Former Intel CEO Barrett Calls for Board Dismissal and Gelsinger's Return (fortune.com)
(Monday March 03, 2025 @05:50PM (msmash)
from the how-about-that dept.)
- Reference: 0176602541
- News link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/03/03/2051256/former-intel-ceo-barrett-calls-for-board-dismissal-and-gelsingers-return
- Source link: https://fortune.com/2025/02/28/intel-future-craig-barrett-semiconductors-tsmc/
Former Intel CEO Craig Barrett [1]urged the rehiring of Pat Gelsinger , who was [2]abruptly fired two months ago , arguing he should "finish the job he has aptly handled over the past few years."
"Pat Gelsinger did a great job resuscitating the technology development team," Barrett wrote, criticizing the company's current leadership under "a CFO and a product manager." He suggested firing the Intel board rather than splitting the company.
Barrett's comments come in response to proposals from four former board members advocating for Intel's separation into design and manufacturing businesses. Barrett dismissed these board members as "two academics and two former government bureaucrats" lacking semiconductor industry expertise.
The former CEO praised Intel's technological resurgence under Gelsinger, noting its capabilities now match industry leader TSMC's 2nm technology, with additional advances in imaging technology and backside power delivery to complex chips. "Intel is backâ"from a technology point of view," Barrett wrote, arguing the best path forward is building on current momentum rather than organizational restructuring that would disrupt the company's 100,000-plus employees across multiple continents.
[1] https://fortune.com/2025/02/28/intel-future-craig-barrett-semiconductors-tsmc/
[2] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/12/02/1427231/intel-ceo-gelsinger-exits-as-chip-pioneers-turnaround-falters
"Pat Gelsinger did a great job resuscitating the technology development team," Barrett wrote, criticizing the company's current leadership under "a CFO and a product manager." He suggested firing the Intel board rather than splitting the company.
Barrett's comments come in response to proposals from four former board members advocating for Intel's separation into design and manufacturing businesses. Barrett dismissed these board members as "two academics and two former government bureaucrats" lacking semiconductor industry expertise.
The former CEO praised Intel's technological resurgence under Gelsinger, noting its capabilities now match industry leader TSMC's 2nm technology, with additional advances in imaging technology and backside power delivery to complex chips. "Intel is backâ"from a technology point of view," Barrett wrote, arguing the best path forward is building on current momentum rather than organizational restructuring that would disrupt the company's 100,000-plus employees across multiple continents.
[1] https://fortune.com/2025/02/28/intel-future-craig-barrett-semiconductors-tsmc/
[2] https://tech.slashdot.org/story/24/12/02/1427231/intel-ceo-gelsinger-exits-as-chip-pioneers-turnaround-falters
buy amd until intel changes (Score:2)
by SafeMode ( 11547 )
anti consumer architectures that force users to spend more every upgrade.
anti competitive agreements with laptop and desktop oems.
synthetically limited chips to force users to buy much more expensive versions to 'unlock' those features.
I'm good with not supporting intel until they start supporting what customers want a bit more than what their shareholders want... until those things become aligned a lot more.
Re: (Score:2)
by zlives ( 2009072 )
+1
Re: buy amd until intel changes (Score:2)
by Z00L00K ( 682162 )
I just see that if there's a power struggle it's indicating that intel is still going downhill.
It'll take a decade to come back, if evet.
Nothing on the market suggest "Intel is back... (Score:2)
"Intel is back from a technology point of view," Barrett wrote...
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. I'll believe it when I see it.
If I recall correctly,
- Intel sold or just closed its ARM business right before ARM took off. There are 10 times as many ARM CPUs as Intel CPUs now. Intel missed the whole mobile business space.
- Intel never invested in high performance GPUs, and GPUs are vastly more profitable than CPUs now.
- Intel didn't notice AI server farms might one day be a thing
- Inte
Re: (Score:2)
Barrett started the slide, and Gelsinger rejoined to steepen the slope and add velocity. Barrett is trying to save face and options.
Re: (Score:1)
This is factually incorrect. Gelsinger was CEO from February of 2021 until December of 2024. The misses that you mention happened under the previous CEO and Gelsinger can be credited with Intel Arc and Battlemage, 14th gen processors, and the 2nm fab processes that are now coming online.
Given the development timelines of these technologies I expect we'll see a couple more hits that originated in the Gelsinger era before the company will start to struggle again due to lack of engineering minded leadership.
Re: (Score:3)
Crediting Gelsinger with Intel's 14th-gen processors isn't exactly a good thing. It's a refresh of their 13th gen, and their 13th and 14th gen CPUs suffered from a large number of very public and extremely embarrassing hardware failures, made worse by their bungled response to the crisis. Nor do the generations after that make him look any better, Arrow Lake is made entirely by TSMC and is considered to be a massive flop, being outperformed even by Intel's own previous generation chips.
Battlemage is troubli
Missing the point... (Score:2)
All those things can be true, but we must never forget that the CEO made his quarterly numbers during that entire period of time, and that's all that matters...
Yes, you and I can see the collapse coming, but a company collapse is never a CEO's problem. It is the investor's problem. It is the worker's problem. But it's never a problem for someone who has wealth enough that they won't have to work for the rest of their lives, should they so choose. So this talk about missed opportunities is never relev