Why GlobalFoundries is getting yet another CEO

Earlier today, I reported about Friday's CEO change announcement from GlobalFoundries. The foundry has gone through a massive four CEOs in less than a decade and EE Times speculates former CEO Sanjay Jha either quit or was fired.

The site notes the Mubadala Investment Company, the sole owner of GlobalFoundries, is a tough boss to work for. Perhaps Jha got pushed out for not hitting targets. For example, AMD and IBM are still the foundry's two biggest customers, so far GlobalFoundries has failed to attract any high-value clients.

There may also have been disagreement about the future path of the company. GlobalFoundries is in need of a lot of investment but this looks like a risky venture for Mubadala:

I hope I’m wrong, but it seems like GF is at a critical moment of needing to double down on its investment with thin hopes of a return. It will probably need to do some serious political arm twisting to land a good deal for a Fab 9. It also may need to convince one or more top tier fabless companies to join them to create what would be a pretty risky venture to build one of the last big CMOS fabs.

I don’t know the new GF CEO, Tom Caulfield, though I heard him speak once. As a former head of IBM's East Fishkill fab and a COO, at least briefly, for two chip startups, I’m sure he’s a super smart guy. But I don’t see anything in his resume about wrangling financing out of U.S. government types or cutting major deals with fabless companies.

Maybe the site is reading too much into this, but it could be that the appointment of Tom Caulfield as the firm's new CEO means we can expect a different future. Guess we'll have to wait and see.