Robert Swan Named CEO of Intel

by Anton Shilov on 1/31/2019 9:08 AM EST
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  • SSNSeawolf - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    I'd be interested to hear Ian, Ryan and Anton's thoughts on this. Is he a good pick? What are his thoughts on Intel's 10nm and 7nm process? Will he make any capex changes? Is he a "steady the ship" kind of guy or does he have more of an appetite for risk?
  • HStewart - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    That would be interesting, but real information will not happen until Intel officially release Information when product is ready. But there is evidence that Intel in last 6 months or so is taking this stuff serious and along with all the security issues with backfire and actually cause more products that just Intel - including ARM which Google depends on so much.
  • jjjag - Saturday, February 2, 2019 - link

    Really? After that debacle of an interview he did with Jim Keller? Where he asked Jim if he new anything about silicon and manufacturing? I'm sure the Intel Board of Directors would be super interested in Ian's opinion.
  • TristanSDX - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    does he know how transistor work ?
  • baka_toroi - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Yup, great question. I wonder if someone without a technical background can successfully lead a semiconductor company.
    On the other hand, I believe Carnegie didn't know the first thing about steel manufacturing.
  • foxtrot1_1 - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Steve Jobs couldn't code, and I doubt the CEO of McDonald's can work the cooking station. Hunter Harrison can't drive a train, but he's the most successful railroad executive of modern times. High-level strategic thinking, which is a CEO's major role, has very little to do with technical knowledge. If he can read Anandtech and understand 98% of it, he'll be alright.
  • evernessince - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Steve had woz.
  • Gc - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Sadly, Hunter Harrison can't drive a train because he passed away a year ago. He worked his way up from oiler and operator, so he was familiar with working his hands on the equipment, though I don't think he designed the equipment. So maybe your point is that technical engineering to design the equipment is different from the technical knowhow to perceive how to integrate the equipment in systems that solve customer problems.
  • sharath.naik - Thursday, February 7, 2019 - link

    So true, every example from foxtrot1_1 is the worst examples to back his point. steve jobs was there in the garage where they were putting together the computer. Mchdonals ceo is a 20+ year employee.
  • ToTTenTranz - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    True meaning:
    - They couldn't get anyone to take the job, so they're sticking with the interim CEO for an undisclosed amount of time.

    ?
  • thesavvymage - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Right, because nobody wanted the job paying millions of dollars. More than likely, this guy is well qualified, understands the operating model, and was the best choice available of the small pool of candidates capable of leading such a large company.

    Did you think about how dumb that sounded before you typed it?
  • halcyon - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Actually, he may not be that far off. Of course there are already takers, but the truly best are already taken and VERY few are willing to jump over to a problem company that needs to be cleaned first, before it can grow and flourish first. It's a risky career move.

    It's always easier to hire a number cruncher guy, who knows the numbers, before the cleaning and hatchet job begins.

    This is not to say Swan isn't necessarily a top notch guy, but he is and has been a CFO, not CEO. He is a numbers guy, not a vision guy.

    Big difference. Time will tell how he steers Intel through the next few years.
  • Teckk - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Didn't he deny the permanent role initially?
  • CaedenV - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Does not sound too far fetched to me. This looks to me like Intel's internals are a mess, and they need someone familiar with the books to clean things up for a few years before they get another long term CEO.
    Doesn't matter how good the pay check is. If the ship is on fire it is difficult to find someone good to take the position.

    That said; he is probably going to be an OK CEO. Maybe not great for the engineering side of things, but if he can introduce some structure and get the ship back on track with the fundamentals, then they can get someone who is more of a visionary/engineer back in charge in a few years.
  • FullmetalTitan - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Yeah, I definitely read this as "we couldn't find someone new to push our vision forward, but we have been without an official CEO for too long."

    Swan did his job well as CFO, but it remains to be seen how he will handle leading the future-facing vision of a company this large, with the current baggage.

    Many of us watching Intel were hoping they would hire someone from outside the current leadership team to bring some fresh perspective, as the stagnation and stubbornness of management is a large source of their current woes.
  • flgt - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Last time I checked Intel had hired some decent technical talent to handle technology roadmaps. And sales data says they have pretty good technology despite the claims of the company falling apart. The fab engineers just failed to perform. When you hire so many Type A engineers for each of your divisions maybe it's better to hire a business minded person to bring perspective and keep the overall company in good shape.
  • FullmetalTitan - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    They have made some good technical hires, but the management issues have been festering for a long long time. Suffice to say my sources on the mismanagement of 10nm are not the internet rumor mill.

