Intel were top dog for several years, and were able to continue making huge profits while only making small, incremental improvements.
End users lamented the lack of real improvements, but Intel continued to sit on their laurels because it was the easy thing to do - they simply didn't need to do anything drastic. Which it pretty sad - with different leadership with technical vision, who knows where computing power would be today? But that's business...
Intel took it too far though, and didn't seem to see AMD catching them up in their rearview mirror. IMO it serves them right, and I'm so happy there is a underdog challenger that is outpacing them in so many areas. The desktop I bought last year has an AMD processor - the first in my household in many years, but hopefully not the last.
Complacency