Intel missed one of its best opportunities to break into the mobile market.
This is a lesson worth remembering.
When such lessons were put in front of him along with Yike's chip needs, it was hard not to be touched by Brian. He joined Intel in 1982 and has worked for the company for 33 years so far, witnessing Intel's peak and slowdown.
As early as 2000, Intel's peak market value exceeded US$500 billion, but now it is only US$150 billion.
When Brian convinced the board of directors to acquire Broadcom last year, he was passionate about relaunching the mobile strategy and rebuilding Intel's glory.
However, the acquisition of Broadcom and technical cooperation with Yike did allow Intel to gain an entry point in the mobile market, but this effort is always somewhat inadequate.
Now that Yike is facing a crisis, a sky-high price order has almost been placed on the market.
After Jobs was rejected, he approached Samsung to manufacture chips for him, which greatly promoted Samsung's wafer manufacturing and also brought great inspiration and impetus to Samsung's transformation.
Just before Apple handed over the order to Taiwanese journalists, it had been Samsung's largest foundry customer.
There are few orders of this magnitude in the world, so when the market is full of doubts and worries about Yike, Brian personally flew to China to try to get a handle on Yike.
But after talking for two days, he suddenly felt like he was being manipulated by Mr. Fang.
When he returned to the hotel, Brian first discussed Yike's current situation with his team, and then called the base camp. Until the early hours of the morning, he lay on the bed tossing and turning, with a question echoing in his mind.
Is this another "Apple moment" for Intel?
No, maybe it’s a new “Yike moment.”
However, unlike Apple, the current situation is more complicated and also faces geopolitical influences.
The more Brian thought about it, the less sleepy he became. He simply got up and made a cup of coffee, thinking about various possible changes. Yike definitely needed to change the chip manufacturer.
Even if Bingxin International was also founded by Mr. Fang, he would definitely sacrifice the small to protect the big.
This does not depend on his subjective will, otherwise, the final result will be that neither Yike nor Bing Xin can be saved.
As the current CEO of Intel, Brian has been scratching his head about the company's situation in the past ten years. He does not believe that Mr. Fang, the founder of Yike, is not aware of the current crisis and does not weigh it.
Grasping this prerequisite, the game between Intel and Yike seems to be much clearer.
Brian thought a lot late at night and believed that the overall crisis in Yike was controllable. Even if geopolitical factors broke out again, the crisis in Yike would be prolonged but controllable.
The longer Yike's crisis continues, the greater the space for Intel's cooperation will be.
Brian thought about it, but did not show up until the next morning. Instead, the accompanying team negotiated with Yi Ke and tried their best to strive for the established conditions.
No matter what Mr. Fang says, the Yike crisis is a crisis, and Intel's cooperation is a helping hand in a sense.
Brian did not participate in the negotiations and only followed the review together at night, speculating on the boundaries of Yike's cooperation and Mr. Fang's bottom line. He recognized the mutual benefit of mutual cooperation, but the interests that belong to one's own side must always be fought for with all efforts.
When the review was over, he asked about the situation of the head of Yike: "Did Mr. Fang not show up even once today?"
Intel's deputy director shook his head.
Brian thought it was normal. After all, he didn't show up. Everyone was trying to show off each other, which was considered a small game.
However, after two consecutive days of talks, Brian made a surprise visit to the negotiation site on Friday afternoon and had a lively chat about the consumer electronics market with Yike's senior management, but he still didn't see Mr. Fang or hear from him.
"Speaking of which, I received a call from Washington BIS a few days ago, and they asked about Mr. Fang." Brian dropped the news in a non-trivial manner, and as expected, Qi He, the president of YMS across the street, asked.
However, he just talked about it and did not reveal the contents of the phone call.
As the negotiation came to an end, Brian still didn't see Mr. Fang show up, so he finally couldn't help but ask, "Is Mr. Fang very busy today?"
"Mr. Fang went on a business trip to the capital the day before yesterday and it may take two days to come back." Qi He replied, "He attaches great importance to everyone's cooperation and asked me to tell him immediately if I have any new news."
After saying this, he shrugged regretfully: "But everyone does have certain differences, and I haven't reported it to Mr. Fang yet."
Brian felt a little unhappy in his heart. He was still thinking about the game, and you had already left Shanghai.
He kept his expression unchanged and smiled: "Important cooperation always requires patience. Yike does have some troubles this time, but any great company can always recover from difficulties and challenging times and be better than before."
Stronger at any moment, I believe Yike will be such a company."
When Brian saw Qi He on the opposite side nodding, he pondered for a moment and continued: "Since Mr. Fang is busy with work, I hope to chat with Mr. Yu about WLS tomorrow morning. I have some new ideas about WLS."
Qi He said with some embarrassment: "Brian, Mollenkopf is already on the way. If you have new ideas about WLS, it would actually be more constructive to talk to him."
Mollenkopf is the CEO of WLS, and he is the former Qualcomm COO who was poached.
Brian expressed his displeasure this time with a low voice: "I think it would be more meaningful to chat with Mr. Yu."
Even if Mr. Fang doesn’t show up, he must be at the level of Mr. Yu to barely match. Now you just want to kill yourself by doing Mollenkopf? Do you Yike still want to cooperate in wafer manufacturing?
Brian had an idea in his mind, maybe he could release the news that the negotiations between Intel and Yike were not going well, and the stock market would naturally bring him some convincing.
"It's not that I can't chat with Mr. Yu, it's just that Mr. Yu has already made arrangements for his work tomorrow." Qi He had no choice but to reveal the news, "Mr. Yu has arranged a meeting with senior executives from GF tomorrow morning. So, Brian,
Mollenkopf can arrive tonight, and the day after tomorrow, Mr. Yu and Mollenkopf can chat with us."
GlobalFoundries was the only wafer foundry that had contact with Yike when the media previously verified the news.
Brian's expression changed slightly but quickly returned to normal. He smiled and said, "Mr. Qi, you don't think GlobalFoundries is a more suitable partner than Intel? The best wafer manufacturing process on the planet is at Intel."
Qi He nodded: "Indeed, Intel's 14nm process is amazing, and it is also the best partner for our Yike."
Brian looked at the president of Yike YMS across from him with some suspicion.
Qi He continued: "However, GLOBALFOUNDRIES may be a better company worthy of Yike's investment. In addition, BingXin's technology is not bad."
Brian's eyes narrowed. Is Yike buying a stake in GLOBALFOUNDRIES?
And, will the ice core technology be reintroduced to GLOBALFOUNDRIES?
BIS restricts ice cores, so Yike simply found an American foundry company?
He instantly thought of AMD, which was cooperating with Ice Core, and felt disgusted with Ice Core's rush to 16nm regeneration. Ice Core was restricted, but it was waving the technology in its hands everywhere...
