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Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

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Re: Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

#571

Post by jiggawatts »

alecco wrote: post #430
LittleTimothy wrote: post #11

Difficult to see how this is anything other than a failure. I had high hopes when Gelsinger returned, but it seems that BK had done too much damage and Gelsinger didn't really get a grip on things. One of the things I heard that really highlighted the failure of this recovery was that BK had let Intel balloon in all sorts of ways that needed to be pared back and refocused, but head count under Gelsinger didn't just s…

I would argue there were many good things but not well delivered. The Optane persistent memory should've been revolutionary for databases but Intel just put it out and expected people to do all the software. I'm seeing the same thing now with Intel QAT / IAA / DSA. Only niche software support. Only AWS seems to have it and those "bare metal" machines don't even have local NVMe. About 10 years ago Intel Research was p…

When I read the Intel QAT / IAA / DSA whitepaper I knew it was the beginning of the end for Intel.

Every aspect of that document was just dripping in corporate dinosaur / MBA practices.

For example, they include 4 cores of these accelerators in most of their Xeons, but soft fuse them off unless you buy a license.

Nobody is going to buy that license. Okay, maybe one or two hyperscalers, but nobody else for certain.

It's ultra-important with a feature like this to make it available to everybody, so that software is written to utilise it. This includes the starving university student contributing to Postgres, not just some big-enterprise customer that merely buys their software!

They're doing the same stupid "gating" with AVX-512 as well, where it's physically included in desktop chips, but it is fused off so that server parts can be "differentiated".

Meanwhile AMD just makes one compute tile that has a uniform programming API across both desktop and server chips. This means that geeks tuning their software to run on their own PCs are inadvertently optimising them for AMD's server chips as well!

PS: Microsoft figured this out a while ago and they fixed some of their products like SQL Server. It now enables practically all features in all SKUs. Previously when only Enterprise Edition has certain programmability features nobody would use them because software vendors couldn't write software that customers couldn't install because they only had Standard Edition!

Re: Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

#572

Post by MPSimmons »

chasil wrote: post #257
MPSimmons wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the best case scenario for Intel is a merger with AMD Oh man, the risk in that is extreme. We are moving away from x86 in general, but wow, that's... a big jump in risk.

And really, AMD spun off Global Foundries. AMD doesn't want to run a fab. Does this mean that Intel's fabs should split for Global Foundries, and the Intel design team should go to AMD?

I seem to recall that Intel was talking about the same kind of split. Maybe the Intel child company and AMDs would merge, or maybe they'll stay separate and the parents will merge?

Re: Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

#573

Post by mnau »

KerrAvon wrote: post #460
steveBK123 wrote: post #415

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One argument I've hard in favor of the split is this: If you are AMD/NVDA/other top player, do you want to send your IP to an Intel owned fab for production? At least in theory, a fully independent, split/spun out standalone fab removes this concern. That said - what does Intel have to offer the top players here? Their fabs are being state of the art. And what's the standalone value of post-spin fabless Intel if thei…

Eh, firewalls can be made strong enough, at least for some things. A software parallel is: you are Apple / Facebook, do you use Azure and/or AWS? I wouldn't, if it were me, but they do.

Azure/AWS is cloud/B2B, AAPL/FB are B2C consumer goods/services. Different customers, different industries. There is some overlap, but moat is in other places.

AMD/NVIDIA are in same business as Intel and have same pool of customers.

Re: Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

#574

Post by akira2501 »

etempleton wrote: post #64

I feel like this is a mistake. Pat's strategy is aggressive but what the company needs. Intel's stock is jumping at this announcement, but I look at it as a bad signal for Intel 18a. If 18a was looking to be a smash hit then I don't think Pat gets retired. If 18a is a success then it is an even more short-sighted decision by the board. What this likely means is two-fold: 1. Intel 18a is being delayed further and/or t…

> the best case scenario for Intel

That's the best exit case for the shareholders. It's the worst case for Intel's employees, customers and partners.

> would probably co-sign on it for national security concerns

This is equally laughable and detestable at this point in history. My personal security is not impacted by this at all. Weapons manufacturers honestly should not have a seat at this discussion.

> overriding the fact that it creates an absolute monopoly on x86 processors.

