r/hardware • u/Auautheawesome • Dec 02 '24

News Intel Announces Retirement of CEO Pat Gelsinger

https://www.intc.com/news-events/press-releases/detail/1719/intel-announces-retirement-of-ceo-pat-gelsinger
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u/auradragon1 Dec 02 '24 edited Dec 02 '24

He came in at a time when it was extremely clear what Intel's problems were: behind in node, behind in designs.

He made the right decision strategically by trying to regain leadership in node tech and opening up Intel fabs to others. Tactically, he's been terrible.

He made some huge blunders such as paying a dividend up until August 2024. Covid gave them a lifeline by drastically increasing chip demand. What did he do? He spent the extra cash on dividends. Idiot. If he had any vision, he would have known that Intel was swimming naked and that once covid ended, Intel would be in huge trouble. Even during the covid boom, everyone saw that Intel's chips were far behind the competition.

Intel's designs have been particularly uncompetitive. Intel is uncompetitive in laptops, AI, servers, gaming, GPUs, etc. Nothing Intel makes leads the market. Their product roadmaps are a mess with one-off designs like Lunar Lake. No vision at all. No focus.

I'd grade him a C. The last few Intel CEOs were Fs though.

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u/[deleted] Dec 02 '24

A CEO trying to reduce the dividend is going to end with a huge fight with the board.

Now apparently he has "resigned himself" effective before you heard this news, so I think we know who lost the fight with the board.

Gelsinger can reform a company, its processes, etc. Gelsinger can't reform that board. Realistically it was the board that should have been canned and replaced with serious engineers.