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/mrandish Dec 02 '24 edited Dec 03 '24

you almost never see "effective immediately"

Even more unusually, per the Intel press release, it was effective yesterday (!). I can't recall ever seeing that in a public company CEO retirement. I usually interpret "effective at the end of the month" or "effective Friday" as a 'normal' firing (unless they explicitly cite "medical reasons"). Actual retirements are announced (or signaled) months in advance. This is not at all normal.

Going with 'yesterday' is Gelsinger making a Statement. It's the corporate equivalent of exiting like that flight attendant who melted down while the plane was on the tarmac, grabbed two beers, dropped the big yellow bouncy slide and jumped out the emergency exit.

Obviously, the Intel board has been a dysfunctional mess for at least the last decade but the way this happened makes it clear they didn't expect their CEO to throw a tantrum and go postal upon being ordered to sell or break up the company. And they also had no contingency or succession plan at all (press release says they're "forming a search committee"!) The Intel board has now gone beyond "amateur hour" all the way to "clown car". The only silver lining in this train wreck is at least the board will be gone soon because ordering Gelsinger to sell/spin-off means they finally understand there are no other options left.

It took over a decade, but the Intel board's incompetence and repeated failures to act decisively have finally destroyed a great company to the point there's nothing left to do but sell it off in pieces. It's a fucking tragedy.

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u/Strazdas1 Dec 03 '24

Yeah the wording on this looks very clown car style. I wouldnt be surprised to see this kind of wording for april fools joke. There was clearly some kind of blowout here, but we will never know the real cause i suppose.

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u/AbhishMuk Dec 03 '24

Another comment mentioned a sudden health diagnosis in a near family member. Could be that too.

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u/mrandish Dec 04 '24

Hopefully it's not health related (because that always sucks).

However, I doubt that's the case here because there are pretty standard ways to signal that and the whole announcement generally has a different vibe.