open source drivers and crashes often. NVidia has (or more precisely had) closed source drivers that nearly always work.
  - alecco 2y ago
    That was about drivers and in 2012. At the time Linux was not interesting for them as clients. But now with AI, Nvidia has open source drivers. https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVIDIA-Transitions-OSS-KMD https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVIDIA-Transitions-OSS-KMD
    - akimbostrawman 2y ago
      >Nvidia has open source drivers. Kernel Module Driver which is most likely less than 5% of drivers.
  - 2y ago
lobochrome 2y ago
Agreed. He should have cut 25% of the workforce to get started (and killed the dividend). Also - the European expansion and Ohio projects, while good short-term strategies, were too early. Cut the ship down to size and force existing sites to refocus or be closed. Get alarmist. Make sure you cut out all the bad apples. Prune the tree. Be ruthless and determined. They should hire Reed Hastings now. He's the OG turnaround king.

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.
  - Workaccount2 2y ago
    [flagged]
- phkahler 2y ago
  Traditionally if you wanted SOTA semiconductors you'd go to IBM for the technology and then build your own fab. I'm not sure how true that is today but I wouldn't be surprised if it is.
  - my123 2y ago
    That's what Rapidus is doing
kllrnohj 2y ago
> where ARM is also increasingly making inroads with more efficient designs that deliver comparable performance. ARM isn't doing any such thing. Apple & Qualcomm are, though. ARM itself if anything looks weak. Their mobile cores have stagnated, their laptop attempts complete failures, and while there's hints of life in data center it also seems mediocre overall.
- rwmj 2y ago
  Don't forget their "brilliant" strategy of suing their own customers.
  - dagmx 2y ago
    Being a customer shouldn’t protect a company from lawsuits. ARM feels they have merit here , just like Qualcomm did when they sued Apple. It’s not that rare in the corporate setting to have suits between companies with otherwise amicable relationships.
    - rwmj 2y ago
      The optics can still be terrible. Qualcomm (or more accurately, Nuvia, the company they acquired) produced some stunning chips with almost unheard of battery life for a laptop, and Arm are suing them to use their own inferior designs. They even tried to have end user laptops recalled and destroyed! There's no world where this looks good for Arm.
      - dagmx 2y ago
        There’s a very clear bias and idolization in this comment of yours which is based on a misunderstanding of the case at hand. ARM aren’t trying to force Qualcomm to use ARMs cores. They’re trying to force them to update the licensing royalties to make up for the (as ARM sees it) licensing term violations of Nuvia who had a design license for specific use cases. The part you reference (using ARM designs) is the fallback if Qualcomm lose their design license. The destruction of the chips is standard practice to request in cases of license and IP infringement .
kranke155 2y ago
Apple saw the writing on the wall and bailed years ago, built their own chips and denied them a large customer. It’s a really bad sign when a customer decides it can out innovate you by internally copying your entire business and production line.
- sofixa 2y ago
  > It’s a really bad sign when a customer decides it can out innovate you by internally copying your entire business and production line. Not necessarily, at scale, especially Apple's scale, vertical integration can make a ton of sense - for control, innovation, price, risk hedging.
  - manquer 2y ago
    It is not apple's decision that is the bad sign. There can be plenty of reasons for that as you mention and wouldn't be of note if their chips were poorer or even similar to intel in performance It is the fact they can build a much better chip in almost any metric so far ahead of Intel is the red flag.
- jayd16 2y ago
  They haven't made their own fabs. Not yet, anyway. And historically, wasn't this juts an extension of their fight with Samsung in the mobile space more than a rejection of Intel?
  - eric-hu 2y ago
    Re: fabs, Apple did by way of TSMC. Apple provided TSMC with massive amounts of cash in the 2010’s to fund new fabs. These were loans, but with very generous low interest terms that TSMC couldn’t have gotten elsewhere. I think you’re correct that this was initially because Apple didn’t want to be at the behest of Samsung. But as Apple iterated on their mobile and tablet chips, they had the choice to bring them to their desktop and laptop lines or not to. They took that gamble and here we are today with non Intel Macs.
tiahura 2y ago
last few years. It's pretty much two decades at this point.

rwmj 2y ago

Intel needed to be split in two as well, which Gelsinger only half-heartedly did. He split the company into two functions - foundry and design, but didn't take that to its logical conclusion and split up the company completely.

