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I have ONE question for Craig Barret, if you are so smart when you were CEO why did you allow Intel to go down the path that lead the company to where they are today?
"Craig Barrett served as CEO of Intel from 1998 to 2005 and as Chairman from 2005 to 2009. He was not only the captain steering the entire Intel ship, but also the steward of its long term prosperity. "
"From my analysis, Intel spent $50.32 billion on share buybacks between 2000 and 2009, when Mr. Barrett was either CEO or Chairman. I can’t help but wonder: what if he had spent only half that amount, keeping $25 billion to improve Intel’s long term competitiveness, or even to start Intel Foundry at a time when TSMC was still not as strong as Intel?"
A couple of teasers from the article: "6. The current Intel CEO's comments about not investing in new technology (14A) until customers sign up is a joke." "9. The FFWBMs (four former wise board members) of Intel continue to claim you have to break Intel into two pieces before any customer...
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When Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove retired from Intel one by one, Craig Barrett became the person responsible for guiding the company into the 21st century and beyond. Unfortunately, he made several mistakes and questionable decisions that have had long lasting negative effects.
One example was his choice of Paul Otellini as successor, the first Intel CEO without an engineering background. Otellini is best known for rejecting Apple’s request for Intel to manufacture SoCs for the upcoming iPhone, believing the order would be too small and unprofitable. The first iPhone launched in June 2007, when Otellini was CEO and Barrett was Chairman of Intel.
Fast forward to 2024: Apple paid about $23 billion to TSMC for manufacturing services, while Intel’s total revenue for the same year was $53.1 billion. It's a stark and sobering contrast.
"Craig Barrett served as CEO of Intel from 1998 to 2005 and as Chairman from 2005 to 2009. He was not only the captain steering the entire Intel ship, but also the steward of its long term prosperity. "
"From my analysis, Intel spent $50.32 billion on share buybacks between 2000 and 2009, when Mr. Barrett was either CEO or Chairman. I can’t help but wonder: what if he had spent only half that amount, keeping $25 billion to improve Intel’s long term competitiveness, or even to start Intel Foundry at a time when TSMC was still not as strong as Intel?"
When Robert Noyce, Gordon Moore, and Andy Grove retired from Intel one by one, Craig Barrett became the person responsible for guiding the company into the 21st century and beyond. Unfortunately, he made several mistakes and questionable decisions that have had long lasting negative effects.
One example was his choice of Paul Otellini as successor, the first Intel CEO without an engineering background. Otellini is best known for rejecting Apple’s request for Intel to manufacture SoCs for the upcoming iPhone, believing the order would be too small and unprofitable. The first iPhone launched in June 2007, when Otellini was CEO and Barrett was Chairman of Intel.
I don't think I can stand to read this BS story another time. PSO did not want to build more N-process fabs, even just one, to build low-margin parts, from the perspective of Intel's balance sheet. It made no financial sense to him, or a lot of other people at the time. Intel was not a low-cost fab, and everything about Intel's fab process was about performance and high clock frequencies, two things you don't want to optimize for in an iPhone or an iPad. So Apple would have needed process variations, and I'm sure that would have translated into R&D resources that would have to be redeployed from high-margin CPUs. Remember, Jobs wanted a very low price. BTW, PSO didn't like Itanium either. While he wasn't an engineer, I thought he was a pretty smart and rational guy, and I got to know him well enough to come to a conclusion like that.
Fast forward to 2024: Apple paid about $23 billion to TSMC for manufacturing services, while Intel’s total revenue for the same year was $53.1 billion. It's a stark and sobering contrast.
A couple of teasers from the article: "6. The current Intel CEO's comments about not investing in new technology (14A) until customers sign up is a joke." "9. The FFWBMs (four former wise board members) of Intel continue to claim you have to break Intel into two pieces before any customer...