That was the headline of the cover story in the April 1st 1986 internal Intel newsletter during the worst hit the US semiconductor industry ever took, losing 27,000 jobs, 13 per cent of the electronics jobs in Silicon Valley and $2 billion in earnings in two years.
.The story is told in Leslie Berlin's book about Intel co-founder Bob Noyce called 'The Man Behind the Microchip'.
In 1985, the Japanese world semiconductor market share overtook the US market share for the first time and, around that time, it was rumoured that Fujitsu would buy Fairchild.
In 1986 Intel lost $173 million, the first time it had lost money since going public in 1971. Intel cut 28 per cent of its employees, 7,200 people, that year.
Berlin writes: "Intel was in such trouble that several times its senior managers met in Noyce's living room to discuss a topic no one wanted to contemplate: 'How to shut down Intel if it comes to that'."
Noyce told a reporter: "We're in a death spiral', predicting that Silicon Valley might become a "wasteland" and, that same year, to a group of European reporters, of which I was one, Noyce asked rhetorically, and memorably: "What do they expect me to do? Take in Japanese laundry?"
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