Intel's new CEO Lip-Bu Tan, in his first public statements, promised to create a more agile, engineer-centric company and urged customers to share candid feedback to help restart a culture of innovation at Intel, Reuters reported.
Speaking at Intel's "Vision" event in Las Vegas, Tan said he spent his first weeks in office meeting directly with customers — and admitted that the company had significantly fallen short of their expectations.
"Please be brutally honest with us," Tan said. "This is what I expect of you this week, and I believe harsh feedback is most valuable."
Tan, the former CEO of Cadence Design Systems and a powerful semiconductor investor, took over at Intel earlier this month. He inherits a company that once dominated the global market for PC and data center chips but has lost ground in recent years to rivals such as NVIDIA and AMD.
According to sources familiar with internal plans, Tan plans to simplify Intel's corporate structure by eliminating layers of middle management that he sees as bureaucratic and resistant to change.
In his speech, Tan emphasized that his priority is to give engineers more freedom and return Intel to its status as a technical leader.
"We're going to really drive some new ideas, giving engineers freedom to innovate from within" he said. "My weekend is usually packed with a lot of engineers and architects. They have some brilliant ideas, they want to change the world, and that's where I get excited to work closely with them."
Tan also acknowledged that the company had lost a lot of talent, and made it clear that bringing back and attracting the best professionals in the industry was another key focus of his work.
"We lost quite a bit of talent," he said. "That's my top priority, to recruit some of the best talent in the industry to come back and then to rejoin or join Intel."
His statements signal a change in tone and direction for the company as Tan seeks to restore Intel's technological edge and regain trust from partners, customers, and the engineering community.