Honest question. Arguably, Jim had more technical street cred and gave it straight. Unless Pat targets management, I don't see how anything can turn around within 3-4 years.
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While Intel had good technology, too many people got promoted on "pushing the rules." This is great if there's plenty of design margin, not so much if there is none. What's disheartening is those who are capable of developing good technology are not being heard. Good engineering judgement is drowned out by people who want get promoted or need to justify their paycheck. I witnessed three PEs argue about items the foundry wants to stop offering in an effort to increase yield. It makes sense, right? "These things hurt my yield so I want to stop doing them because the usage is low."
What should have been a simple, "these things will no longer be offered by the foundry" PSA became a one hour planning session on how to collect data to prove the foundry was wrong to do things that would increase yield. If you now calculate how much salary was paid to the PEs and managers that were trying to talk over each other, it's no secret why Intel is burning.
I hope PatG can empower the right people who can develop good technology and demote the ones who have made too much money at Intel's expense.
JK had to learn (or refuse to learn) Intel culture. You need to know how to effect change within Intel. An outsider coming in will have trouble with this.
Pat will not have this problem.
Is GB that bad, compared to the others? CCG seems like a pretty good org even in a declining TAM.
Jim couldn’t do it because one among many - MR, NS, GB, GD etc. etc and of course BS. He wouldn’t have had a free hand. And there would have been many bozos in CEO staff who would have opposed his proposals.
He should come back now. He will be much more effective now.
PG is pretty old school Intel, maybe his first order of business will be to bring back focal? From what I heard about vmware, they still have pretty much rank & yank process. He seems pretty strict disciplinarian but intel culture has softened a lot over the past 10 years.
PG has the best shot of anyone at fixing what ails Intel. He understands the company and the product. But he’s got big challenges:
Righting the manufacturing problems
Regaining competitiveness in x86-land
Finding market-legitimate areas beyond x86 to compete in successfully
Identifying the a-holes and getting rid of them
For the sake of the good employees still at Intel, best wishes to him!
I think maybe what changed PG's mind is that he couldn't bear to see company he helped build, sinking.
Wasn’t Pat brought up on Copy Exactly?
Wasn't PG offered the CEO job before? Right when BK was forced out? Wonder what changed his mind other than $$$
Regarding JK being suffocated and not having the influence, surprised at that. Even if he was 3rd in line, you'd think upper management was smart enough to listen. He did want to move to more external foundry and the company slowly seems to be agreeing after he left.
Because pat will be the CEO
Jim didn’t have full power. He reported to the a– hole, Murthy, he had to deal with BU politics.
I know this is a place where people like to slam Intel, but I think this is a pretty big win for Intel. Pat was part of Intel when it was strong, is respected by the long timers, and has been successful at EMC and VMware. I don't know that Intel could have found a better leader for this moment in their history.
JK had two layers of indian suffocating him.
Arguably JK gave it too straight. PG is more diplomatic. PG commands great respect among Intel's technical community although probably mainly among veterans, and not well known among younger generation compared to JK since he has been not in semiconductors for 10 years.
One thing I'm not sure about for PG is fab. I always thought of him as mainly architecture guy.
JK didn't have the influence to fix the mfg issues, so he wanted more foundry sourcing - that management and BoD didn't want to do.
With MR and his sh– out, PG might have a window to fix the management and execution problems that have been endemic since Skylake launch.