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Intel's Interim CEO Bob Swan Gets the Job Permanently (venturebeat.com)
Intel has named interim CEO Robert Swan to the role on a permanent basis on Thursday while also naming a new interim chief financial officer. From a report: [Former CEO] Krzanich resigned last June under somewhat peculiar circumstances, after he was found to have engaged in a "consensual relationship" with an employee a while back. The relationship, which only came to light much later, violated an internal "non-fraternization policy" that applies to all senior managers. Swan began his career at General Electric and spent nine years as chief financial officer (CFO) of eBay. He later joined investment firm General Atlantic, before leaving to become Intel's CFO in 2016 -- a role he has continued to hold while serving as interim CEO.
Buy High and sell low. Sounds good when you know the outcome. However when do you know if it is a just a fad, or a trend. sometimes a fad looks like a trend, and people buy too late.
R&D if done correctly will also run into dead ends. Science and Research doesn't always give you the outcome you want.
Putting capital in orthogonal market trends, we are back trying to figure if it is just a fad or a real trend.
Selling profitable divisions. This is a complex issue, if you want to grow your company, by selling off units who have lower margins of profit may allow you to put the rest of your resources into areas that can allow faster growth.
Getting Rid of key talent. Sometime key talent is that guy who is really good at the one thing. You are not planning on doing that one thing.
We can read case studies on how a company fails, then you can read a case study on how a company succeeds, and you find they did the same things.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Right. Specifically Intel is a now high profit company that is losing out in all the new very high growth markets while there is danger of commoditization of their cash cows. For now, explosive growth in the cloud is pumping sales for server CPUs, but as the software industry learns to build complex software to take advantage of distributed computing, the highly profitable new Intel CPUs are offering less value to the customer.
The key here is there is nothing a CEO can do that will show traction and give positive financial over the next 8 quarters. So why would a "numbers guy" do anything but cut costs and avoid risks, so that the executive bonuses are maximized for the next two years?
If you have a leader who comes from a financial background, they will tend to lead in that direction. If you have a engineering background you will tend to lead that direction. It's what each knows and you shouldn't blame them. They are who they are, but is this the direction for your technology company?
Intel used to be lead by former engineers or minds of that leaning. They would be wise to get back there.