Yes, these folks came out of Intel Labs. But that's also a fabless startup. When you start talking about fabs you're talking about needing real money (in the multi billions of dollars). That kind of funding could only come from the likes of Apple and Nvidia.

They did not come (directly) out of Intel Labs. They left because they were working on a moonshot project that lost corporate support. Just like Ampere computing, just a few years later.