Pat Gelsinger has started his reign as Intel’s new CEO with a publicly-accessible memo to Intel employees in which he talked about the company’s inspirational original leadership and how he intends to “bring back” the successes of that era.
Gelsinger took over from Bob Swan in February 2021, with the latter stepping down following a string of blows, most notably the loss of Apple as a customer after over fourteen years of collaboration.
“I am confident that we can be the world’s leading semiconductor company in a landscape of tremendous change and set a course for a new era of innovation and technological leadership,” Gelsinger wrote in his note.
Back to the future
Gelsinger had worked his way from quality control engineer to Intel’s first CTO, before leaving the company in 2009. Tipped for a return since, he finally comes back to Intel after a successful stint as the CEO of virtualization software and services giant VMware.
In the memo, which reads more like an action plan, Gelsinger outlines his four priorities. He wants the chip maker to become “more agile” in its bid to stay ahead of the competition, and set “aggressive targets” without compromising on quality.
In a throwback to Intel’s glory days under the stewardship of its third CEO Andy Grove, Gelsinger wants to attract the best talent saying that the company needs “to bring back some of the Groveian disciplines for direct, transparent and data-driven decisions and accountability.”
Gelsinger also listed what he refers to as the “four key superpowers”, namely cloud, mobility fueled by 5G, artificial intelligence and the intelligent edge, affirming that only Intel has everything it takes to innovate in these sectors.
Gelsinger has his work cut out as Intel’s having a rough time keeping up with its rivals such as AMD who’ve stormed into the lead with the 7nm fabrication process, even as the latest offerings from Intel’s stable continues to disappoint.
Via CNBC
