'I will make it perfect.' New Intel CEO promises to fix what's wrong

Intel chief Lip-Bu Tan asks for brutal honesty in his bid to rebuild Intel.

- BY MARK HACHMAN

Newly appointed Intel chief executive Lip-Bu Tan said all the right things in his opening statement as Intel's new chief executive, pledging to earn customer trust and return to an engineering-based culture at the chipmaker.

Tan, who has served about two weeks on the job, didn't indicate that any major changes would be forthcoming. For now, he emphasized that Intel's next-generation Panther Lake chips would ship this year, on the Intel 18A process node that is the legacy of Tan's predecessor, Pat Gelsinger.

Gelsinger, a former chief technical officer at Intel who also promised a return to the engineering-driven days of Intel legends like Gordon Moore, was forced out (fave.co/4b0yrzz) in December after pushing through a series of layoffs, and watching the company's stock price plunge. Chief financial officer David Zinsner and Intel Products chief Michelle Johnston Holthaus served as co-CEOs before returning to those positions. Now, Tan will take the helm.