Intel: It’s Time for the Unthinkable (Image: iStock)
By Bolaji Ojo
What’s at stake:
Intel pioneered so much and led the semiconductor industry for so long that it became difficult for its leaders, and even government officials to imagine a different future for the iconic brand. But Intel today is not the company it was 20 years ago, the market plays have changed dramatically and so have the players in it. It’s time to rethink Intel and imagine a different future for the company. Doing so, will require drastic changes.
Intel Corp. is the story. Not former CEO Patrick Gelsinger, whose tenure ended abruptly on Sunday.
Neither is the story about the company’s newly appointed co-CEOs David Zinsner and Michelle Johnston Holthaus. Like Gelsinger, both are minor characters in the Intel saga, their current positions fleeting. Preferably, Zinsner’s and Holthaus’s tenures should end quickly and as abruptly as Gelsinger’s.
What happens to Intel next and how its future will be shaped should dominate discussions at the company and among its different audiences.