Intel Just Got Pounded For Not Taking AMD Seriously Enough

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella recently said the tech industry was unforgiving to companies that do not adapt to change.

Apparently, Intel never received that message, which cost the company billions in its market cap after investors punished it for not taking its competition seriously enough, particularly AMD, which has been slowly eroding team blue's apparent monopoly in the personal computers industry.

Team blue laid bare its earnings this past week, and the results both shocked and underwhelmed investors who responded by wiping $8 billion off of the company's market value and creating a new headache for CEO Pat Gelsinger, who himself took the helm just a couple of years ago to help Intel course correct.

Results showed that the company generated $14 billion in fourth-quarter 2022 revenue, down 32% year over year, and posted a net loss of $664 million, or 16 cents per share, for the closing months of 2022, sliding into the red territory after booking a profit of $4.62 billion, or $1.13 per share, in the same quarter of 2021.

Full-year 2022 results weren't any better: revenue dropped 20% year-over-year to $63.1 billion, while profit was down a whopping 60% to $8 billion, or $1.94 per share.

Most alarming though was the drop in revenue in Intel's Client Computing Group, or CCG, a business unit that is responsible for producing desktop processors, such as the recent 13th Gen line of products. And well, we'll just let the results do the talking…

Could one really blame Intel for not taking AMD seriously enough? It's true that AMD had all but disappeared from the personal computers industry during the early 2000s to late 2010s period for failing to invent functional products, but it's also true that Intel got lazy after becoming the undisputed king of processors during that period.

Maybe Intel thought AMD would fumble yet again after the 2017 launch of the Ryzen series processors and it would continue to dominate the market in an "I told ya so" moment — except, that team red hasn't, and with every subsequent processor launch, its products have gotten cheaper and better.

Could this be Intel's watershed moment? Who's to say? So far, all manners of analysts on Wall Street have cut their price targets on the company's stock given both the earnings result and the bleak picture CEO Pat Gelsinger has painted for the immediate future.

Should Intel's stock price reverse its downward trend, we'll let you know.

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New U.S. Lawsuit Threatens Google's Dominance in Online Advertising 🧑‍⚖️

Alphabet Inc.'s Google is now at a higher risk of losing parts of its advertising technology unit after the U.S. government filed a lawsuit accusing the Silicon Valley darling of stifling competition in online advertising.

While Google has denied the allegation, the lawsuit details prior attempts by the search engine giant to crush competitors seeking to usurp its dominance in the advertising market, including one nicknamed "Project Poirot".

Google ranked #9 in this week's Tech Company Rankings.

ChatGPT — Now Coming to a Quiz Near You 🧙

Remember those viral internet quizzes that everyone, including your grandma, had taken at least once in their lifetime and shared results of on their Facebook feed? Well, you’re in luck because their creator — Buzzfeed — is returning with a BANG!

But instead of enlisting the help of tens (if not hundreds) of paid staffers and unpaid contributors to generate quizzes, the self-described premier digital media company will be capitalizing on advances in artificial intelligence — particularly OpenAI's ChatGPT — to push out content that will help tell you which Hogwarts house you belong to based on the kinds of protein you eat (lol).

Being adopted by Buzzfeed is the latest feather in ChatGPT's cap, which has already had the internet incensed ever since it became public.

Microsoft, which has invested heavily in ChatGPT creator OpenAI, was trending #51 this week.

In Other News.. 📰

• Facial recognition tech is pretty racist. No, really.

• Microsoft's big AI ambitions go beyond just OpenAI and ChatGPT.

• Federal agents dismantled the Hive ransomware group, helping thwart over $130 million in ransom demands.

• Tesla, which ranked #1 this past week, is expanding manufacturing operations in the U.S. in an attempt to earn tax credits. The move will make the company even more competitive in the automobile industry.

• Here's a look at what the collapse of FTX means for the future of the crypto industry.

And that's a wrap! Don't forget to share this newsletter with your family and friends!

See y'all next week. PEACE! ☮️

— Sheharyar Khan, Editor, Business Tech @ HackerNoon