Yet this isn't a problem for "national security?" This is why I find these sentiments completely ridiculous fabianesque nonsense.

Re: Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

#575

Post by akira2501 »

paxys wrote: post #418

The CEO of a public company is a glorified cheerleader. Doing the right things is half the job, convincing people you are doing the right things is the other half. Considering Intel's share price dropped 61% under Gelsinger's tenure, no matter the work he did towards the first half, it's pretty clear he thoroughly failed at the second. They desperately need someone who will drive back investor confidence in the compa…

> The CEO of a public company is a glorified cheerleader.

It can be. You've just noticed the fact that for publicly traded companies where the value of the stock exceeds the total value of the assets you actually get to put that difference on your books into categories like "Good will" or "Consumer confidence."

For companies struggling to create genuine year over year value this is a currently validated mechanism for faking it. The majority of companies do not need to do this. That companies operating in monopolized sectors often have to do it is what really should be scrutinized.

Re: Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

#576

Post by alecco »

gondo wrote: post #479
alecco wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue there were many good things but not well delivered. The Optane persistent memory should've been revolutionary for databases but Intel just put it out and expected people to do all the software. I'm seeing the same thing now with Intel QAT / IAA / DSA. Only niche software support. Only AWS seems to have it and those "bare metal" machines don't even have local NVMe. About 10 years ago Intel Research was p…

> Nvidia and their amazing software stack and support for their hardware. Linus seems to disagree https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tQIdxbWhHSM

That was about drivers and in 2012. At the time Linux was not interesting for them as clients. But now with AI, Nvidia has open source drivers.

https://www.phoronix.com/news/NVIDIA-Transitions-OSS-KMD

Re: Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

#577

Post by CuriousCosmic »

mort96 wrote: post #263
TheBigSalad wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

x86 CPUs.

Yeah I wonder if maybe the x86 license is the most valuable art of Intel at this point...

Unfortunately rights to the x86_64 license expire on the event of transfer of either company to a new owner.

Re: Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

#578

Post by alecco »

jiggawatts wrote: post #571
alecco wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue there were many good things but not well delivered. The Optane persistent memory should've been revolutionary for databases but Intel just put it out and expected people to do all the software. I'm seeing the same thing now with Intel QAT / IAA / DSA. Only niche software support. Only AWS seems to have it and those "bare metal" machines don't even have local NVMe. About 10 years ago Intel Research was p…

When I read the Intel QAT / IAA / DSA whitepaper I knew it was the beginning of the end for Intel. Every aspect of that document was just dripping in corporate dinosaur / MBA practices. For example, they include 4 cores of these accelerators in most of their Xeons, but soft fuse them off unless you buy a license. Nobody is going to buy that license. Okay, maybe one or two hyperscalers, but nobody else for certain. It…

Preach. I gave up hoping on Intel after getting burned. I feel sorry for the good talent there and I hope they find a home somewhere better.

Re: Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

#579

Post by mnau »

corimaith wrote: post #200
adra wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The same reason as anything else. If the merger goes ahead with opposition from foreign markets, those markets can impose import tariffs or outright bans. Smaller markets may be ones these combined companies are willing to piss off, but not Europe. Their opposition is defacto a deal killer.

They literally don't any serious homegrown alternative though, they'd be effectively forfeiting the AI race

China doesn't care. They are banned from buying western AI HW or making their own AI HW at TSMC/Samsung. They are pouring hundreds of billions to the semiconductor ecosystem.

Huawei is trying to make establish domestic Ascend/MindSpore ecosystem, but they are limited by the SMIC process (~7nm). Amount of defects is allegedly rather high, but they are the only "official" game in town (other than smuggled NVIDIA cards or outsourced datacenters in Middle East).

Re: Intel announces retirement of Pat Gelsinger

#580

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

highwaylights wrote: post #45

The market seems to think this is great news. I disagree strongly here, but I can see why traders and potentially the board thought this was the right move. A lot of hate for Pat Gelsinger on Reddit and YouTube from armchair experts who don't really grasp the situation Intel were in or what was needed to turn the ship around, so if he was pushed it seems like it might be to pacify the (not particularly informed) YouT…

Bad news can be good news depending on your time horizon.
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