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Intel's Rise and Fall

49:44 recording · EN · 3 speakers

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Brief overview

Intel lost its lead by sidelining technologists, while Nvidia, TSMC and Lovable compounded technical bets.

  1. Technologists, not spreadsheets, should run technology companiesPat argues EUV machines and new fabs only look right to a technologist, never on the economics alone.
  2. Energy is the real ceiling on AIWorld energy capacity growing four or five percent caps how far the AI build-out can get ahead of itself.
  3. Non-technical builders now ship real businessesFour out of five Lovable users are non-technical, and some run companies making over a million dollars of revenue.
Executive Summary AI
  • Pat says Intel went off the rails once business people rather than technologists ran it, and that his 2001 CEO appointment made him the first technical leader in essentially 15 years.2:27
  • In the five or six years before he returned, Intel handed $100 billion to shareholders in dividends and buybacks while it had not built a new factory in a decade or bought EUV machines.3:25
  • TSMC's foundry vision, funded by $20-30 billion factories and driven by Apple as a customer, ended with TSMC producing 5x Intel's wafers when he came back and about seven to one now.11:30
  • He warns Taiwan holds less than three weeks of energy reserves, that a fab turned off does not restart for 90 days, and that China has blockaded the Taiwan Straits seven times in four years.15:54
  • Anton Osika says Lovable, 20 months in market, sees a million new projects a week, more than 700 million monthly visits, over 50 million apps, and reached $500 million in revenue in May.25:46
Key Quote
“I went through puberty at Intel.”
— Pat1:46
Key Quote
“The island of Taiwan has less than three weeks, a big article in The Wall Street Journal two weeks ago on this, less than three weeks of energy reserves.”
— Pat15:54
Key Quote
“There has not been a time in human history where it's been better to be a technologist”
— Pat20:55