There are few companies more influential to the birth and growth of ubiquitous computing than Intel. It has been the market leader in central processing units (CPUs) for nearly half a century, but over the past 20 years, its dominance has been gradually slipping. Then, on August 2, 2024, it announced its latest earnings report, and its stock plunged by over 25% in a day.

While modern equity markets are notoriously short-termist and irrational, one look at the report explains the reaction. The company swung from a profit to a net loss of $1.6 billion and announced that it was cutting 15% of its workforce. CEO Pat Gelsinger explained: “Our revenues have not grown as expected, and we’ve yet to fully benefit from powerful trends, like AI. Our costs are too high, our margins are too low.”