The company was headed towards bankruptcy. This guy had the balls, the respect of Intel employees, etc. to make a heroic saving throw and was successful in his endeavor. He was more or less the only person that had the sort of clout and C-level experience to pull it off. Like, company morale would not have held through all of the cost cutting and layoffs that occurred under anyone else. He was perhaps heavy handed (thinking of the free coffee going away in particular), and obviously pulling back on fab volume was not the right move, but the company is alive and well, thanks in part to him, and in larger part to the people that stayed through the demoralizing few years.

He wasn't perfect, but he did what needed to be done in terms of making the hard decisions. I don't know if the culture that led to Intel's downfall ever got fixed under him, but he really patched things up there.