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

[thestryker]

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.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, with the slightest clue about Intel's foundry operations thought they were doing anything but operating in the red. What you're suggesting is that ignorance about how a company functions actually matters and it doesn't. Had Intel been saying that the fabs were running a profit or even indicating they could stand on their own (they did neither) then there would be something to it.

 

[caseym54]

On the other hand, if they do split the company, Gelsinger should be CEO of IFS.

 

[Constellar]

I think it's unanimous--those who are of high technical aptitude are focused on the Intel drama like a laser, and yes, we all agree that Pat should return to Intel; not the least of reasons is that Pat himself has a very strong engineering background in addition to high business accumen. So, why is it that he was fired? One reason is because he strenuously opposed the woke hiring practices that former CEO Brian Krsanich instituted, knowing just how harmful such deleterious hiring practices can be to a cutting edge tech company. It's fine to go woke in an anonymous administrative office (especially if it's a government office), but uncompromisingly not acceptable to do so in a highly technical laboratory or manufacturing plant like Intel. Intel must hire on merit and only merit, and Pat was in the process of doing just that.

There are those who question Intel's fab and design divisions operating simultaneously on potential moral/psychological grounds. To think that Intel will somehow "cheat" a customer through espionage of the customer's chip designs by running these two divisions simultaneously is truly offending the Intel customer. Intel is a grown-up; only third-world warlords engage in such baby games.

 

[cerata]

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.

As TerryLaze points out, Intel can't really do that until they're no longer outsourcing the GPU dies to TSMC. Aside from that, the consumer discrete GPU market is small-potatoes compared to Intel's current financial hole.

nVidia's gaming division just reported an annual revenue of $11.4 billion, compared to $115.2 billion (!!) for their datacenter division. Note their "gaming" division also covers GPUs sold to creative professionals, laptop GPUs sold as part of an "AI PC", etc. don't know if it includes, say, an AI startup buying up 100 consumer 4090s instead of a datacenter model.

Intel's 2024 annual revenue was $53.1 billion (down from $54.2 billion in 2023), and its net loss was $18.8 billion.

So let's say Intel did what you suggest. Even if they got 100% market share of discrete GPUs sold to gamers (they already have a huge market share of iGPUs), it wouldn't come close to filling that hole.

Every little bit helps, of course. Just pointing out the scale of the problem. :-/

 

[RobinsonHome]

The Intel board lost it's way a long time ago. Yes, they absolutely should be fired! And bringing back Gelsinger would be fabulous. The only other individual I would trust with Intel's CEO reins would be Jim Keller.

 

[Dav_Daddy]

So, why is it that he was fired? One reason is because he strenuously opposed the woke hiring practices that former CEO Brian Krsanich instituted, knowing just how harmful such deleterious hiring practices can be to a cutting edge tech company.

So you're answer is not enough legacies with MBA's running around? Because they always guarantee success right? I mean look what lack of DEI has done for Boeing!

It's fine to go woke in an anonymous administrative office (especially if it's a government office), but uncompromisingly not acceptable to do so in a highly technical laboratory or manufacturing plant like Intel.

That explains why woke old Airbus has planes falling apart mid flight that's when they're not flying themselves into the ground killing scores of people all due 100% to incompetence .

While non woke Boeing is just the shining example of reliability and competence that others aspire to. If only they weren't so woke.

Intel must hire on merit and only merit, and Pat was in the process of doing just that.

So we need something that accomplishes the same ends as DEI but rebranded to a term that doesn't trigger the factually challenged?

Kinda how to fight corruption the first thing one does is illegally fire all the IG's right?
SMDH!

The rest of what you said actually made a bit of sense. Unfortunately I'd wager many didn't make it that far. Hiding a valid point under layers of ideology over facts, irrelevancies, and ignorance signaling isn't a way to get anyone to take what you have to say seriously.

 

[systemBuilder_49]

Pat Gelsinger was a dumpster fire of mistakes he didnt even work on the right problems even though he was ceo for FOUR ENTIRE YEARS ... Bringing his foolishness back guarantees a faster failure for Intel ...

Their #1 problem is they must become a public fab yesterday and divest the chemistry leeches from the heavy lifters in VLSI design before the chemistry leeches kill the entire company with their greed ..

Intel GPU division is an abortion they are 4 years behind AMD and NVidia with battlemistake and they ship money out the front door with every GPU they sell but since they prepaid for TSMC wafer capacity they are forced to lose money on Battlemistake just to get a partial refud on their stranded costs at TSMC. The battlemistake design is huge and expensive to make and slower than any other GPU designed in the 2020s! Intel has shown ZERO progress in catching up to its competitors in its 2nd generation! PAT made this 3x worse with his big fat mouth, losing their unfair 40-50% discount on foundry capacity by insulting the entire country of Taiwan ...

Intel is releasing slower and less efficient chips because they have always had a B-league set of VLSI designers and a 2 generation lead in VLSI but that is NEVER coming back! Intel's second-string designers are competing against premier league designers at NVidia and AMD and Qualcomm and Apple! Intel CPUs are now in FOURTH PLACE in energy efficiency. LAST PLACE. 3rd is Qualcomm, 2nd is AMD, and 1st is Apple. At this point Intel's monopolistic reach is just slowing down the entire industry and over the long run - the industry waits for NO ONE! The foundry is a money sink and it needs to be put on a life raft and pushed out to sea with salutes from all hands as they watch it burn - just don't let anyone but maybe global foundries buy it ...

