I’m not denying most of that, but it feels extremely one-sided. I feel like I’m reading Intel investor relations right now. I am not suggesting Intel was not working on cutting edge technology, but so were other companies, and some of them succeeded where Intel failed. Meanwhile, Intel had multiple business units with similar issues, especially their modem business, and I doubt the postmortem said “Oops, we were too ambitious!” Bullshit. They had organizational issues and complacency. I’m sure 10nm was plagued with many problems that weren’t complacency too. That’s part of the table stakes when you are in the business of defying physics.
Intel’s process technology lead was the core of their strategy and explains 95% of what’s gone wrong. The 5G modem design was an irrelevant sideshow that had no impact on 10nm.
I’m not suggesting the same exact thing happened, but it’s hard to believe there weren’t some overarching management issues going on, and it seems likely they contributed to problems further down the line. A couple blunders could’ve been a fluke, but I think we’re past the “it could’ve been a fluke” stage.
Of course, this is all pure conjecture, but nobody can really be all that sure. I’m sure even people at Intel have differing opinions about what was wrong.
The financials tell a different story.