Article Directory
Let’s get one thing straight. When a company’s brand-new Chief Technology and AI Officer—the guy literally put in charge of the entire AI strategy just a few months ago—bolts for the competition, it’s not just a personnel change. It’s a five-alarm fire drill where the fire chief just sprinted out the emergency exit.
Intel AI Leader Sachin Katti Decamps To OpenAI. After a whopping four years at Intel, and mere months in the top AI seat, he’s off to OpenAI to work on the holy grail of "artificial general intelligence." Good for him. For Intel? This is a brutal, public vote of no confidence.
You can almost hear the frantic keyboard clacking from Intel’s PR department as they hammered out the statement. “AI remains one of Intel’s highest strategic priorities,” they chirped. Oh, really? Is that why the guy you handpicked to lead that priority just ghosted you for the company that’s actually defining the space? They followed up with the classic, "We thank Sachin for his contributions and wish him all the best."
Let me translate that for you: "Please, for the love of god, don't look at our executive turnover rate. Everything is fine. Pay no attention to the smoke."
This isn't just a bad look. It's a symptom of a deep, systemic rot. How are you supposed to build a coherent roadmap for something as complex as AI when the architect leaves before the blueprints are even dry? What message does this send to the thousands of engineers still in the trenches, trying to make Gaudi chips relevant in a world dominated by Nvidia? It tells them the captain of the ship just took the only lifeboat.
A Bleeding Ship in a Sea of Sharks
If Sachin Katti Intel's departure was a one-off, you could maybe write it off. A personal decision, a unique opportunity, whatever. But it’s not. It’s a pattern. This is a talent hemorrhage. No, 'hemorrhage' doesn't cover it—this is a full-blown exodus.
Just before Katti, Saurabh Kulkarni, a VP in the data center AI group, jumped ship to AMD. You know, the company that’s actually giving Nvidia a run for its money and landed OpenAI as a major customer. Then there’s former channel chief John Kalvin and 25-year veteran Rob Bruckner. They’re all gone. The list keeps growing.
Intel's response is to talk about becoming an "engineering-focused company." A noble goal, offcourse. But it rings hollow when your top engineering and strategy minds are updating their LinkedIn profiles from the lobbies of your biggest rivals. It’s like a coach giving a halftime speech about teamwork while the star players are in the parking lot, signing with the other team.
This is all happening against the backdrop of Intel’s public face-plant with its Gaudi chips, which failed to meet even the company’s own modest $500 million revenue goal. They’re now promising a new annual GPU release cadence, which feels less like a confident strategy and more like a desperate attempt to keep up. It's the corporate equivalent of yelling "I'm still relevant!" into the void.
And honestly, who can blame these executives for leaving? The AI war is being fought right now, today. Staying at Intel must feel like showing up to a gunfight with a well-written proposal for a future musket. Meanwhile, OpenAI and Nvidia are firing laser cannons. Where would you rather be?
### So, What's the Real Plan Here?
I keep reading about Intel's turnaround, its new focus, its grand strategy. But all I see is chaos. The official statements are just noise. The real story is written in the departures. Every time an exec like Sachin Katti walks out the door, a little more of Intel’s credibility walks out with him. You can’t build the future when your best and brightest are convinced the future is somewhere else. The Intel stock price ain't going to fix itself with press releases. Maybe I'm the crazy one here, but it feels like we're just watching a slow, painful decline, one resignation at a time.