> “I don’t feel good today,” Gelsinger said told employees Thursday. “I’ve agonized over today for the last three, four weeks. Many nights waking up at 2 a.m. because I know that what we do, and how we’re affecting you and your families, it matters.”
Sounds pretty empathetic to me. I’m guessing he also has empathy for Wall St and his shareholders. Ultimately Intel has no choice but to either grow or downsize and the former hasn’t materialized. They’re losing market share and revenue and if they keep that up they will be empathizing with their creditors and the bank.
If there is one thing I have learned it's that most people who make it to the top in business or politics are great actors and storytellers who can express empathy in a very convincing way when needed. They may even believe it at the moment. But if it benefits them, they will still make brutal decisions without any regard towards the lives of people who are affected by the decisions.
Krzanich and Swan were catastrophically bad. Both of them are among the worst bigcorp CEOs ever, with asleep-at-the-wheel Krzanich in the running for the worst of all time. Intel's board tried to right the ship with Gelsinger, but it was too little and too late, especially given slow development cycles in the semiconductor industry.
It's arguably a challenge to supplant Jack Welch as "worst of all time" after he not only ran GE into the ground, but also started the whole "celebrity CEO" fad and spewed a bunch of toxic crap that poisoned scads of other companies. Rank-and-yank being first among those.
Sounds pretty empathetic to me. I’m guessing he also has empathy for Wall St and his shareholders. Ultimately Intel has no choice but to either grow or downsize and the former hasn’t materialized. They’re losing market share and revenue and if they keep that up they will be empathizing with their creditors and the bank.