Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger’s New Strategy ⇥ stratechery.com

I snarked the other day about the declining quality of the Intel marque, but I was persuaded that this is the right direction for the company after reading today’s daily update from Ben Thompson:

Yesterday’s keynote delivered on almost every meaningful strategy change I have asked from Intel, from building out a foundry business to re-organizing the company (it’s not a split, but close) to explicitly addressing geopolitics to embracing modularity to channeling Andy Grove.

Just as important, though, was the way in which Gelsinger delivered this news: he was transparent about how Intel had screwed up, demonstrated tremendous clarity of thought about Intel’s strategy, particularly in the Q&A, and was captivating and inspiring about why Intel’s best days were ahead of it. Of course a keynote is just a keynote — Intel has real work to do — but Gelsinger absolutely left the impression that if there is any chance of Intel delivering on his promises he will realize it.

There is a lot of nostalgic spin in this presentation but, if you peel away the saccharine layers, it seems like Gelsinger has the insider perspective to structure a better path forward, and an encouraging level of staff support.