Pat makes it sound like he was THE chosen one to continue Andy Grove’s legacy. I think Andy saw Pats shortcomings before anyone else. If Andy truly believed in Pat, he would have lobbied hard to make Pat CEO instead of Paul. There’s a reason Andy passed over Pat back in 2013. We know now.
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You could put a genius in charge of Intel right now and it still fails. The 'moonshot' won't work because TSMC landed on the moon back in 1980s and now have Skynet operational... They will never let the 'moonshot' get anywhere near the moon. Also, ARM is disrupting Intel from below. So, the IP and core competency of the company are, shall we say inconsequential on a going forward basis.
BTW before Larabee Pat also ran Intel ProShare Video Conferencing in late 90's. That was also a $Billion waste of money well before the sc--w up on Larabee. Grove lamented that pouring money into it long after the business model failed was a big mistake. Pat may be driven, but how many string of bad businesses do you need to be in charge of before your business judgment is called into question? A string of multiple $B failures starts to matter... I would say after 2, but certainly by 3.
I worked in Pat's org in the early 2000s and I'm convinced that he's one of the best people for the CEO role at this time. As to why Andy didn't pick him I don't know, but I know that he screwed up Larabee big time and that was a billion dollar mistake back when a billion dollars meant something. It was supposed to be a discrete graphics product, then we launch a software development vehicle when perf sucked then we tried to spin it as an accelerator and that didn't work either. Intel overall screwed up on graphics in that it could have bought ATI or NVIDIA (assuming antitrust approval) rather than go down the path of making our own GPU. So, major screwup, but most execs have made big mistakes and I know Pat is a hardcore, driven leader who isn't afraid to make decisions so I think he's the right person for the job if we give it time.
Pat has proven himself as a successful leader outside Intel. There is a reason why he is back.
Well every CEO after AG pushed this org 6 feet under
@OP
Paul Otellini became CEO in 2004. Pat Gelsinger left Intel in 2008. Yes there must be a reason Paul was chosen instead of Pat for the CEO role. See this: https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1kt01VEp
I’m not sure how I feel about Pat yet but this is all conjecture.
You need time to groom another paranoid person to crush and ki-l others and the competition. Pat is too late to develop important skills and he is too late now to steer this company. Even Andy Grove can’t resurrect this company. He is past and the time has passed.