San Francisco: Intel Corp. ousted Chief Engineering Officer Murthy Renduchintala, the executive in charge of the company’s vast chip-design and manufacturing organization, less than a week after saying it has fallen further behind rivals in production technology.
The executive will leave Aug. 3, and his organization will be split up and led by other leaders. Intel said it was making the changes “to accelerate product leadership and improve focus and accountability in process technology execution,” according to a company statement on Monday.
Renduchintala’s departure marks an escalation of the pressure on Intel’s leadership following a disastrous announcement last week that knocked more than $40 billion off Intel’s market value and caused multiple analysts to question the future of its manufacturing organization, which has been a cornerstone of the company’s semiconductor dominance for decades. The Santa Clara, California-based chipmaker on July 23 said its plants had failed to keep up with the most advanced chip-production technology, signaling that the man tasked with fixing persistent production issues had failed.
When then-Chief Executive Officer Brian Krzanich hired Renduchintala from rival Qualcomm Inc. in 2015, he was lauded as someone with the experience needed to upgrade Intel’s design efforts. But the two leaders’ extensive recruitment of outsiders led to an exodus of longtime Intel senior executives during Krzanich’s tenure. That became a hindrance when Krzanich was subsequently dismissed for an illicit workplace relationship, leaving an absence of internal candidates ready and qualified to replace him.
After a seven-month search, Chief Financial Officer Bob Swan reluctantly took the CEO role, placing the company in the hands of another outside recruit. Renduchintala was one of those passed over the for top job.
Executive reshuffles and maneuvering for higher positions are part of corporate life. But throughout Intel’s more than 50-year history, the company has seldom looked outside its own ranks for leaders and has maintained an approach of developing its own executives. Another pillar of the chipmaker’s success has been to manufacture its own products, bucking the industry trend of outsourcing. Intel has argued that manufacturing and chip design should be done together, shunning rivals’ approach of focusing just on design and letting third parties do the building. The company’s message was always clear: Intel has the most advanced plants, and that goes a long way toward making the best processors.
Maintaining that innovative advantage became Renduchintala’s job when Swan promoted him to the chief engineering role, but any sense of progress regaining its edge was destroyed last week when the company said the latest technique for building the most advanced semiconductors was a year behind schedule. That gives rivals the opportunity to appeal to computer makers with their own versions of the pitch that’s been so successful for Intel in the past: Their products are made with technology that’s years ahead of the competition. The latest setback followed a multiyear delay in Intel’s efforts on the previous manufacturing process. The company’s stock slumped 16% on Friday and fell 2% more on Monday.
In public appearances and interviews, Renduchintala is garrulous and exudes confidence, unafraid to dominate the conversation. He wasn’t on last week’s earnings conference call, where Swan was forced to defend Intel’s position and earnings amid constant questions from analysts about the manufacturing delays and Intel’s plans to mitigate them. Swan offered contingency plans that would involve Intel outsourcing the production of its best products.
Such a suggestion was unthinkable under all of Swan’s predecessors, many of whom had argued that Intel’s plants were so valuable they could be offered to use for outsourcing by its rivals.- Bloomberg
Also read: Intel outside? Tech giant is thinking the unthinkable – not making its own chips
I dont know why people are upset with the term “Indian-origin” mentioned in the title. Is it because we Indians get offended too easily? The reason this news interests non-techies is because of his Indian origin. I dont think my Dad would care bout Intel’s outdated fabrication process, but he would indeed be interested in knowing about an Indian original CEO who failed in 2 companies. Maybe Indian-origin people are over-hyped?
Intel should seriously consider moving its chip manufacturing to it’s own venture in India at the earliest. It can then take advantage of cost benefits and availability of good technical talent. This will greatly help keep China under control.
Wishful thinking.
What is the good technical talent ? The BJP govt. produced cow vigilantes and rapists.
Technology Heading
Need for Quicker 360 eco systems
Dear Mr. Ian King, Print Media Team
In my opinion it would be good to bring back Dr. Murthy to India and start building the Indian Semiconductor Industry. Just because media protrays him as a failure might not necessarily portray the right image of him. His experience can help India setup her own semiconductor and chip industry.
Thanks and Regards,
Akik Biswas
Dr. Murthy will have to work with criminal Yogis and gau rakshaks. He may find that difficult to get used to.
