Gelsinger is by far the most technical CEO Intel has had in some time.
Key architect of the 386 - which bailed out the 432 failure, post 286
Chief architect of the 486
Key technical leader of the CPU group, then company CTO, until they pushed him out during the Larrabee program
When he returned, he wanted to recreate a Grove-ian culture, which is good prima facie, but ignores many past realities that no longer exist.
Intel was one of about 4 groups developing CPUs in the 80s and 90s: Intel, IBM, DEC, Motorola. Now, Apple, Arm, Amazon, AMD, nVidia, Google, MIPs, and a bevy of RISC-V startups all compete for CPU design talent. Each are "sexier" than Intel in some form or fashion,
In the late 1990s to around 2014, Intel was 1.5-2 generations ahead of all other companies in process technology. That allowed them to develop higher performing, lower power, lower area CPUs than any of the competitors.
Intel had superior microarchitectures to all competitors - and this is largely due to #1 and #2.
Intel played hardball with the box movers (Dell, HP, etc.) when those companies entertained alternatives (AMD, VIA, Transmeta, Cyrix).
None of those advantages exist today. I suggest that Intel succeeded despite Grove's approaches and processes, not because of them. Or his approaches helped manage a complex and growing organization that benefitted from competitive advantages. Bringing back Grove's OKR approach to program and people management was not going to solve the problems, but it sounded good.
IMO, focusing on fixing the FABs/process was the right approach. Client market share was eroding to AMD and Apple. Server share was eroding to AMD, Arm, and the vertical integrators. GPU has always been second and third tier (to nVidia, AMD/ATI, imagination, S3). Some of that market erosion is b/c of FAB problems. Get that fixed, get external customers to the fab, AND get subsidies for on-shoring of semiconductor supply chain. Profit. I think they planned as if 2021 levels of revenue would persist through 2024 - and the CFO often noted "this was not in our models" in quarterly earnings discussions - not good.
I believe Gelsinger was pushed out once the CHIPs check cleared. The market has punished this decision to the tune of $10B since an intraday high of $25 yesterday, closing at $22.47 today.