The war on chips is still going on. Intel has brought back Shlomit Weiss right under NVIDIA’s nose. Exclusive interview conducted by Geektime, Weiss shares why she quit the first time and the reasons that has brought the former employee back…
The fight to control the Israeli chips market took a new twist back in March after Uri Frank, who is a top ranking Executive in Intel Global, surprisingly stepped off his post. This was just two weeks after he was appointed to the role of Corporate Vice President. The Frank story wasn’t all that exciting when this Israeli tech veteran resigned from Intel for Google as the head of the brand new centre for chip design and development in Israel.
Intel does, however, show that it is able to play the poaching game of executives as well. Intel has hired Shlomit Weiss back into the ranks after four years at NVIDIA. Weiss is now co-general manager of the Design Engineering group alongside Sunil Shenoy who worked with Weiss previously.
29 years with Intel and 4 years at Mellanox became NVIDIA
Shlomit Weiss was a graduate of Technion in 1989. She then began her work at Intel’s Chip Development division, as an assistant manager. For the past 28 many years Weiss rose through the ranks of Intel and eventually became one of the few women in history to run a cluster along with other prestigious awards. In her role, Weiss oversaw development of Sandy Bridge and Skylake processors which were installed in millions of devices across the globe.
“After nearly 28 years of working, I was in search of an opportunity to change and discovered the opportunity within Mellanox,” explains Weiss in an interview with Geektime. “There I was introduced to the realm of hardware engineering and headed an entire team that worked on developing silicon components that were used in communications.” In the year 2019 Mellanox was bought from NVIDIA in a deal worth $6.9 billion. It is clear that the move was not smooth for Weiss He says: “It took a while before we were rebranded as NVIDIA however, after completely moving, I realised it was time to make an overhaul.”
Do you feel as if you reached the peak? Or was it the NVIDIA integration the reason that prompted you to quit?
Weiss: “It’s a combination of both. My infrastructure after an NVIDIA integration was not as exciting. I was certain that I wouldn’t be able to have fun in the new role, so it’s essential for me to feel the excitement.”
Returning to Intel, Weiss will take the post of Senior Vice President Co-GM Design Engineering. With another Intel talent who has returned from exile -Sunil Shenoy. Sunil Shenoy. “I’ve been acquainted with Sunil in previous roles, and we were close friends. He reached out to me after taking the new job and asked me if I was keen,” says Weiss. “Two days after that, Pat Gelsinger offered me the job, and explained the significance and importance of the job… This seemed to get more thrilling. I immediately decided that this was the perfect opportunity to be a part of something interesting.”
The defector who’s brought back the other defectors
Weiss isn’t the only Intel employee to shine insight into the new energy that Gelsinger has brought to the company. This is a good thing considering that Intel has been devastated to the core over the last few years with two CEOs resigning as well as delays in product launches and inferior technology in comparison to its competitors, and the dropping customers who are glamorous such as Apple and others. Ran Berenson, who took over from Uri Frank when he left the ship to Google in the past, stated to Geektime In an exclusive interview, Gelsinger is keen for Intel to outdo its rivals across all industries. Gelsinger who is a 30 year veteran of Intel was also a returnee to the company following his departure to EMC and taking over the role of CEO at VMWare.
If I inquire with Weiss whether she would like to return to the same organisation in which she believed she had reached her peak she says that now is a completely different company. “The challenges as well as the opportunities ecosystem is completely distinct.”
It is likely that the defections in Israeli tech will not stop in the near future. Frank and Weiss and Weiss, with the former saying that there is a reason why the Israeli technology market is “so current and hot” and is leading to new and exciting opportunities. “In the U.S it’s not a big deal to switch between companies isn’t an issue, but in Israel it’s quite the reverse.” She says there’s an “insane” market of opportunities in the market and it’s not just for CEOs.
They are executives, juniors and executives alike. are the prize that Intel, Facebook, and Google are fighting for. All three companies, together with the other players in this market, are expanding (like Intel’s massive campus) or establishing R&D centres and chip research in Israel. It’s likely that we’ll be hearing more often about individuals who move from one place to another.
