Tough love? Newly appointed Intel chief executive Lip-Bu Tan told employees this week that the company is not among the top 10 leading chipmakers, according to a report.
Tan reportedly made his remarks to a company-wide meeting of employees, according to OregonLive.
The publication accessed remarks made by Tan, but the key quote is a doozy. “Twenty, thirty years ago, we are really the leader,” Tan said, according to the paper. “Now I think the world has changed. We are not in the top 10 semiconductor companies.”
Tan acknowledged that the company had been the leader decades ago, before falling out of a leadership position. Intel has been widely criticized for missing the opportunity in mobile processors, and more recently, not establishing a leadership position in AI. Instead, Tan reportedly gave credit to rivals AMD and Nvidia, among others, which aggressively addressed the AI market.
Intel hasn’t sacrificed its consumer product roadmap yet. Instead, major changes have come to its workforce and its foundry operation, which former CEO Pat Gelsinger established as an attempt to bring a new dimension to the company’s business. Intel is reportedly considering making its Intel 18A manufacturing process exclusive to its own fabs, rather than making it available to outside customers. Intel has already said it will lay off thousands of employees, including potentially shutting down a fab in Israel.
Tan has yet to lay out a public roadmap for the company, though he addressed the Intel Vision conference early in his tenure. There, he promised to “make it perfect.”
