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Intel took care of Wall Street instead, and they have lost comprehensively to TSMC, AMD and Nvidia. And now they have lost Wall Street as well, says Zoho founder.
Zoho founder Sridhar Vembu says AMD and Nvidia’s success illustrates the benefits of long-term investment in skilled engineering talent.
Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu has criticised Intel’s approach to prioritising the Wall Street returns over employee well-being, suggesting this focus contributed to the chipmaker’s decline relative to competitors like Nvidia, AMD, and TSMC.
In a recent post on X (formerly Twitter), Vembu said, “Intel took care of Wall Street instead, and they have lost comprehensively to TSMC, AMD and Nvidia. And now they have lost Wall Street as well.”
He contrasted this strategy with competitors who, he says, thrived by investing in their engineering talent — a nod to people calling him “a socialist” for his critique on layoffs at Freshworks, leaving it to readers to decide if his stance aligns with such a label.
Reflecting on US business practices, Vembu noted, “This was not at all the norm in the US either 50 years ago. US companies became world beaters by taking care of their employees. This private equity and Wall Street-led ‘shareholder first’ world does not work. It won’t even work out well for shareholders.”
You decide: am I a socialist to focus on the most important asset of any company – their own people and their well being?Take Nvidia and AMD. Ultimately they triumphed due to their engineers and crucially the engineers that stayed long term to work on deep tech. Their CEOs are… https://t.co/USPMd4aqIw
— Sridhar Vembu (@svembu) November 8, 2024
He argued that AMD and Nvidia’s success illustrates the benefits of long-term investment in skilled engineering talent, attributing their growth to the vision of their Taiwanese CEOs who focused on talent retention.
Vembu particularly highlighted Taiwan’s semiconductor success, noting TSMC’s rise as a dominant force despite Taiwan’s small population. He criticized what he called the “perversion” of capitalism in today’s US system, where companies chase short-term profits and executive bonuses at the cost of sustainable growth. Pointing to issues like Federal Reserve bailouts and inflated asset valuations, he remarked, “We bet other people’s money and if we win we keep a lot of the gains and if we lose we run to the Fed to bail us out.”
Vembu warned that with CEO pay reaching 500 times the average worker’s wage, the country could be headed toward civil unrest.
Citing last year’s Silicon Valley Bank bailout, he criticized tech leaders for quickly abandoning free-market principles when facing losses. Instead, Vembu advocated for “real capitalism” — one that focuses on employee well-being and long-term company success over short-term financial strategies.
“That is how real capital building works: take care of your employees, your most valuable asset and build long-term successful companies,” he said, describing this approach as both sound business and “our dharma”.
