>The fundamental flaw with Pat Gelsinger’s 2020 return to Intel and his IDM 2.0 plan is that it was a decade too late.
Correct, but if a decade ago was the right time to do it, then 2020 was the second best, and now is the third best.
>Gelsinger’s plan was to become a foundry, with Intel as its first-best customer.
The only real alternative to this is to split Intel into two companies - a Foundry and a Products company - and effectively achieve the same thing via contracts rather than ownership.
I have a feeling that in 18-24 months we're going to be reading articles about how the best time to split the company was 2 years ago and now it's too late.