9 ms·

The board’s lack of technical or even product expertise struck me when it was announced Gelsinger would abruptly retire. They don’t have the chops to be the wa

The board’s lack of technical or even product expertise struck me when it was announced Gelsinger would abruptly retire. They don’t have the chops to be the wartime board Intel needs. They likely have no idea if Gelsinger was on the right path or chasing a dream. I believe Gelsinger was the right person for the job, but the board wasn’t and isn’t. The board would have had to approve of his plans. They should have known what they were signing up for. For Gelsinger’s part he was probably too cavalier with finances and market sentiment to ever sustain any political capital.

passwordoops 2y ago
Not just let of technical experience, but the experience they do have is scary. Gregory Smith, for example, who is "the former CFO and EVP of operations at Boeing. He’s been on the board since 2017 and was an interim CEO at Boeing during 2020...probably be directly involved with the Boeing fiasco." Someone like that should be facing criminal negligence charges, not sitting on boards.
- nimish 2y ago
  Truly a comical choice for a board member
- lordnacho 2y ago
  It's an indictment of the capitalist system. There's supposed to be oversight that ensure our organizations are run by capable people. But you look at this board (and I'm sure a few others) and it's clear they are not worth the money they are paid. What is anyone even thinking, having a guy from Boeing there? The board is also too big, and filled with irrelevant people. Four or five specialists who know the area, and one or two financial side people, that's all you need. Too many chefs = nobody's cooking, nobody is responsible.
  - gjsman-1000 2y ago
    > It's an indictment of the capitalist system. Do you have any evidence, that any other system, has demonstrated historical immunity to this problem? Last I checked, the Soviet system put some awfully unqualified people in charge of nuclear plants, and we know how that went. Last I checked, China put some awfully unqualified people in charge of the housing market, and we know how that's going. The correct response is that unqualified people in positions of power has plagued every social structure. Arguably, alternative systems have failed in this regard to even worse degrees, with far more catastrophic outcomes.
    - lordnacho 2y ago
      > Do you have any evidence, that any other system, has demonstrated historical immunity to this problem? That's not the point though. Our current system seems to not work. If it worked, you would think a tech giant like Intel would be well managed. That doesn't mean I think we should go the Soviet route, it means the current system needs to be fixed. How to fix it? I'm not too sure, the answer would probably take quite a deep dive into how the stock market works, governance, and so on.
FrustratedMonky 2y ago
Isn't there some business cycle where companies reach the 'fattened pig' phase, and then wall street just feeds on it. Isn't this what that looks like? Nobody is really 'saving' Intel. They are eating it.
TheCondor 2y ago
It’s too late. It was too late 18 months ago. Nvidia is over 30x bigger. Qualcomm is 2x, AMD is 2x. Intel needs a world beater, like tomorrow. Qualcomm offered to buy them, no idea what the terms are but he’d have to beat those terms, right? That had to be the death blow. AMD has already shipped ARM parts in the recentish time frame (Opteron A1100) there are rumors that they have internal arm projects that can be ready quickly. All the other part makers are all in with ARM. Intel is on an island. Throw the customization that MS and AWS are doing, unless they have something magical, tomorrow, it’s just hard to see.
- tw04 2y ago
  > All the other part makers are all in with ARM. Intel is on an island. Intel also has an ARM architecture license… they sold Marvell the Xscale assets, but retained rights to produce ARM chips should they desire to do so in the future. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale
  - Earw0rm 2y ago
    Sure, but then they're competing with everyone else in a fair fight. Which means either taking a huge hit on margins, or having a product with enough of a performance delta to justify prices somewhere near today's. The problem isn't so much x64 vs ARM but that, more broadly, high-performance CPUs are becoming commoditised.
    - bfrog 2y ago
      Which is why Pat was on the right track imho with foundry. It’s too bad he won’t have the tenure needed to see the outcome of 18a, good or bad. Even Arm is tenuous at best with risc-v right on its heels.
- nwiswell 2y ago
  > It’s too late. It was too late 18 months ago. Nvidia is over 30x bigger. Qualcomm is 2x, AMD is 2x. AMD came back from odds much longer than this. At its nadir, AMD's market cap was about a billion. A billion! Jensen's jacket collection is worth more than that. Anyway, it's not looking good for Intel but it's certainly not "too late".
owenversteeg 2y ago
I agree that the board's lack of technical expertise is an issue, but I think the root issue is - and hear me out, because this sounds ridiculous - the vibes. At the end of the day, a company is a machine to turn employee labor into revenue. Intel has clearly been a sinking ship for years now. What kind of people work at a failing company? What kind of people serve on its board? Is this portrait of the board not a portrait of any other failing business?
- lordnacho 2y ago
  > the vibes I went to lunch the other day with a friend. We had both worked at Intel during our early careers, and we still know people who are there over 20 years later. Of course the topic arose of our old workplace. We had a great time there it should be said. But neither of us stayed on, and it was vibes. Even at that time, as a young guy in university, I thought something was wrong. I couldn't tell what, since I was a young guy who barely knew anything about the business. But I knew that I felt uncomfortable about potentially spending decades at a place where everyone was so relaxed. There was no urgency. People would come in, find a colleague to have coffee with, and that was their day. I checked with the other interns as well, it was really chill. I was working on my thesis, and my team was working on rolling out what would later be called WiFi. Amazingly, part of the strategy was to slow down certain standards, because we were behind in some of the fabs. That didn't seem like what you would do as a cutting-edge technology company. People at the all-hands would ask things like "should we keep AMD around just for show? So that we aren't a monopoly?". Well, that problem has been solved now. I got offered a permanent role but never even considered it.
  - le-mark 2y ago
    A phenomena so common it has a name: https://medium.com/geekculture/the-dead-sea-effect-d71df13724f8 https://medium.com/geekculture/the-dead-sea-effect-d71df1372...
    - mensetmanusman 2y ago
      It’s so easy to fix with competent leadership. Kind of sad to see the state of American “leaders”
alfiedotwtf 2y ago
Prediction: now that the bean counters taking over is complete, Intel will sell off its hardware branch and turn into a consultancy service like IBM
- lmpdev 2y ago
  I don’t see this happening 95-99%+ of their revenue is from hardware IBM had diversified for decades before evaporating completely
  - alfiedotwtf 2y ago
    With Intel outsourcing more and more fab work, and you have ARM slowly taking over, they’re slowly becoming middlemen architecture design consultants. Going to get worse as the market starts buying less and less of it too