BirAdam 2y ago
They legally cannot split due to the CHIPS Act.
- rwmj 2y ago
  No idea if that's true or not, but the CHIPS Act didn't exist when he started as CEO.
- ethbr1 2y ago
  Not entirely true. It just requires that Intel retain a 51% stake in any split foundry company.
  - CoastalCoder 2y ago
    I wonder about the details of this. For example, could "Intel A" continue to own the foundries, split off "Intel B" as the owner of the product lines, and then do some rebranding shenanigans so that the CPUs are still branded as "Intel"?
    - __d 2y ago
      eg. HP and HPE. I don’t know if it’s legally possible, but HP shows the branding bit can kinda work.
paulpan 2y ago
Agree with OP that Intel was probably too deep into its downward spiral. While it seems Pat tried to make changes, including expanding into GPUs, it either wasn't enough or too much for the Intel board. Splitting Intel is necessary but probably infeasible at this point in the game. Simple fact is that Intel Foundry Services has nothing to offer against the likes of TSMC and Samsung - perhaps only cheaper prices and even then it's unproven to fab any non-Intel chips. So the only way to keep it afloat is by continuing to fab Intel's own designs, until 18A node becomes viable/ready.

bell-cot 2y ago

Oh, yes. They spent too many years as the obvious #1, with a license to print money...when, longer-term, staying there required that Intel remain top-of-league in two profoundly difficult and fast-moving technologies (10e9+-transistor CPU design, and manufacturing such chips). Meanwhile, the natural rot of any large org - people getting promoted for their ladder-climbing skills, and making decisions for their own short-term benefit - were slow eating away at Intel's ability to stay at the top of those leagues.

tonetegeatinst 2y ago

Who/what is BK? Are they the previous person who held Pat Gelsingers position?

_huayra_ 2y ago
Brian Krzanich, the CEO before Pat
- davidczech 2y ago
  Don't forget Bob Swan
  - aryonoco 2y ago
    Bob Swan was fine. He was no visionary, but he was trying to do the right thing with the advice he was being given, and actually started the cleanup of a lot of BK's mess. BK will go down in history as the person who destroyed a once great engineering firm.

twoodfin 2y ago

They really need to clear house in a spectacular way but I'm not sure who could even do that at this point. An alien from Vega looking at our constellation of tech companies and their leadership might point at an obvious answer…

alecco 2y ago

I would argue there were many good things but not well delivered. The Optane persistent memory should've been revolutionary for databases but Intel just put it out and expected people to do all the software. I'm seeing the same thing now with Intel QAT / IAA / DSA. Only niche software support. Only AWS seems to have it and those "bare metal" machines don't even have local NVMe. About 10 years ago Intel Research was publishing a lot of great research but no software for the users. Contrast it with Nvidia and their amazing software stack and support for their hardware.

gondo 2y ago
> Nvidia and their amazing software stack and support for their hardware. Linus seems to disagree https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tQIdxbWhHSM https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tQIdxbWhHSM
- mnau 2y ago
  His comment has nothing to do with quality of software or quality of support, but is about dealing with NVidia. Trying to work with NVidia (as a hardware manufacturer) must have been frustrating, but that has nothing to do with quality of the software. The video is 12 years old. A lot changed in the meantime. AMD has open source drivers and crashes often. NVidia has (or more precisely had) closed source drivers that nearly always work.
- alecco 2y ago
  That was about drivers and in 2012. At the time Linux was not interesting for them as clients. But now with AI, Nvidia has open source drivers. https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVIDIA-Transitions-OSS-KMD https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVIDIA-Transitions-OSS-KMD
  - akimbostrawman 2y ago
    >Nvidia has open source drivers. Kernel Module Driver which is most likely less than 5% of drivers.
- 2y ago

lobochrome 2y ago

Agreed. He should have cut 25% of the workforce to get started (and killed the dividend). Also - the European expansion and Ohio projects, while good short-term strategies, were too early. Cut the ship down to size and force existing sites to refocus or be closed. Get alarmist. Make sure you cut out all the bad apples. Prune the tree. Be ruthless and determined. They should hire Reed Hastings now. He's the OG turnaround king.