LOL. I have had program managers pull this crap on me with respect to a product profitability standpoint. The "product" is profitable, it's just this fabrication thing that is making the company lose money.
Sure, sounds good, but you have to pay for fabrication of the product. If Intel isn't properly charging fab costs (fully loaded fab costs) to the product lines (which I suspect they are not), then you get this "funny money" "rob Peter to pay Paul" accounting where the "product" looks financially good and the other things look horribly bad.
AMD has the fabrication cost of the product built into COGS for the product. TSMC takes care of paying for all the "fully loaded" costs of fabrication in the unit price to AMD.
As I said, Intel has some serious restructuring to do if it hopes to return to anything resembling their previous profit levels.
I suspect that all the information needed to understand the trend was there at Intel in plenty of time; however, human nature is to continue doing what you are already doing the same was as you are currently doing it. This is ESPECIALLY true if you happen to be successful doing it.
I am quite confident if you told an Intel exec 10 years ago that they were on a trajectory to become a take-over target with their current business model, they would have laughed you clear out of the room.
Sadly, these kinds of structural changes are quite difficult in a large company. Lots of "old guard" management everywhere to turn mind share around with..... not to mention developing a proper "Supplier" mentality for the fabrication plant. Intel is awful used to being the bully in the room, not the supplier. It's going to be a tough road IMO.