14 DAY TRIAL // Steve Jobs’ original iPhone could have been powered by an Intel chip, instead of an ARM one, had Paul Otellini (CEO of Intel at that time) followed his gut.
Otellini this week stepped down as CEO from Intel, the American multinational semiconductor chip company he joined in 1974.
In the mid-2000s, Intel and Apple were having discussions about putting a chip in what was to become the iPhone. Steve Jobs had great faith in the device, whereas Otellini was undecided.
“We ended up not winning it or passing on it, depending on how you want to view it. And the world would have been a lot different if we'd done it,” Otellini told The Atlantic.
Seemingly trying to justify his actions from that time, Otellini argued that all this was before anyone even knew what the iPhone would do.
Another factor that contributed to his decision to turn down Apple was the price imposed by the Cupertino giant (likely by Steve Jobs, who was known for his stubbornness).
“At the end of the day, there was a chip that they were interested in that they wanted to pay a certain price for and not a nickel more and that price was below our forecasted cost,” the former Intel CEO revealed.
“I couldn't see it,” he admitted, adding “It wasn't one of these things you can make up on volume. And in hindsight, the forecasted cost was wrong and the volume was 100x what anyone thought.”
Later in the interview Otellini confessed, “The lesson I took away from that was, while we like to speak with data around here, so many times in my career I've ended up making decisions with my gut, and I should have followed my gut. My gut told me to say yes.”