These analyses always focus on M&A, outsourcing, and that kind of business stuff while completely ignoring the decades of disgruntled engineers that left Intel to its present fate. Intel engineering was mismanaged for years and now they are paying the price.
A lot of people look at R&D and investment in things like fabs and process as the way forward but I feel like what you mentioned is the main problem.
Intel has been leaking and practically ejecting their best and most experienced talent to "maintain profitability". The brain drain will be their biggest problem and courting the best talent takes a lot of time and isn't something you can necessarily throw a bunch of money at.
Anecdotally they are deepening their bench right now, but it's hard to make up for the mistakes of the past decade.
Recruiting however is great for a company like Intel today, because of the ongoing tech crash it's getting really hard to get good people to join riskier companies. Intel is big, stable, rich, and too big to fail.
Intel also has a reputation for translating its success in good times to layoffs for individual engineers... so what does that imply about your risks at Intel in bad times?
The largest of those layoffs happened during Intel's years in the wilderness when Finance guys ran the company. Engineers are back in the executive leadership now, so hopefully they understand the folly of those past actions.
Because that is what matters when it comes down to money, and Intel has plenty of it to burn, and pattents, regardless of ARM and AMD groupies wish for.
