New Intel CEO portrait: Admitted to Intel at the age of 18, despite not having a college degree

Tram Ho

The company that once dominated the PC and server chip industry is facing challenges from all directions. While temporary manufacturing failures have hampered Intel’s own chip innovations, advanced micro devices (AMD) are taking up market share with better performance processors. Nvidia is buying rival Arm to reinforce its position in the processor chip business, while Apple has ditched Intel to switch to chips with its own design, and perhaps will make Microsoft follow suit. Meanwhile, major cloud services at Amazon and Google are also developing their own server chips to replace Intel.

Stacy Rasgon, longtime chip industry analyst at Bernstein Research, notes that many of Intel’s shortcomings over the next three years “may be very difficult to resolve and there won’t be much for Pat to do to change that.”

 Chân dung CEO mới của Intel: Được nhận vào Intel khi mới 18 tuổi dù không có bằng đại học - Ảnh 1.

Growing up on a farm in the Amish region of rural Pennsylvania, Gelsinger had to wake up before dawn to look after pigs and cows. Once, he told Forbes that his morning main task was “to go straight to a dusty working day and try not to get kicked by any animal”.

His parents were not in grade 8. “From the days we were little, they always pushed to study” ¸ he recalls.

During high school, he demonstrated a talent for mathematics and science and graduated early after winning a scholarship at a branch of the Lincoln Technical Academy. It was where he first encountered the computer, and thanks to his show of electronics excellence, he got the attention of a recruiter from Intel. Then, for the first time in his life, he flew to a job interview in Silicon Valley. Although only 18 years old and without a university degree, Gelsinger was admitted to Intel as a quality control technician in 1979.

Utilizing Intel’s generous refund program and flexible working hours policy, he earned a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering from Santa Clara University in 1983 and a master’s degree at Stanford University in 1985, all of which. takes place while he is working full time. John Hennessy, legendary professor of computer science, is Gelsinger’s advisor at Stanford.

While working on Intel’s 386 microprocessor, he caught the attention of then Intel CEO Andy Grove. Gelsinger later said that it was a “career decisive moment”. Grove advised Gelsinger for decades to come.

Gelsinger was assigned to design Intel’s popular 486 chip series in his twenties and became its first chief technology officer in 2001, at the age of 40.

 Chân dung CEO mới của Intel: Được nhận vào Intel khi mới 18 tuổi dù không có bằng đại học - Ảnh 2.

Despite all his success and talent at Intel, Gelsinger was not given the top spot in 2005, when Paul Otellini was selected. Somewhat disappointingly, Gelsinger turned to data storage giant EMC as its chief executive in 2009.

With the goal of becoming CEO, he requested to attend EMC board meetings and received advice from the company’s co-founder, Jack Egan. “We are an East Coast company. You need to dress like you are in an East Coast company,” Egan told him, Gelsinger recalls. That very night, he had an expedited shopping trip at Nordstrom.

Egan also told Gelsinger that he needed a better understanding of corporate finance. So Gelsinger spent a year being tutored by a Columbia University professor in the subject.

His efforts paid off when he was assigned the top position at EMC’s VMware unit in 2012.

The first “war” he led was against cloud computing. Amazon favors companies giving up running their own data centers and moving to the cloud. Gelsinger has been fighting against services to make data centers more efficient and secure. Then, VMware tried to create its own cloud service, but failed. Finally, realizing that going against the cloud is only losing and losing, Gelsinger completely changed its strategy, partnering with Amazon and Microsoft services, and creating customer support software. move to the cloud.

Gelsinger’s deep technical background helped identify new, trendy trends like the cloud that would help him steer the ship Intel, which was struggling in some areas, especially. mobile. Let’s wait and see!

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Source : Genk