Intel should have spun out their fab in 2009-2010 when the signs were clear: Mobile was taking off, AMD spun out their fab, Intel had missed the boat on mobile CPUs, and Apple had acquired PA Semi and was investing heavily in custom silicon.

High-end fab is a volume game and that was the time frame when Intel was still process competitive and could have competed for Apple's business (and Nvidia's, ...). But that would never happen as a division of Intel, nobody wants to send their designs to a competitor.

Thats such a rear view mirror take. I am not in this industry but it was obvious Intel had a manufacturing advantage back then and this let them be the dominant player in this space for decades. High margins and they were the only game in town for the x86 in most key markets (AMD was just a cover for antitrust cases).

Even 10 years ago Intel was a blue chip stock, saying they should have cannibalized their lead to go into a lower margin market for volume would have gotten you kicked off any executive role.

Imagine being in a boardroom in 2010:

  - You're printing money with 60%+ gross margins
  - You have a 2-3 year process lead over everyone
  - Your R&D budget dwarfs competitors because of your integrated model
  - PC sales are still growing and servers are booming with cloud build-outs
  - Also you are betting that Apple is going all in on your foundry to drive the volume and R&D

You're probably right; either that or beat Qualcomm/Samsung at providing the non-Apple chips. As rafaelmn points out, 2010 may be premature, but by 2015, they should have understood.

How they fiddled and watched Apple take the phones that make a profit; Samsung/Qualcomm provide chips to the rest; and all the hyperscalers make their own arm chips in the data center while doing nothing. Absolutely nothing. Is beyond comprehension.

Meanwhile, (I think Asianometry?) pointed out that Intel's headcount was recently as large as AMD, nVidia, and TSMC combined.