>What happened over the 8 years prior was hedge funds and banks had saddled up on Intel stock which was paying healthy dividends due to cost cutting and "coasting"

Not clear about what the role of activist hedge funds is here but Intel's top shareholders are mutual funds like Vanguard which are part of many people's retirement investments. If an activist hedge fund got to run the show, it means that they could get these passive shareholders on their side or to abstain. It would have meant those funds along with pension funds, who should have been in a place to push back against short term thinking, didn't push back. These funds should really be run much more competently given their outsized influence, but the incentives are not there.