Intel Foundry, losing key people in 2025-2026

[NY_Sam2]

"In an unexpected turn of events, Kevin O'Buckley, the head of Intel Foundry, decided to jump ship for Qualcomm after just two years at the company"
Suk Lee, retired in 2025-Aug, joined Intel Foundry from TSMC in 2022-Jun
Michael Chang, left in 2025-Aug, joined Intel Foundry from TSMC in 2022-Jun

 

[Daniel Nenni]

"In an unexpected turn of events, Kevin O'Buckley, the head of Intel Foundry, decided to jump ship for Qualcomm after just two years at the company"
Suk Lee, retired in 2025-Aug, joined Intel Foundry from TSMC in 2022-Jun
Michael Chang, left in 2025-Aug, joined Intel Foundry from TSMC in 2022-Jun
View attachment 4268

Kevin took a big IP job with Qualcomm which is understandable. I do not know Choon Lee or Myung-Hee. I do know Suk Lee. Suk built the EDA and IP ecosystem at TSMC and did the same for Intel Foundry but the 18A misstep hand cuffed him. He is retired now and loving it.

The Intel Foundry business has pivoted under Lip-Bu. IFS is now using a sniper approach to get big wafer agreements versus a Pat Gelsinger grenade launcher.

Lip-Bu is approaching his one year CEO anniversary and I think the change in Intel has been nothing short of amazing!

 

[essiah]

Kevin took a big IP job with Qualcomm which is understandable. I do not know Choon Lee or Myung-Hee. I do know Suk Lee. Suk built the EDA and IP ecosystem at TSMC and did the same for Intel Foundry but the 18A misstep hand cuffed him. He is retired now and loving it.

The Intel Foundry business has pivoted under Lip-Bu. IFS is now using a sniper approach to get big wafer agreements versus a Pat Gelsinger grenade launcher.

Lip-Bu is approaching his one year CEO anniversary and I think the change in Intel has been nothing short of amazing!

Suk Lee and Micheal chang did not retire ... they were laid off according to my taiwan friends at intel

 

[MKWVentures]

Kevin took a big IP job with Qualcomm which is understandable. I do not know Choon Lee or Myung-Hee. I do know Suk Lee. Suk built the EDA and IP ecosystem at TSMC and did the same for Intel Foundry but the 18A misstep hand cuffed him. He is retired now and loving it.

The Intel Foundry business has pivoted under Lip-Bu. IFS is now using a sniper approach to get big wafer agreements versus a Pat Gelsinger grenade launcher.

Lip-Bu is approaching his one year CEO anniversary and I think the change in Intel has been nothing short of amazing!

LBT has done some amazing things on financing and culture change at Intel. But IFS execution to goals since 2021 is not good.

No customers (except USG in 2030)
No external revenue
Spending and volume on TSMC is not decreasing (Thank goodness... its keeping Intel alive)
IFS is constraining revenue .... despite no significant volume increase (18A/Intel 3 demand below goal , Intel 7 demand above goal)
IFS Losses are higher than ever.

It makes sense that people in charge are replaced.

Lets see if they can get one fab of external customers by 2030

 

[blueone]

Lip-Bu is approaching his one year CEO anniversary and I think the change in Intel has been nothing short of amazing!

What are the changes LBT has made in Intel that you think are so amazing?

 

[Daniel Nenni]

Suk Lee and Micheal chang did not retire ... they were laid off according to my taiwan friends at intel

True, they were both were part of the big lay-off last August. Suk turned 65 in December so he is officially retired after 40+ years. I hope he comes back but it is highly unlikely.

 

[swka]

LBT has done some amazing things on financing and culture change at Intel. But IFS execution to goals since 2021 is not good.

No customers (except USG in 2030)
No external revenue
Spending and volume on TSMC is not decreasing (Thank goodness... its keeping Intel alive)
IFS is constraining revenue .... despite no significant volume increase (18A/Intel 3 demand below goal , Intel 7 demand above goal)
IFS Losses are higher than ever.

It makes sense that people in charge are replaced.

Lets see if they can get one fab of external customers by 2030

Kevin was there not too long before LiBu became CEO, and he was moved out of LiBu direct report in one of the 1st reorg. You can argue he was not given enough time to own the business of IFS. Or he knew something we don't know, and decide QualComm is a better opportunity for him

 

[Daniel Nenni]

What are the changes LBT has made in Intel that you think are so amazing?

So many but here are my top 5:

Leadership Restructuring. Intel had so many layers of management.

• AI Strategy. Did Intel even have one?
• 
  
• Focus on Engineering and Execution. One thing I can tell you about Lip-Bu is that he does not suffer fools gladly and Intel had plenty of fools.
• 
  
• Strong Foundry Strategy. I have strong ties to the foundry business and I like what I see. Prior to Lip-Bu I did not like what I say.
• 
  
• Financial Strength. One week Trump called out Lip-Bu to resign. The next week the USG made a big investment in Intel, followed by investments from Nvidia and SunSoft. I don't care what anyone says, that is a STRONG move under an incredible amount of pressure.

