There are many comeback stories, Apple being a particularly great one.
Steve Jobs was particularly good at playing The Long Game; something American CEOs generally suck at.
At its core, Intel (like TSMC) is more of a manufacturing company than a tech company.
I worked for a Japanese corporation, and most of their initiatives had decade-long timelines.
US companies tend to have 3-month-long timelines (I have no idea why /s).
I don’t understand this platitude because the largest and most profitable businesses in the world, US tech and pharma companies, have very long timelines.
Amazon took 20+ years to literally build infrastructure, the early investors of Facebook were not looking for a 3 month payday, they invested billions for the 10+ year payday.
See the HN threads for when Zuckerberg paid for Instagram and WhatsApp, with so many wondering how he would recoup the enormous investment.
Apple probably plowed billions into watches AirPods and M processors for years before it saw a return, going so far as to lend money to TSMC for many years with no guarantee of TSMC being able to make the product they wanted.
Tesla, Alphabet’s Waymo bet, Uber, Nvidia, so many publicly listed businesses have a years long timelines
Same for US pharma, it takes decades to get a product to market, with a high chance it never does.
Steve Jobs had a lot of failures. It's just that his successes were so successful, that people forget about the duds.
These visionaries don't just have plans, they have fiendish plots, that would make a Grand Vizier hang his head in shame.
But they move on, and that's when the "quarter-miners" inevitably move in.
I don’t think “US” is a useful qualifier, publicly listed businesses all over the world have the same short-termism without the right ingredients.
The company I worked for, is a pretty "old-fashioned" one, so may no longer be representative of the standard, but it didn't matter who was in charge. All planning was done in 10/5/3/1 year process; with the goals getting "sharper," as you approached zero.
It was not particularly conducive to software development, but worked fairly well, for most of the stuff they made.
Cook became CEO in 2011. Apple Watch started development after Jobs’ death. It was announced in 2014. AirPods were 2015. M-Series chips shipped in November 2020.
But I also never considered Tim Cook a "quarter-miner." In fact, I think that he's known for standing up to them.
It's silly to frame it this way, but even though the US and allies pay gobs for planes like the F-35, it's also what continues to allow the stream of taxable money to continue.
I view Intel in a similar light. Even if they stay inefficient, there will still be money for a long time because the West needs a way to be self-sufficient. The cost of not having a backup is too high (tens of trillions of dollars when I last looked into it).
It's a weird market that doesn't obey a lot of the conventional rules of capitalism. Yes, it would be better if Intel were able to compete without government subsidies, and maybe they will. But even if they don't it's very unlikely they'll totally crater because of how central this "power" is, and TSMC will never cede full control of their latest tech until the UN recognizes Taiwan as a distinct entity from China (imo).
Intel needs to change its internal culture to get back on a path towards success. I don't know if any CEO is capable of fighting and winning that battle within the span of a few years, and time is running out.
Part of what impresses me about TSMC are some of the anecdotes that have trickled out about how they approach process R&D. TSMC runs experiments 24/7 with each team building on the results of the previous shift. This allows it to iterate much faster than many competitors. It is that kind of dedication and drive that Intel needs to push its leading edge manufacturing capabilities back into world class status, but that isn't the kind of change that can be achieved purely by throwing money at the problem.
It is cheaper per unit then some 4th generation aircraft now.
That's much cheaper than, say, Pat Gelsinger whose total comp was $86,000 per hour in 2021.