Pat Gelsinger is Intel's CEO who took office in early 2021 after previously changing jobs, and he revealed the similarities in his position to the late Steve Jobs, the former CEO of Apple.
"Steve Jobs took 11 years off from Apple. I also took 11 years off. And during that time, I learned a lot of things," said Gelsinger.
The context of Gelsinger's statement is that Intel will reclaim its glory in the realm of processors, especially in the desktop realm, which AMD took market share to last January -- the first time in 15 years.
Gelsinger himself worked at Intel since 1979, and became the architect for the 804486 processor which was released in 1989, and later turned into the Pentium processor. He became the youngest VP in Intel's history, at the age of 32.
But in 2009 he resigned from Intel and joined EMC, where he served as president and CEO. In 2012 he became CEO of VMware, and returned to Intel in January 2021.
This is what makes Gelsinger feel similar to Jobs, because Jobs had left Apple in 1985, and only returned again in 1997.
In recent years, Intel's processor performance has lagged behind AMD's. That's what Gelsinger wants to change.
"So this period of time when people can say, 'Hey, AMD is still in the lead' is over. We're back with a clear view of what it takes to lead in each dimension," he said.
He also assured that Intel excels in chip packaging, software, AI, and graphics. "Intel is back," Gelsinger explained.
He also commented on AMD, especially regarding processor performance and market share recently.
"AMD has done a solid job over the last few years. We will not underestimate their work so far. But now (the lead) will end after there are Alder Lake and Sapphire Rapids," he said confidently.
