So, the chatter around the water cooler—or maybe more apt, the local coffee shop—was all about Intel today. Word on the street is Intel stock jumped about 5.5% on Wednesday. Why, you ask? Well, Bloomberg dropped a bombshell: the bigwigs over there are planning to give the boot to 20% of their workforce.
And the timing is juicy. Just a day before Intel’s earnings are set for their curtain call. The big reveal is scheduled after the bell on Thursday. Let’s just say, all eyes are on them. Can’t make this up, right?
At the helm, or should I say the hot seat, is Intel’s freshly minted CEO, Lip-Bu Tan. He’s already previewed the potential gutting to employees, hinting at tough choices, or as he poetically put it, “hard decisions.” Two intel insiders spilled the beans to Yahoo Finance about the anxious vibes and nail-biting going on in the office corridors. Seems like everyone’s on edge.
The whole semiconductor game has been slipping out of Intel’s hands, particularly in an AI-saturated sphere. This American darling of chips has been tripping over itself in recent years. It’s losing ground to Advance Micro Devices (AMD) as its factories hemorrhage money. Oh, just a little stumble of about 60% in stocks in 2024. No biggie, right? Then again, Intel is still the only show in town for U.S. production at scale. Chalk that up as a silver lining.
Intel launched its Intel Foundry Services back in 2021, thanks to Pat Gelsinger, Tan’s predecessor. This wasn’t a brainwave that exactly saved Gelsinger, since the board showed him the door by December that same year. But the idea was to make Intel not just a selfie-taker with its chips, but a family photographer, making chips for others too.
### Intel 2024 Performance at a Glance
| Metric | Details |
|————————–|——————————|
| Stock Decrease | 60% in 2024 |
| Workforce Reduction | 20% |
| Additional Cuts Planned | 15,000 staff by end of 2024 |
| Previous Brush with Layoffs | 12,000 jobs cut in 2022 |
Gelsinger, on his watch, went on a bit of a hiring spree, inflating the ranks by 10%. But then, the layoff axe came down hard. Intel cleared out 12,000 gigs last year and plans to slash another 15,000 heads. That’s no small potatoes, let me tell you.
Turning back to the new guy, Tan hasn’t let on what his full playbook looks like yet. But as they’re looking down that precipice, he’s vocal about making up lost ground on innovation and puffing up that merchant foundry business. And yes, Intel has been eyeing Nvidia enviously for all this AI chip action.
In a city that never sleeps, Intel finds itself in a plot twist worthy of its own drama series. As some former execs whisper, all this might boil down to bloated operations and bad calls over the last decade. Middle management cutting could be the scalpel, is what they suggest. But come on, less red tape? Never! Surely, you jest.
Some employees worry these cuts might backfire, though. They fear they could plunge morale even lower. While a few others think, maybe not the worst time to jump ship. As Intel gears up to rollout its next big thing, the 18A technology, there’s a lot riding on every micro-decisions.
For now, the tick-tock of the Nasdaq clock waits for no executive reshuffle. Intel is painting its own picture, right on that big screen at the market site in our beloved New York. Only time will tell if this new brushstroke by Tan will bring back the old glimmer. Stay tuned.