passwordoops 2y ago

Not just let of technical experience, but the experience they do have is scary. Gregory Smith, for example, who is "the former CFO and EVP of operations at Boeing. He’s been on the board since 2017 and was an interim CEO at Boeing during 2020...probably be directly involved with the Boeing fiasco." Someone like that should be facing criminal negligence charges, not sitting on boards.

nimish 2y ago
Truly a comical choice for a board member
lordnacho 2y ago
It's an indictment of the capitalist system. There's supposed to be oversight that ensure our organizations are run by capable people. But you look at this board (and I'm sure a few others) and it's clear they are not worth the money they are paid. What is anyone even thinking, having a guy from Boeing there? The board is also too big, and filled with irrelevant people. Four or five specialists who know the area, and one or two financial side people, that's all you need. Too many chefs = nobody's cooking, nobody is responsible.
- gjsman-1000 2y ago
  > It's an indictment of the capitalist system. Do you have any evidence, that any other system, has demonstrated historical immunity to this problem? Last I checked, the Soviet system put some awfully unqualified people in charge of nuclear plants, and we know how that went. Last I checked, China put some awfully unqualified people in charge of the housing market, and we know how that's going. The correct response is that unqualified people in positions of power has plagued every social structure. Arguably, alternative systems have failed in this regard to even worse degrees, with far more catastrophic outcomes.
  - lordnacho 2y ago
    > Do you have any evidence, that any other system, has demonstrated historical immunity to this problem? That's not the point though. Our current system seems to not work. If it worked, you would think a tech giant like Intel would be well managed. That doesn't mean I think we should go the Soviet route, it means the current system needs to be fixed. How to fix it? I'm not too sure, the answer would probably take quite a deep dive into how the stock market works, governance, and so on.