Personally I think Lip-Bu will go down in history as the best Intel CEO, absolutely.

 

[swka]

So many but here are my top 5:

Leadership Restructuring. Intel had so many layers of management.

• AI Strategy. Did Intel even have one?
• 
  
• Focus on Engineering and Execution. One thing I can tell you about Lip-Bu is that he does not suffer fools gladly and Intel had plenty of fools.
• 
  
• Strong Foundry Strategy. I have strong ties to the foundry business and I like what I see. Prior to Lip-Bu I did not like what I say.
• 
  
• Financial Strength. One week Trump called out Lip-Bu to resign. The next week the USG made a big investment in Intel, followed by investments from Nvidia and SunSoft. I don't care what anyone says, that is a STRONG move under an incredible amount of pressure.

Personally I think Lip-Bu will go down in history as the best Intel CEO, absolutely.

Recency bias perhaps Dan? He is probably the best CEO in the last decade. Meanwhile, no way to compare him to the 1st 3 CEO. It's like people arguing who is GOAT for Sports

 

[Daniel Nenni]

Kevin was there not too long before LiBu became CEO, and he was moved out of LiBu direct report in one of the 1st reorg. You can argue he was not given enough time to own the business of IFS. Or he knew something we don't know, and decide QualComm is a better opportunity for him

Agreed, but remember, Lip-Bu meets with customers directly so he knows who did what and when. The plan is to get 6 key customers. You do not need a staff of sales people to do that. Lip-Bu already knows these people and Lip-Bu is a master delegator.

Recency bias perhaps Dan? He is probably the best CEO in the last decade. Meanwhile, no way to compare him to the 1st 3 CEO. It's like people arguing who is GOAT for Sports

Intel has been a monopoly for a long time so leadership was not really challenged. If Lip-Bu is successful in turning Intel around I think it could be argued that he is the best Intel CEO. Too early for that but my prediction stands.

A sports GOAT is not a good comparison. A sports coach GOAT would be a better comparison. For basketball my vote would be Phil (The Zen Master) Jackson. NBA 11 titles as coach and two as a player. GOAT!!!!!!!!

 

[Daniel Nenni]

Kevin was there not too long before LiBu became CEO, and he was moved out of LiBu direct report in one of the 1st reorg. You can argue he was not given enough time to own the business of IFS. Or he knew something we don't know, and decide QualComm is a better opportunity for him

Kevin is a very smart guy, he got the message when he was not reporting directly to Lip-Bu. That is a very big tell.

 

[swka]

A sports GOAT is not a good comparison. A sports coach GOAT would be a better comparison. For basketball my vote would be Phil (The Zen Master) Jackson. NBA 11 titles as coach and two as a player. GOAT!!!!!!!!

don't disagree on Phil, but just saying for sports, things are complicated.

There have been people saying Phil has top 1-2 punch in both his Bulls and Lakers run, "put another decent coach there, it will be the same result".

Of course, we know that level of coaching is much more than Xs and Os. No one ourside Phil can manage those super high egos.

 

[blueone]

So many but here are my top 5:

Leadership Restructuring. Intel had so many layers of management.

I can't speak to this one. I haven't seen much difference in the design groups.

• AI Strategy. Did Intel even have one?

Intel has had several, none of which were compelling or successful. The Gaudi inference chips have not done especially well. I suppose you cloud say that Intel client CPUs with NPUs are an AI strategy, but it seems like an also-ran with Apple, Qualcomm, and AMD. Their stand-out AI software strategy is... OpenVINO? Tiber and Geti? Do most people in the technical community even know what they are? So I would answer your question with "Not really." Shameful. But then LBT says he going to start GPU development? That strikes me as several years late.

• Focus on Engineering and Execution. One thing I can tell you about Lip-Bu is that he does not suffer fools gladly and Intel had plenty of fools.

I don't have any visibility into the inner-workings anymore, but I'm wondering what the "focus" looks like. New org structures with lead engineers calling the shots, and not directors and VPs who mostly go to meetings? Has program management been reorganized to stop being a process-for-process's-sake function? I'd be thrilled if I heard this was the case.

• Strong Foundry Strategy. I have strong ties to the foundry business and I like what I see. Prior to Lip-Bu I did not like what I say.

This makes me more hopeful. I still think the most valuable future of Intel is as a foundry, combined with a back-end development business like Broadcom's.

• Financial Strength. One week Trump called out Lip-Bu to resign. The next week the USG made a big investment in Intel, followed by investments from Nvidia and SunSoft. I don't care what anyone says, that is a STRONG move under an incredible amount of pressure.

The TACO effect at its worst, or best, or at least most visible. At least we know LBT can manage Trump to some degree.

Personally I think Lip-Bu will go down in history as the best Intel CEO, absolutely.

 

[blueone]

I did forget about SambaNova for an AI inference strategy. It's too early to judge. The reconfigurable chip processing flow strategy is an in-fashion one now.