    The concern with Swan is that he will just delegate the parts he doesn't understand (all the technical bits) to the various leaders already running things, meaning no ACTUAL change will happen at the highest levels of decision making for technology.
  • melgross - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Uh oh! Financial background. That’s a warning sign. Ok for the temp, but not fit the real position. Back in 1995, Apple was almost ruined when they appointed Michael Spindler as CEO. He was an Apple finance guy. When asked if as Steve Jobs and John Sculley were visionaries, did Apple need a visionary to run it? He said no. He was right, he ran it - right into the ground.

    I hope the same thing doesn’t happen here.
  • Dragonstongue - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    rory read AMD before Dr Lisa took it over also was not a "geek" i.e no electronics formal education, but he did do business at upper levels for many companies and through him cam of course bulldozer family (not a raving success like AMD hoped it would be, but, it did lead to excavator etc which allowed the semi-custom model (PS4 / Xbox One) to be made a possibility before he was finished.

    anyways, a $$$$$$$$$$ person or an engineer type person or a business type person all of these CAN be successful in a CEO type role, they just need to have the right people working for/with them, this is where Dr Lisa has been "winning" since late 2016 and has allowed them to chomp away huge chunks of $$$$$$$$ from competition and more or less holding steady valuations from investor folks (mostly, but there are too many idiot investor folks saying BS to hold AMD value down and artificially boost up Nv or Intel instead even when they "proved" they do not deserve the throne they hold)

    AMD has proven big time since Ryzen launched (threadripper, EPYC, Vega Et al) they should be being far more fairly valuated if they push out overall similar volume at more or less similar $/[performance ratio (sort of speak) is very similar numbers to Nvidia for GPU and hug time for CPU against Intel....point it, if their competition is doing some BS moves and AMD is nailing its marks plus some, then by all rights AMD share price should be at least 1/2 what the others are worth (until AMD proves the investor folks wrong, i.e say one thing but do another)
  • HStewart - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    This fact was over look - in above comment and is very interesting. If AMD has a non-tech CEO they praise - but if Intel does exactly the same thing. Having a financial person in charge of Intel is important - it keeps the company a head of market and not just techy side of things.
  • Zizy - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Yeah and the only thing RR was ultimately good for was cutting fat so someone competent (Lisa) could start leading ship somewhere. I mean, he was a good CEO for the job he had and he did it well, but …

    I wonder if Intel is in similar situation. Their 10 nm is AMD's Bulldozer, the CEO who fucked up is shown the door, a numbers guy gets in his place to patch the ship, then a visionary is taken abroad to start moving again.
  • Despoiler - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Rory Read is a turn around specialist though. He has done several successful turn arounds in companies that were in dire straights. Lenovo was a big one before AMD. Rory did some positively dumb things as CEO. It wasn't all good moves. His Seamicro acquisition for 334 million was an example of why you don't want a person that is solely numbers. The market was already moving away from those solutions when he bought them. Freedom Fabric could never scale beyond the one dense chassis, which means it can't do HPC which is where everything is currently.
  • Gc - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    (Fact check: PS4 & XBoxOne consoles use "Jaguar" cores, not "construction equipment series" cores.)
  • trparky - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Yep. Just another MBA and that's not what Intel needs, they need someone like AMD's Lisa Su to take the company by the horns and make them innovate again.
  • The Hardcard - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Correlation is not causation. A famous example of a financial guy jamming up a tech company doesn’t mean that is why it happened. You left out the numerous examples of tech-background CEOs that sank tech companies.

    No doubt, if this guys oversees some bad decisions and failures some will continue to disregard tech guy failures and firmly state that this is why problems continue. They will still be wrong.

    He can’t destroy Intel,as Intel has the resources to fail for longer than his life expectancy.
  • halcyon - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    He's probably just continuation of the interim position. He will do the necessary cuts, clean house and bow out when the CEO for the next growth phase takes over.

    This is normal business in C-level rotation.
  • HStewart - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Having a financial person in charge when you have right technical visionary to run things. Let's look at our favorite competitor AMD, there CEO is not technical so why is different than Intel - maybe just because it is Intel. My first job had a technical person as CEO and it was slowly loosing people and eventual I left and with 6 months it was gone. But Intel is different they hired high end tech people like Raju and Jim and making a difference.

    But what I most curious is when Robert became Intern CEO and how much did he have in decisions that Intel is currently doing. Obviously realize that there path of 10nm is having problem and Architexture has is old. Also importantly to process is there Fab's need some changes. Also it appear removing products that don't show progress like the Quark.

    Financial person in Intel could be good news for Intel in an unexpected way. A financial person could notice should notice that competition is working to under cut Intel with price and will make strives to change this. A CEO that understands the financial mark is what Intel to make Intel continue to be leader in processors

    Time will tell, but it should be interesting to see what Intel does with this change.
  • Xyler94 - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    You know the Dr in Dr. Lisa Su is for her PhD in Engineering from MiT and has made work in Semiconductor work, including SOI (silicon on insulator) development, right?

