News Fire the Intel board and rehire Pat Gelsinger,' argues former Intel CEO Craig Barrett

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Good to hear a counterpoint to the last Intel article.
But just because I agree with it doesn't mean I should state it is more credible than the previous one. Previous, retired Intel executives playing armchair quarterbacks, while having general experience, probably don't have the best current specific information on the internal situation at Intel so they will have to guess more than the people running the place now.

If they asked someone with that current specific knowledge, say Gelsinger, I think you know what the assessment on splitting up the company would be.

But I did like that he called out previous board members as academics and gov bureaucrats. You know that is the case sometimes. Sometimes high ranking officers at customers companies will also be hired. The board is often not the best suited for running the company.
 
Even with the benefit of hindsight, I'm sure the right call was to "allow him to retire". While his north was the right one, you can argue his "parachute" (for Intel) in the CHIPS act is now full of holes. His short term strategies were not paying off and AMD kept encroaching on the markets that actually support the Fabs and he completely misread the market and, more importantly, Intel's own portfolio of strengths and allowed the ship to continue to sink. Intel's reputation is not quite in the trash, but we can at least agree it's not the same "big blue" as it was before. The things Gelsinger let slip through were really baffling.

Now, on the other hand, this doesn't mean finding a replacement for him (Pat) will be easy. Hardly. Intel is a big behemoth, so to steer this monster, you need a very strong and steady hand, commanding voice and, probably, a clear vision of where you want this monster to go. This could completely bypass the board, for which I agree with Mr Barrett, and the CEO needs to be able to tame them. I'm not even sure what the big "good" macro view would be for them. They've missed several boats now and playing catch up with their core markets shrinking, which is worrying.

Food for thought! Mr. Barretts insight is not without merit, for sure.

Regards.
 
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-Fran- said:
Even with the benefit of hindsight, I'm sure the right call was to "allow him to retire". While his north was the right one, you can argue his "parachute" (for Intel) in the CHIPS act is now full of holes. His short term strategies were not paying off and AMD kept encroaching on the markets that actually support the Fabs and he completely misread the market and, more importantly, Intel's own portfolio of strengths and allowed the ship to continue to sink. Intel's reputation is not quite in the trash, but we can at least agree it's not the same "big blue" as it was before. The things Gelsinger let slip through were really baffling.

Now, on the other hand, this doesn't mean finding a replacement for him (Pat) will be easy. Hardly. Intel is a big behemoth, so to steer this monster, you need a very strong and steady hand, commanding voice and, probably, a clear vision of where you want this monster to go. This could completely bypass the board, for which I agree with Mr Barrett, and the CEO needs to be able to tame them. I'm not even sure what the big "good" macro view would be for them. They've missed several boats now and playing catch up with their core markets shrinking, which is worrying.

Food for thought! Mr. Barretts insight is not without merit, for sure.

Regards.
Click to expand...
I'm convinced Gelsinger wasn't fired over the current chips or the fabs at all. He was fired over the Gaudi 3 debacle. Even then the chips are apparently there, just no software to run on them.

If anyone at Intel is paying attention they have a decent technology there. Right now the possibility exists that they could absolutely take over all but the highest end gaming market by simply offering 4070/5070 level GPUs for $500. It wouldn't be triple-your-stock-price-in-a-week AI hysteria, but it would be nice and profitable.

Just the gesture would turn a lot of our buying dollars away from the other two companies that are obviously gouging gamers as AI sales are more profitable. There's a window there if they'll just take it.

edit: proper sentences
 
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rluker5 said:
Good to hear a counterpoint to the last Intel article.
But just because I agree with it doesn't mean I should state it is more credible than the previous one. Previous, retired Intel executives playing armchair quarterbacks, while having general experience, probably don't have the best current specific information on the internal situation at Intel so they will have to guess more than the people running the place now.

If they asked someone with that current specific knowledge, say Gelsinger, I think you know what the assessment on splitting up the company would be.

But I did like that he called out previous board members as academics and gov bureaucrats. You know that is the case sometimes. Sometimes high ranking officers at customers companies will also be hired. The board is often not the best suited for running the company.
Click to expand...
You're talking like Gelsinger has been gone for 5 years. It's been a few months
 
The board should have let the 18a node roll out. This was what Gelsinger bet the company on. Now customers are ever less likely to use 18a because no one knows if a new CEO will arrive and cut IFS. The insanity of canning your biggest product release in a decade shows an unprecedented level of board incompetence. Looks like the competent intel insiders agree as do to the derivative lawsuits.
 
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-Fran- said:
They've missed several boats now and playing catch up with their core markets shrinking, which is worrying.
Click to expand...
Which do you consider their core markets, and what do you mean with shrinking?
Because they are still making roughly the same amount of money they always did, outside of the human malware bubble where they made twice the normal net income.
EzzyB said:
Right now the possibility exists that they could absolutely take over all but the highest end gaming market by simply offering 4070/5070 level GPUs for $500. It wouldn't be triple-your-stock-price-in-a-week AI hysteria, but it would be nice and profitable.
Click to expand...
They can't get enough wafers from tsmc to do that and even if they could it would take months to turn them into gpus at which point everybody in the market for a new GPU would already have one.
It's fine, intel can wait until their fabs are online, it's not like nvidia will get less greedy in the future or AMD is going to become a huge supplier suddenly.
 
He's right. The board seems to have acted only for stock-price reasons, which is never wise. 18a appears to be happening as planned, and Intel never lost credibility in its core markets (enterprise/mainstream CPUs). Yes, some gaming angst, and no good answer on AI, but the company can't do everything, can it? "Go big or go home" doesn't mean "sell for parts at the first sign of difficulty"...
 
