Ben Thompson has also focused on the culpability of Intel's board. After losing out on mobile, Intel's missteps occurred while profits and the stock were rising. It's hard to see leadership having changed things if the board was looking for leaders who continued the status quo.
Effective governance is both extremely challenging in this space and something Intel failed at. The challenges are many: capex-intensive industry, extremely long payoff cycles, and long-term positioning depends on the evolution of underlying technology, the evolution of end-user markets for technology, and how they interact, all of which is extremely hard to predict.
But compare Intel's board with TMSC and Nvidia. Nvidia's board is VC-heavy and is light on semiconductor industry and technical expertise, but is still a founder led company. TMSC is no longer founder led, but its board has heavy semiconductor experience and nearly every board member is an engineer. Intel has neither: limited semiconductor experience and limited technical know-how. No wonder they prioritized CEOs that would maintain growth at the expense of long-term market leadership -- what else do they know how to do?
Ben Thompson has also focused on the culpability of Intel's board. After losing out on mobile, Intel's missteps occurred while profits and the stock were rising. It's hard to see leadership having changed things if the board was looking for leaders who continued the status quo.
Effective governance is both extremely challenging in this space and something Intel failed at. The challenges are many: capex-intensive industry, extremely long payoff cycles, and long-term positioning depends on the evolution of underlying technology, the evolution of end-user markets for technology, and how they interact, all of which is extremely hard to predict.
But compare Intel's board with TMSC and Nvidia. Nvidia's board is VC-heavy and is light on semiconductor industry and technical expertise, but is still a founder led company. TMSC is no longer founder led, but its board has heavy semiconductor experience and nearly every board member is an engineer. Intel has neither: limited semiconductor experience and limited technical know-how. No wonder they prioritized CEOs that would maintain growth at the expense of long-term market leadership -- what else do they know how to do?
Excellent point!
I am not sure if they need greater integration. TSMC doesn't have its own design unit.