Lip-Bu Tan was previously on the board but left after disagreements:
> Over time, Tan grew frustrated by the company’s large workforce, its approach to contract manufacturing and Intel’s risk-averse and bureaucratic culture, according to the sources, who were not authorized to speak publicly.
It's really simple - either Intel is shipping products on 18A (Panther Lake and Clearwater Forest) by Q1 of next year or they are not, and their entire future hinges on this.
Fasting and prayer are pretty universal. Fasting itself has pretty interesting physiological effects wrt healing.
As a straight up atheist if pushed to make a decision, I'd probably participate. The prayer part id probably just interpret as picking an aspect of this news to explicitly make present in my mind for the day.
I'm agnostic, but I wouldn't personally be offended or bothered if my Indian CEO sent out a letter asking my coworkers and I to try Hindu meditation or yoga, nor would I be offended or bothered by Pat's suggestion, nor by a suggestion that I try fasting for the month of Ramadan, etc etc.
Am I misunderstanding some aspect of this? Was Pat demanding rather than asking or something like that?
> The current CEO was supposed to be a down to earth, technical, no bureaucracy guy as well.
Turning a ship the size of Intel is a super power in it's own right. Especially one with such a large entrenched bureaucracy as Intel has.
Politics aside for a moment - we're seeing the death bellows of many large, entrenched bureaucracies right now with DOGE - the main difference is the fight is in full public view instead of behind closed doors. We can only imagine and speculate at the resistance Pat and others met while trying to change Intel's course.
The infamous Oscar Wilde quote is very applicable: "The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy." - Ever large bureaucracy eventually exists largely to preserve itself. This is why it is so incredibly difficult to reduce the size of a bureaucracy. Every member is convinced the organization will fail tomorrow if they are let go today, and every member fights/resists any and all changes that threaten their bureaucracy and the status quo.
Best of luck to Tan - I truly hope they succeed where many have failed at Intel. AMD needs a healthy Intel to drive motivation and competition. The world will be watching.
"we're seeing the death bellows of many large, entrenched bureaucracies right now with DOGE"
DOGE is just Musk bribing Trump into letting him settle scores and shut down agencies that are investigating him or that he doesn't like. Finding and eliminating "inefficiency" is just another one of Musk's myriad lies. I'm shocked at how many people still consider him to have any credibility at all.
I agree with grandparent commenter that it's shocking a lot of people (also here) think DOGE is a serious endeavour and not some slapstick bunch of people. The realization is that even in here, plenty of people's emotions cloud their ability to think.
If he wants to succeed, he will need to reconsistute the board. That's a tough one since they appointed him, but otherwise it won't work. The type of transformation Intel needs to go through won't withstand a myopic, short term oriented bureaucracy.
Unfortunately, index funds and mutual funds own about 68% of the Intel, with Vanguard retirement funds being the biggest. These passive custodian investor companies just vote along with the board's recommendation rather than making opinionated or activist decisions.
He's supposedly quite low level, savvy about Platform Development Kits (PDK). Worked at Cadence, so he knows a lot about relating to other people making chips, selling IP, working with EDA tools.
A lot of potential here!
The disagreement with the board was supposedly related more to elements of the board trying to parts up and sell off bits of Intel. Harder to report that directly. Good for him, food sign if true.
Today was a very very good day to be hanging out on TechPoutine podcast. Very fun to have this as breaking news at the end of stream. https://www.youtube.com/live/aSoYz9Qp1xI
> That's what I'm trying to understand. His educational background was in Physics/Nuclear Engineering so he's obviously a smart guy, and he was CEO/Chairman of Cadence for 15 years, but other than that his 40+ year career has most been in VC and being on the boards of an incredibly large number of companies.
He is no Pat. He is no Andy. He is a business guy with some hard science behind (not electronics per se). It doesn't feel right.
>He is a business guy with some hard science behind (not electronics per se). It doesn't feel right.
I think you need to look up Cadence and look into how the fabless industry works. Picking him means Intel is possibly about to spin off or spin out the Chip division and only focus on Fabless.
Anyone that's successfully been running hardware companies would be where I'd start. Offer the best of them much more money than they're currently making. Actually, hire a dream team of them. Turning Intel around would be worth paying a high price.
>>The disagreement with the board was supposedly related more to elements of the board trying to parts up and sell off bits of Intel.
If true this would be very interesting. The most recent rumors were TSMC was trying to grab a part of Intel and have Nvidia/Broadcom/AMD take over the rest. Bringing in a CEO that literally left the board because he was against carving up Intel would be quite the signal from the board.
There will be a all-hands in the next few weeks, supposedly. I hope whoever sees this reply, if you are in a position to do so comfortably, ask him straightforwardly whether he has or has heard about a plan to knife and sell INTC in the next 18 months.
Intel employees are at high risk of losing their jobs. I don't think cornering the new CEO at an all-hands is a good idea. And I wouldn't even trust his answer, anyway.
That's what I'm trying to understand. His educational background was in Physics/Nuclear Engineering so he's obviously a smart guy, and he was CEO/Chairman of Cadence for 15 years, but other than that his 40+ year career has most been in VC and being on the boards of an incredibly large number of companies.
I am not sure if Intel can survive on its own. Games changed quite a bit and Nvidia is about to enter the space and will likely gain significant shares if they bundle their products in anticompetitive ways. It will be cutthroat for both Intel and AMD. But if he pulls it off, he will go down in history as the guy who saved Intel.