Intel VP: “Everyone needs to step up and adapt to the new rules of the game”
As Intel undergoes a radical global transformation, VP of Wireless Communications Ilan Bressler outlines the new realities informing its next phase and explains why Israel’s speed and ingenuity sit at the core of that reinvention.
“If you need strong and dedicated teams that would deliver your must-not-fail projects… Israel is the place for you to go,” said Ilan Bressler, General Manager and VP of Wireless Communications at Intel. “This is maybe the only place to go. Because it’s in our DNA. It’s what we do.”
Speaking at Startup Nation Central’s MNC Summit 2025 in conversation with Startup Nation Central CEO Avi Hasson, Bressler described Israel not as a peripheral R&D outpost, but as a cornerstone of Intel’s reinvention.
Bressler’s remarks come as the chipmaking giant undergoes one of the most significant resets in its history, a global restructuring that includes the streamlining of business units, renewed commitments to its local operations in Israel alongside higher compensation for staff, and an accelerated push to adopt AI.
Intel’s success in this upheaval, Bressler suggested, hinges on its ability to adapt, a quality he said is characteristic of its teams in Israel and the broader Startup Nation. “There is a combination of ambition and [a] strive for excellence,” he said.
“A culture forged by existential necessity. There are no points for second place…If you tell an Israeli engineer this problem is an unsolvable problem, that can probably be one of the more motivating things you can tell them.”
Bressler recalled a story from 2021, when Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger visited Israel shortly after taking office. “We asked him questions, ‘With this new strategy, what do you need us to do? How can we help?’” Bressler said. “And he was mad at us. He said, ‘If I’m in Israel and you guys are asking me instead of telling me, then I’m in trouble.’”
Reflecting on the learnings from Intel’s current transformation, Bressler said the process is ongoing and profound, requiring everyone to adapt to new rules and complexities.
“The transformation is ongoing,” he said. “It’s ambitious and complex. Everyone needs to step up and adapt to the new rules of the game, even as those rules keep changing.”
He described two fundamental truths shaping that change. The first is the recognition that technological leadership cannot be achieved in isolation.
“Everyone has to accept [that] nobody can work alone, nobody can be the best at everything,” he said. “In order to be successful and keep up, it needs to be partnerships and collaborations… that creates a whole new dimension of opportunities for innovation.”
“Ten years ago, when Intel looked at a company or technology, we thought in a binary way, either interesting acquisition or better to home-grow,” he explained. “Today it’s much richer vocabulary of options… It can be a business deal, it can be a partnership… private equity investment in some future growth area that the company needs help accelerating.”
Second, he continued, is about speed and the uncomfortable fact that most organizations, including Intel, will have to move faster than they think possible. “No company, small or big, can afford not to increase the pace,” Bressler continued. “The need is to find a way to move faster.”
“Whatever you thought you’re doing fast enough is not fast enough,” he emphasized.
Further to that point, Bressler explained that much of Intel’s focus now revolves around how to help its customers and partners thrive within “this brave new world of AI and at the pace that the world is going.”
He described AI as a major technological revolution, but not one to be feared. “When you look at AI being maybe the largest technology revolution since the internet, maybe even bigger, some say, for a technology leader to worry about that, it’s not the right mindset,” he said.
For Intel, Bressler said the company treats AI as a practical layer, another mechanism for solving acute problems and unlocking value-added components across its operations, elaborating on how technology and leadership must adapt to this new environment, particularly when it comes to hybrid teams.
“There is the AI as a tool, right? To me, that’s a prerequisite,” he said. “So if you’re a team leader, and your team is not a hybrid team, meaning both humans and agents, and as a team leader, you constantly worry about not having enough tokens, right, then it means that your team is not in zone, and you won’t be able to keep up, and you eventually fail.”
