You probably remember the headlines from June 2018. They were everywhere. Intel CEO Brian Krzanich was out, effectively overnight. The reason given was a "past consensual relationship" with an employee. It felt like a sudden, jarring end to a career that had spanned over three decades at the silicon giant. But if you talk to industry insiders or look at the messy state of Intel’s manufacturing today, you'll find the story is a lot more complicated than a simple HR violation.
Honestly, the "relationship" excuse always felt a bit like a convenient exit ramp for a board that was losing patience.
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Brian Krzanich wasn't just some suit. He was a "factory guy." He started at Intel back in 1982 as a process engineer in New Mexico. He climbed every rung of the ladder. By the time he became the sixth CEO in 2013, people thought he was exactly what the company needed—someone who understood the grit and grime of making chips.
But things didn't go according to the brochure.
The 10nm Disaster and the Loss of the Crown
While Krzanich was busy trying to turn Intel into a "data-centric" company, the core of the business—manufacturing—was starting to rot. This is the part that tech nerds still argue about on forums. Under his watch, Intel hit a massive wall with its 10-nanometer process.
It was supposed to be the next big leap. Instead, it became a multi-year quagmire.
While rivals like TSMC and Samsung were successfully shrinking transistors, Intel was stuck in a loop of delays. This wasn't just a minor technical hiccup. It was a fundamental shift in the power balance of the global semiconductor industry. For the first time in decades, Intel wasn't the leader. They were the ones playing catch-up.
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- The Yield Crisis: The 10nm chips simply weren't coming off the line in usable quantities.
- The 14nm Crutch: Because 10nm was broken, Intel had to keep refining its old 14nm process (the famous 14nm+, 14nm++, 14nm+++ era).
- AMD's Resurgence: While Intel fumbled, AMD swooped in with its Ryzen processors, built on TSMC’s superior tech, and started stealing market share like it was nothing.
Basically, the "factory guy" oversaw the greatest manufacturing crisis in the company’s history.
Stock Sales and Security Flaws
Then there was the Meltdown and Spectre situation. In late 2017, it came out that almost every Intel chip made in the last decade had a fundamental security flaw. It was a nightmare.
But the real kicker? Krzanich had sold off a massive chunk of his Intel stock—worth about $24 million—just months before the news went public. He kept only the bare minimum of 250,000 shares required by his contract.
Intel claimed the sale was "unrelated" and part of a pre-planned divestment, but the optics were terrible. You've got the CEO dumping stock while the company is sitting on a security time bomb. It didn't look like leadership; it looked like someone heading for the lifeboats.
A Culture in Flux
Krzanich did try to change the culture, for better or worse. He was big on diversity, pledging $300 million to reach "full representation" in the workforce. He also pushed Intel into drones, wearables, and autonomous driving (the $15 billion Mobileye acquisition happened on his watch).
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But critics say he neglected the "Intel culture" that made the company great. The focus shifted from engineering excellence to hitting quarterly financial targets and flashy keynote demos. Some employees from that era describe the environment as increasingly "toxic" and top-heavy, where bad news was buried instead of fixed.
Life After the Silicon Valley Throne
So, what do you do after you're ousted from one of the most powerful jobs in tech? If you're Brian Krzanich, you go into the automotive software business.
In November 2018, just months after leaving Intel, he surfaced as the CEO of CDK Global. It was a massive pivot. Going from the world's premier chipmaker to a company that makes software for car dealerships felt like a step down to many. But he stayed there for nearly four years, eventually overseeing the company's sale to Brookfield Business Partners for a cool $8.3 billion in 2022.
He didn't stop there. As of late 2024, Krzanich is the CEO of Cerence, an AI company focused on automotive assistants. It seems he's decided his future isn't in the silicon wafers of Santa Clara, but in the "software-defined vehicles" of the future.
Why It Matters Today
Looking back at the tenure of Intel CEO Brian Krzanich, he represents a pivotal moment in tech history. He was the bridge between the old Intel that dominated everything and the new Intel that is currently fighting for its life under Pat Gelsinger.
His story is a warning about what happens when a company forgets its "north star." For Intel, that was always manufacturing leadership. When Krzanich let that slide to chase "Internet of Things" buzzwords, the foundation cracked.
What We Can Learn from the Krzanich Era
If you're a leader or an investor, there are a few "unfiltered" takeaways from this saga:
- Don't Ignore the Core: You can pivot to new markets, but if your primary engine (manufacturing) fails, the whole plane goes down.
- Optics are Reality: Even if a stock sale is legal, doing it right before a crisis destroys trust. Trust is harder to rebuild than a fab.
- Culture Outlasts Strategy: You can buy all the AI and drone companies you want, but if the internal engineering culture is broken, those acquisitions won't save you.
If you're tracking Intel's current turnaround attempt, keep an eye on their "five nodes in four years" roadmap. It’s basically an attempt to fix the specific manufacturing gap that opened up during the Krzanich years. Understanding the 2013-2018 era is the only way to understand why Intel is currently spending billions on new factories in Ohio and Germany.
Next Steps for You:
If you're interested in how Intel is trying to recover from this era, look into the current "IDM 2.0" strategy. It’s essentially a direct reversal of many of the manufacturing decisions made during the mid-2010s. You might also want to check out the latest earnings reports for Cerence to see how Krzanich is applying his "data-centric" philosophy to the world of automotive AI.