    She is a technically savvy person. Look up her Wikipedia page, it details her accomplishments. I don't know where you get that she isn't technically adept.
  • HStewart - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Still does mean she can run a company correctly.
  • Xyler94 - Friday, February 1, 2019 - link

    I would agree with you... except for the fact that she:
    - Brought AMD from the brink of Bankruptcy to profitable
    - Was awarded top CEO of the year (2017 I think?)
    - Has multiple awards for her work at AMD

    Running a business is not rocket science, it's about making the right decisions to make profit. And I never bashed Brian Swan, hopefully he turns Intel into greatness also. But to dismiss what Dr. Su did for AMD, you're an idiot.
  • Xyler94 - Friday, February 1, 2019 - link

    Robert Swan, not Brian Swan, I don't know where I got the name Brian haha
  • sa666666 - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Don't waste your time responding to this tool. He's so pro-Intel that it's spilling out of his ears.
  • arashi - Friday, February 1, 2019 - link

    "I'll have you know I discovered a minor silicon bug eons ago hurdurr"
  • Xyler94 - Friday, February 1, 2019 - link

    I know. I'm just egging him on more to show his true colours. It's funny watching blind followers try and justify themselves.
  • eva02langley - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Ebay, General Electric...

    That went well for them...
  • eva02langley - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    So his next strategy would be to make more money with inferior hardware? Let's just hope monopoly tactics are not going to surface again.

    The last bit of info from MSI CEO is frightening me.
  • Ananke - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    This news means "restructuring". He actually said so: "Intel needs better execution....". They will change the org structure, "retire" some VPs and Directors, lay off 10%, etc. - the usual things.
    Intel is like two-thirds populated with Indian and Chinese. Without being offensive, one cannot expect a company to be "long term visionary" if the majority of its execution level staff is primarily concerned about obtaining permanent stay in the US, regardless how smart they are, these people simply do not care about where the company is going. I've been in the same situation and can confirm - when working for a corporation that may "restructure" me any other year, I give s*** about its "vision" :) :)
  • foxtrot1_1 - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Rare to see an "I'm not racist, but..." post in the real world, but here we are. Suggesting anyone of Indian or Chinese descent who works at a multinational company is primarily interested in permanent residency in the U.S. over and above anything else in their life (including their performance at work) is ignorant, offensive, and myopic.
  • Opencg - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    hes talking about nationality not race. dumbasses
  • baka_toroi - Friday, February 1, 2019 - link

    Another virtue-signalling faggot annoying us with his crap.
  • anonomouse - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    Wow, that takes the cake for most racist thing I've read today. I'll also add that in no way are the 'majority of execution level staff' of Intel still currently in the hunt of permanent residency...
  • Ananke - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    I would also add that non-immigrant staff will also have a primary concern of keeping its corporate health insurance, 401k plans and ability to pay fast rising rents above its attachment to "corporate vision" as well. On top of that you may add a large percent of contractors/temps, who by default do not align with "long term goals" aka vision. But this dilutes the topic on Intel, and applies to a great extend to many other high tech American companies. So, again, without emphasizing on anything racial - I gave a small example of a CEO talk about "long term vision" and the actual facts that almost everybody, including the CEO have nothing long term committed to that company. This in contrast to earlier comments comparing Apple's Steve Jobs....
  • HStewart - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    No the intel is optimizing the money spending with getting rid of non productive products and correcting the old technology and improving the technology.

    I wish people get over this monopoly stuff, possibly you might think this on desktop and server market but look at Windows for ARM, it should be call Windows for Qualcomm. And of course Intel has no monopoly on GPU. Maybe some could say that about NVidia.
  • sa666666 - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    You mean you wish people would stop pointing out Intel's shortcomings. I bet you do wish that; it's an affront to your very existence when Intel is cast in any bad light whatsoever.
  • ksec - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    This is bad. Andy Bryant being the finance guy picked another finance guy. Which means Robert Swan will be the next Chairman once Andy Bryant retires.
  • Gc - Thursday, January 31, 2019 - link

    "we have a relatively small share of the largest addressable market in Intel’s history"
    "we are in the midst of transforming the company to pursue our biggest market opportunity ever"
    How is Swan/Intel hoping to expand? (Are they going to cut out the middle companies, build IoT network inferencing systems, and compete with their customers?)
  • Oxford Guy - Friday, February 1, 2019 - link

    Don't let the guy sing. Otherwise, it could be Intel's Swan song.

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