Dumb title. Dr murthi was born in UK and holds citizenship and was a PhD and MBA from UK . Painting him as from India or having India origins or roots cannot be farther from truth. It’s like saying Mr Trump has German origin of the author may have Asian origins. Totally irrelevant and unnecessary.
India should invite him to manufacture our semiconductor dreams.
Again and again more Telugus are bringing shame to Bharat. Was fake degree and experience was already a big issue with the telugu folks now this.
This is highlighted comment. Why do you see race and ethnicity in everything?
@Raghuram.. If the same same person were lauded before the world with the tag “Indian Origin” ..you wouldnt complaint..but now because he was fired you are bothered about that tag…what kind of hypocritical crap are you!!
He will be the first person to send Whats App messages that NASA and Microscoft have 50% Indians.
Our government always say these migrated people as Indians whereas they are not. Now does Modi or someone from indian Government would say something on it. Cheap practice worldwide to label famous ones whereas to abandon the failed one. This is American failure only and stop say these people as Indians those who left india long back.
That parasite of Murthy wasn’t hired for his ‘Indian origin’, and he is definitely not fired for his ‘Indian origin’. He was hired by the prevalent nonsensical executive hiring idiots for his loud mouth, and fired after his incompetence and pretense became obvious to his clueless hirers – both at Qualcomm, and now at Intel.
I hope there as no Brahmin mischief in his fall.
Better late than never. That incompetent parasite ninkamput Murthy is just a loud voice with zero skills – organizational, or execution – and of course, below zero technical skills. The old adage of ‘Empty vessels make the loudest noise’ fits perfectly to parasites like motu Murthy.
His hiring by likes of Qualcomm and then Intel goes on to show the nonsense of executive hiring prevalent in corporate culture worldwide. Most of these so called ‘leaders’ have no skills, no real accomplishment. They buy some MBA degrees, and start throwing big words in loud voices. Sooner or later someone just as incompetent and clueless as them in some existing corp start promoting them. These parasites just live off taking credit off hard-working employees.
Intels failure to provide new innovation and design
Next generation 5nm chips is essentially a hall mark of arrogance being at the top just the way Roman’s
Thought before the fall of the Roman empire.Steve
Jobs speaking at the Stanford University graduation
Ceremony spoke that we need to have passion for
Our work and need to believe our heart to achieve
Greatness.lack of Psychological evaluation of employees to find they have the spark in them leads to
Mundane selection processes without evaluating the
Hunger for innovation. This is the key factor missed
By the head hunters.that is why apple needed to bring
Back Steve to resurrect Apples fortunes through passionate innovation
He mught b corupt …
I thought print would have found out his BJP – RSS connection and linked his poor work with that and how this is a brahmical partriarch really print is missing some words
I agree, RSS-BJP-Brahmin aspect should be investigated.
Intel had it coming. Main reason for falling behind its competitors is the classic Rabbit and the Tortoise story. Intel had generations of technology advantage and dominated the marketplace, however with time, they got complacent and with near complete dominance in all markets from gaming upto server/cloud computing, they would deliberately not pass on any results of their R&D to the consumers, keeping costs low and profits high over older tech since competitors were miles behind with anything remotely competitive, until one day AMD surpassed it and and Intel has since been struggling to play catc ever since.
The same happened to Kodak. They had the best printing and slide films. They made the first digital camera but were not allowed to commercialise because managers thought they had the best printing and slide films, they thought it will destroy your own business in which you are leader. Then came the Japanese camera makers with their storage of images on chip instead of film, and Kodak missed the boat and could not catch up.
‘indian origin’ seriously. Someone needs to be fired for editorial failures, don’t care about their origin.
The best course of action for Intel is to close it down. Intel has run its course.
Please don’t bring country here, even I’m working in that company, they don’t differentiate between country or a gender like that, intel believes in Unity.
Please remove India from title
I agree, Intel lives by its values and will continue to strive for combating this loss.
We will strike the market back !! No doubts !!
For sure… We will fight back..
Indan-origin ………? What a cheap way of expressing your nonexisting pride. Do you see or ever heard British origin Highway manager in America?? Sheesh…
Yes, it is necessary to mention the origin of any Asian. Indians are notorious for being unscrupulous. Earlier it was Rajat Gupta, now Mukund Mohan is the flag bearer.