Yesterday Intel did the apparent and appointed Lip-Bu Tan as their new CEO. SemiAccurate has blended emotions about this transfer, extra due to what occurred sooner than what is going on.
Intel is in Turmoil, most of which is self-inflicted. When the corporate unceremoniously fired CEO Pat Gelsinger final December, SemiAccurate thought it was precisely the flawed transfer on the flawed time. We nonetheless do. Pat was doing the precise issues for the precise causes even when the funds didn’t present it but. That ‘but’ is a giant however critically vital caveat. Intel didn’t have a technical drawback when Pat took over, they’d a cultural one, the technical points had been a symptom of the tradition which Pat was deep into altering for the higher.
You may hint most of Intel’s present woes again to 3 issues, finance/non-technical management, a pathetically weak and out of contact board, and the reversal of Intel’s vaunted technical tradition. What you see within the utter failure of their course of improvement exemplified by the 10nm woes is the symptom, the issue was a lot deeper and extra pernicious. Altering it was an extended multi-year course of and solely then may product improvement get again on monitor. From there it could take years extra to get these merchandise to the market. Satirically, on the time when these merchandise are simply beginning to break cowl, Pat was proven the door.
That brings us to Lip-Bu Tan, the brand new Intel CEO. He’s technical, as CEO of Cadence he labored carefully with Intel, and the bio Intel posted says he, “drove a cultural transformation centered on customer-centric innovation”. Appears like a great match to maintain the nice issues Pat put in place going ahead. If Lip-Bu does that, and might calm Wall Road, issues are trying up. If he takes a tough flip in technique, issues may go very in a different way. Time will inform.
Then there’s the elephant within the room, why Lip-Bu was unceremoniously bounced from the Intel board final summer season and what it has to do with any potential Intel breakup. Whereas that could be a matter for one more article, lets simply level out that the board did an entire 180 flip between final August and December, one thing SemiAccurate doesn’t suppose bodes properly for steady management and coherent long run planning.
Regardless of the case could also be, Lip-Bu Tan is now the CEO of Intel. He’s technical, his resume says he understands cultural dynamics in a big silicon firm, and clearly has the board’s backing. Will he proceed the nice Pat was doing? Will he change all the things? Proper now there isn’t any telling which means it should go, keep tuned.S|A
