Comment by belval | Hacker News Reader

Comment by belval | Hacker News Reader

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> The not-so-bad news: Dividend and self-driving

What's the saddest part about that headline is the dividend is not supported by earnings which is the equivalent of saying "we have money but no plan" and self-driving is the only one of Intels likely hundred of bets to pay off at this point.

How many promising startups did Intel acquire and kill at this point? They are bleeding money and have little to show for it and no plan aside from taking money from the CHIP act to keep their disgusting skeleton of a company afloat and I say that as someone who still has an oversized bet on INTC.

Hopefully they won't end up killing the ARC line as well.

EDIT: Also Pat Gelsigner took home $179M in 2021, go figure.

EDIT2: From the man himself:

> We will, one, deliver on five nodes in four years, achieving process performance parity in 2024 and unquestioned leadership by 2025 with Intel 18A.

As if five nodes in four years was realistic from any standpoint.

> Also Pat Gelsigner took home $179M in 2021, go figure.

Everytime someone posts a comment about some CEO making huge millions of dollars in one year, you look into the details and see it is completely off.

He made about $10M that year (includes sign on bonus). He was given all kinds of RSUs that are dependent on the performance of Intel stock going up. INTC was close to $60 at that time. It has continued to drop down to under $30. If you read the SEC filings, you'll see the "grading" of his compensation, and he got a 0 for every one of them (obvious given the stock value has gone down).

So the $179M was a hypothetical figure based on the share price at the time (with 3-4 years vesting, so not all in one year), and assumes he'll hit fairly aggressive stock targets. It helps sell papers, but the reality is much more banal.

(He could still earn that much if he can get the stock price to triple in the next year or two, but we all know the likelihood of that happening).

Realistically what do you expect Intel to do? They design and manufacture commodity computer hardware. That isn't lucrative enough a business to fund a bunch of moonshot projects (at least without getting yourself axed).

I expect them to continue selling similar sorts of hardware and making minor improvements. Expecting something more is expecting Intel to totally reorient itself and develop expertise in brand new fields (to them). If I were an Intel stockholder, I would be much more concerned if Intel appeared unfocused and intent on branching out into new markets. They should be a dividend stock, they are not a young company and they are not in a young industry anymore.

>As if five nodes in four years was realistic from any standpoint.

Except all the update they gave seems to be moving in that direction.

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