 

[TerryLaze]

Intel is a grown-up; only third-world warlords engage in such baby games.

Not even that, it would be super easy to prove to a curt, if a company gave intel a product to produce and then a few months later intel would have that same product, it would be a slam dunk case, companies would try to make that happen.

Intel's 2024 annual revenue was $53.1 billion (down from $54.2 billion in 2023), and its net loss was $18.8 billion.

Additions to property, plant, and equipment

[td width="15.3906px"]

​

[/td]
[td width="53.8906px"]

(23,944​

[/td]
[td width="15.3906px"]

)​

[/td]​

Intel Foundry

[td width="15.3906px"]

​

[/td]
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(2,260​

[/td]
[td width="15.3906px"]

)​

[/td]​

[td width="15.3906px"]

​

[/td]
[td width="61.5938px"]

(1,319​

[/td]
[td width="15.3906px"]

)​

[/td]​

[td width="15.3906px"]

​

[/td]
[td width="69.2969px"]

(13,408​

[/td]
[td width="15.3906px"]

)​

[/td]​

Intersegment eliminations

[td width="15.3906px"]

​

[/td]
[td width="61.5938px"]

(4,311​

[/td]
[td width="15.3906px"]

)​

[/td]​

[td width="15.3906px"]

​

[/td]
[td width="61.5938px"]

(4,884​

[/td]
[td width="15.3906px"]

)​

[/td]​

[td width="15.3906px"]

​

[/td]
[td width="69.2969px"]

(17,215​

[/td]
[td width="15.3906px"]

)​

[/td]​

Corporate unallocated

[td width="15.3906px"]

​

[/td]
[td width="61.5938px"]

(794​

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[td width="15.3906px"]

)​

[/td]​

[td width="15.3906px"]

​

[/td]
[td width="61.5938px"]

(401​

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[td width="15.3906px"]

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[/td]​

[td width="15.3906px"]

​

[/td]
[td width="69.2969px"]

(11,218​

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[td width="15.3906px"]

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[/td]​

These are all the big "losses" that intel had and yet they are only at -18.8
These are all down to intel expanding, how do people think that building stuff is for free?!
Investing is not losing, until the fabs are built at least, if they can't make money from the fabs after they are finished and started production then we can say that they are losing money.

This is the revenue they claimed for the foundry so even after subtracting the 13.4 loss it has it would still be making 4bil

Intel Foundry

[td width="15.3906px"]

​

[/td]
[td width="61.5938px"]

4,502​

[/td]
[td width="15.3906px"]

​

[/td]​

[td width="15.3906px"]

​

[/td]
[td width="61.5938px"]

5,175​

[/td]
[td width="15.3906px"]

​

[/td]​

[td width="15.3906px"]

​

[/td]
[td width="69.2969px"]

17,543​

[/td]
[td width="15.3906px"]

​

[/td]​

 

[das_stig]

Flash the cash and they could get Steve "The Rottweiler" Balmer, he's not doing much these days or just clone him into an AI bot, would be hard to tell the difference.

 

[Heiro78]

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"...

But stock price reasons are what corporations are all about. It's about returning share holder value bar none. Long term sustainability? Sure as long as I can get a 10% return today. Stable customer base? Sure as long as you figure out how to branch out so I can get that 10% return today.

Long term ~10 yearsT
Today ~ 2-5 years

 

[TerryLaze]

But stock price reasons are what corporations are all about. It's about returning share holder value bar none. Long term sustainability? Sure as long as I can get a 10% return today. Stable customer base? Sure as long as you figure out how to branch out so I can get that 10% return today.

Long term ~10 yearsT
Today ~ 2-5 years

No, it heavily depends on how much of the company got sold as shares, if that number is small then the founders can do whatever they want, only if that number is big enough can the shareholders begin to make enough issues for the company for them to only look at short term.

 

[Pierce2623]

I think it's unanimous--those who are of high technical aptitude are focused on the Intel drama like a laser, and yes, we all agree that Pat should return to Intel; not the least of reasons is that Pat himself has a very strong engineering background in addition to high business accumen. So, why is it that he was fired? One reason is because he strenuously opposed the woke hiring practices that former CEO Brian Krsanich instituted, knowing just how harmful such deleterious hiring practices can be to a cutting edge tech company. It's fine to go woke in an anonymous administrative office (especially if it's a government office), but uncompromisingly not acceptable to do so in a highly technical laboratory or manufacturing plant like Intel. Intel must hire on merit and only merit, and Pat was in the process of doing just that.

There are those who question Intel's fab and design divisions operating simultaneously on potential moral/psychological grounds. To think that Intel will somehow "cheat" a customer through espionage of the customer's chip designs by running these two divisions simultaneously is truly offending the Intel customer. Intel is a grown-up; only third-world warlords engage in such baby games.

Is it true that not championing wokism was a big deal in his firing? I can believe it, but at the same time, isn’t this supposed to be an engineering led company ?

 

[Pierce2623]

No, it heavily depends on how much of the company got sold as shares, if that number is small then the founders can do whatever they want, only if that number is big enough can the shareholders begin to make enough issues for the company for them to only look at short term.

Yep and nobody goes public with only 25% of shares for sale anymore.

 

[DS426]

[Referring to current and former Intel board members] "former government bureaucrats" -- aaaahhhhh, and then it starts to make more sense why Intel has been failing, lol. It'd also be different if Intel was gracefully retiring Pat, being able to phase in the next CEO properly. Instead, they axed their the company's own legend... go figure!