I feel like this is a mistake. Pat's strategy is aggressive but what the company needs.

Intel's stock is jumping at this announcement, but I look at it as a bad signal for Intel 18a. If 18a was looking to be a smash hit then I don't think Pat gets retired. If 18a is a success then it is an even more short-sighted decision by the board.

What this likely means is two-fold:

1. Intel 18a is being delayed further and/or there are significant issues that will hamstring performance.

2. Pat is/was unwilling to split the foundry and design business / be part of a M&A but the board wants to do one or the other.

If 18a is not ready I think the best case scenario for Intel is a merger with AMD. The US Govt would probably co-sign on it for national security concerns overriding the fact that it creates an absolute monopoly on x86 processors. The moat of the two companies together would give the new combined company plenty of time to ramp up their fabs.

I worked for 3 months for Intel. I can genuinely say that there is no saving that company. Recently, they are hiring many PhDs from various US universities (particularly Indians) to try to compensate (they offer generous stocks and are hiring like crazy right now). There are two major problems I saw: lack of genuine interest in fabs (most people are there for the Intel name and then leave or in the case of Indians, they are there for Visa purposes. Mind you, we were not allowed to hire people from China since Intel is subject to Export laws). The biggest problem by far is lack of talent. Most of the talent I know is either at Apple or Facebook/Google, including those trained in hardware. Intel is bound to crumble, so I hope we as taxpayers don't foot the bill. There was unwillingness to innovate and almost everyone wanted to maintain the status quo. This might work in traditional manufacturing (think tennis rackets, furniture...), but fabs must improve their lithography manufacturing nodes or they get eaten by the competition

Difficult to see how this is anything other than a failure. I had high hopes when Gelsinger returned, but it seems that BK had done too much damage and Gelsinger didn't really get a grip on things. One of the things I heard that really highlighted the failure of this recovery was that BK had let Intel balloon in all sorts of ways that needed to be pared back and refocused, but head count under Gelsinger didn't just stay static but continued to significantly grow. It's no good giving the same politically poisonous, under-delivering middle management more and more resources to fail at the same job. They really need to clear house in a spectacular way but I'm not sure who could even do that at this point.

The market seems to think this is great news. I disagree strongly here, but I can see why traders and potentially the board thought this was the right move.

A lot of hate for Pat Gelsinger on Reddit and YouTube from armchair experts who don't really grasp the situation Intel were in or what was needed to turn the ship around, so if he was pushed it seems like it might be to pacify the (not particularly informed) YouTube/gamer community and bump the share price. That's all speculation, though.

I'd be interested to see who Intel intends to get to run the company in his place, as that would signal which audience they're trying to keep happy here (if any).

Gelsinger retires before Intel Foundry spin is ready. This means trouble.

Intel invested tens of billions into A20 and A18 nodes, but it has not paid off yet. News about yield seemed promising. Massive investments have been made. If somebody buys Intel foundries now, they pay one dollar and take debt + subsidies. Intel can write off the debt but don't get potential rewards.

Foundry is the most interesting part of Intel. It's where everything is happening despite all the risk.