But it’s not because of any shame or regret as the venture capital market plumbs depths not seen in a decade. Vadasz, 66, retires this month, 35 years after co-founding Intel and 12 years after setting up its pioneering venture investment vehicle, Intel Capital. His legacy: a portfolio of some 475 companies, valued at $870 million. Like its high-tech peers Cisco Systems and IBM, Intel makes strategic investments that promote its core business. In May, for example, the Santa Clara, Californiabased semiconductor giant took an undisclosed stake in ru-Net Holdings, a Russian developer of software for computers powered by Intel chips. Despite the technology crash, which forced the likes of Lucent Technologies and Vodafone to retreat from venture investing, Intel has stayed committed even as its portfolio valuation has plummeted from a 2000 peak of $10.8 billion. Vadasz, who is planning to go on a lecture tour in the fall and devote time to a family foundation that makes educational and scientific grants, worries less about Intel Capital than about U.S. telecommunications policy. “Our government has no idea how to get fiber to the home,” he complains. “In the rate of deployment of broadband, we are becoming a third world country.”