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Anyone that agrees with this is not paying attention. Gelsinger is the one that got them into this position to begin with. He open handed took all that money from the previous administration to open a new fab when they didn't have any other fab in check to start with. He drove the company into the ground and this is why they need to hire a company leader to get it back o track and then fire the board. They screwed up when Falcon Shores was canceled, that would have got them back on track and Gelsinger let that happen. If he comes back they will lose shareholders and the stock will plummet to nothing and the company will be worth pennies on the dollar.
 
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Alvar Miles Udell said:
https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-i...ss-shareholders-complain-company-hid-problems

Referenced as Construction Laborers Pension Trust of Greater St. Louis v Intel Corp, U.S. District Court, Northern District of California, No. 24-04807.
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So shareholders that lost a lot of money are suing.
Not a lawsuit cost shareholders (or other people) a lot of money.

They would have to prove that the CEO and CFO actively gave false information while the counter argument will be 'well we tried to be as accurate as possible' and there will be no way to prove otherwise.
 
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Alvar Miles Udell said:
Pat Gelsinger also setup Intel for a multi-billion dollar shareholder lawsuit that cost a lot of people a lot of money and he got a golden parachute when he left, there would be a shareholder revolt if there were even whispers about bringing him back.
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Are you talking about the lawsuit which was filed because some shareholders were mad about losing money? If so it hasn't gone anywhere and appears to be in a holding pattern rather than anything actually happening. It is based on a false pretense in the first place that the foundry struggles were somehow hidden.
 
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At least Barrett actually knows what he's talking about. The board really needs to go or at the very least get a better split of technical and non members. The timing of the board ousting Gelsinger really doesn't make sense as his primary goal on its original timeline wasn't allowed to play out. I imagine we'll find out over the next year or so what it was that caused the split though.
 
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I agree 100% with Craig Barrett's assessment!
The morons on the board do not have the engineering know how and work experience to make decisions about such a critical and complex business as the one Intel is in. Pat was on the right track but was not given the time it takes to turn this sinking super tanker called Intel around. Anyone who understands the business Intel is in and actually worked day to day, would understand the lead time needed for decisions and investments to bear fruit.
Fire the morons on the board and bring back Pat (an engineer) to run the company.
It is a moronic short term fire sale to break up the company.
Further, the USA strategically need a strong competitive enduring Intel now more than ever - it's a mater of national security. Breaking it up will do the exact opposite. We need to take the decision of Intel's and America's future out of the hands of idiots.
 
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Intel needs to stay united and ignore what the Wall Street gurus are proposing. They need to fire their current board and add more business, financial and technology related board members. Intel has lived on its past for the last 10 years. They need to incentivize innovation and compete for the business. I like the idea of bringing back their Gelsinger.
 
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Former Intel exec here. Craig is right. The reason why Intel fell in a hole was 3 bad CEO's in a row with a hail mary back to Pat, who left because the board wouldn't hand things over to him. Of course, the continued stepping on their own dicks continued. Many good employees left quite a while ago. Manufacturing used to be a huge moat for us, but that was steadily filled in by finance and sales ceos.

I couldn't know the company any better, and when the stock plunged down into the high teens I still didn't buy it. Because I have no idea what exactly I'd be buying. I don't know if they really have the goods to be an effective foundry.

I'd go Craig one better. Liquidate the company who isn't currently a leader or even a good second fiddle to anyone in anything.
 
Even the right decision doesn't make things right when it comes too late.

I'd say the ship has sailed and Intel will go to the dogs, mostly because the complexities of the dog fights are too great around a Chipzilla which needs approvals from all over the place to change ownership.

Of course, these days the US may chose simply not to care about anti-trust matters, but I don't see clear sailing coming out of that, either.

I can see all those Intel [ex-]employees just hitting their heads against the wall: "for all the money they are wasting away in this desaster, they could have just given me the raise that I needed!"

At least the lawyers and other carrion are having a good time.
 
thestryker said:
Are you talking about the lawsuit which was filed because some shareholders were mad about losing money? If so it hasn't gone anywhere and appears to be in a holding pattern rather than anything actually happening. It is based on a false pretense in the first place that the foundry struggles were somehow hidden.
Click to expand...

The foundry struggles were hidden with the way Intel reported earnings. When Gelsinger changed the reporting to expose the massive losses IFS was taking, retroactively announcing the figures to the tune of billions in losses that were not previously disclosed in earnings reports, the stock dropped 25% that day.

That is a completely different animal from regular stock price fluctuations where everything is properly and clearly reported.
 
EzzyB said:
I'm convinced Gelsinger wasn't fired over the current chips or the fabs at all. He was fired over the Gaudi 3 debacle. Even then the chips are apparently there, just no software to run on them.

If anyone at Intel is paying attention they have a decent technology there. Right now the possibility exists that they could absolutely take over all but the highest end gaming market by simply offering 4070/5070 level GPUs for $500. It wouldn't be triple-your-stock-price-in-a-week AI hysteria, but it would be nice and profitable.

Just the gesture would turn a lot of our buying dollars away from the other two companies that are obviously gouging gamers as AI sales are more profitable. There's a window there if they'll just take it.

edit: proper sentences
Click to expand...
AMD mostly missed the AI boat too. They just got lucky it happened right after Epyc had been clearly better for 3-4 years straight and made decent money that way but their AI GPU initiative is mostly a failure due to lack of software support. CUDA is the entire GPU compute world basically.
 
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