FrustratedMonky 2y ago

Isn't there some business cycle where companies reach the 'fattened pig' phase, and then wall street just feeds on it. Isn't this what that looks like? Nobody is really 'saving' Intel. They are eating it.

TheCondor 2y ago

It’s too late. It was too late 18 months ago. Nvidia is over 30x bigger. Qualcomm is 2x, AMD is 2x. Intel needs a world beater, like tomorrow. Qualcomm offered to buy them, no idea what the terms are but he’d have to beat those terms, right? That had to be the death blow. AMD has already shipped ARM parts in the recentish time frame (Opteron A1100) there are rumors that they have internal arm projects that can be ready quickly. All the other part makers are all in with ARM. Intel is on an island. Throw the customization that MS and AWS are doing, unless they have something magical, tomorrow, it’s just hard to see.

tw04 2y ago
> All the other part makers are all in with ARM. Intel is on an island. Intel also has an ARM architecture license… they sold Marvell the Xscale assets, but retained rights to produce ARM chips should they desire to do so in the future. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/XScale
- Earw0rm 2y ago
  Sure, but then they're competing with everyone else in a fair fight. Which means either taking a huge hit on margins, or having a product with enough of a performance delta to justify prices somewhere near today's. The problem isn't so much x64 vs ARM but that, more broadly, high-performance CPUs are becoming commoditised.
  - bfrog 2y ago
    Which is why Pat was on the right track imho with foundry. It’s too bad he won’t have the tenure needed to see the outcome of 18a, good or bad. Even Arm is tenuous at best with risc-v right on its heels.
nwiswell 2y ago
> It’s too late. It was too late 18 months ago. Nvidia is over 30x bigger. Qualcomm is 2x, AMD is 2x. AMD came back from odds much longer than this. At its nadir, AMD's market cap was about a billion. A billion! Jensen's jacket collection is worth more than that. Anyway, it's not looking good for Intel but it's certainly not "too late".

owenversteeg 2y ago

I agree that the board's lack of technical expertise is an issue, but I think the root issue is - and hear me out, because this sounds ridiculous - the vibes. At the end of the day, a company is a machine to turn employee labor into revenue. Intel has clearly been a sinking ship for years now. What kind of people work at a failing company? What kind of people serve on its board? Is this portrait of the board not a portrait of any other failing business?

lordnacho 2y ago
> the vibes I went to lunch the other day with a friend. We had both worked at Intel during our early careers, and we still know people who are there over 20 years later. Of course the topic arose of our old workplace. We had a great time there it should be said. But neither of us stayed on, and it was vibes. Even at that time, as a young guy in university, I thought something was wrong. I couldn't tell what, since I was a young guy who barely knew anything about the business. But I knew that I felt uncomfortable about potentially spending decades at a place where everyone was so relaxed. There was no urgency. People would come in, find a colleague to have coffee with, and that was their day. I checked with the other interns as well, it was really chill. I was working on my thesis, and my team was working on rolling out what would later be called WiFi. Amazingly, part of the strategy was to slow down certain standards, because we were behind in some of the fabs. That didn't seem like what you would do as a cutting-edge technology company. People at the all-hands would ask things like "should we keep AMD around just for show? So that we aren't a monopoly?". Well, that problem has been solved now. I got offered a permanent role but never even considered it.
- le-mark 2y ago
  A phenomena so common it has a name: https://medium.com/geekculture/the-dead-sea-effect-d71df13724f8 https://medium.com/geekculture/the-dead-sea-effect-d71df1372...
  - mensetmanusman 2y ago
    It’s so easy to fix with competent leadership. Kind of sad to see the state of American “leaders”

alfiedotwtf 2y ago

Prediction: now that the bean counters taking over is complete, Intel will sell off its hardware branch and turn into a consultancy service like IBM

lmpdev 2y ago
I don’t see this happening 95-99%+ of their revenue is from hardware IBM had diversified for decades before evaporating completely
- alfiedotwtf 2y ago
  With Intel outsourcing more and more fab work, and you have ARM slowly taking over, they’re slowly becoming middlemen architecture design consultants. Going to get worse as the market starts buying less and less of it too