Named CEO of the Year by TIME! Lisa Su: Accelerating AMD's transformation and mastering "such talents" are the most critical

Editor's note: Lisa Su, CEO of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), was selected as the Best CEO of 2024 by TIME, recognizing Su's leadership ability at AMD. Foreign media reported that Lisa Su would hold meetings on weekends and even communicate with employees late at night, expecting their responses. How does Lisa Su lead AMD to turn around its value? The following is a relevant report written by THE INTERN in May.

Since the field of AI has become a battleground for military strategists, AMD (Advanced Micro Devices), a major chip design company, is indispensable as a competitor. The company's stock price soared by 130% in 2023, which, although not as high as NVIDIA's 246%, still occupies an important position in the market. The helm of AMD is none other than Lisa Su from Taiwan Tainan. She is 54 years old and has been CEO for 10 years. She has also created a prosperous era for AMD. Recently, she and NVIDIA CEO  Jensen Huang were both nominated for the U.S. AI Safety and Security Board Members.

In June this year, Lisa Su will be come to Taiwan again to participate in the 2024 Taipei International Information Technology Show (COMPUTEX 2024) and give a speech titled "High-Performance Computing Entering the AI ​​Era." In the past, AMD has been jokingly said by the outside world that "CPUs cannot beat Intel, and GPUs cannot compete with NVIDIA." What skills does this "Tainan daughter" have that can lead AMD to successfully turn around and become the most sought-after CEO in the chip industry?

With his extraordinary academic experience, he breaks through the male power in Silicon Valley and kills everyone.

Lisa Su was born in 1969. She grew up in a highly intellectual family. Her father, Su Chun-hwai, was a mathematician who graduated from Columbia University. Lisa Su immigrated to the United States when she was 2 years old. Most people would call her the "victory group in life" for her subsequent experiences: she first jumped to a top high school, then was admitted to the Department of Electrical Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) at the age of 17, and received a PhD at the age of 25. Generally speaking, it takes about 11 years to complete all the studies from university to master's and doctorate. Lisa Su obtained all the degrees in only 8 years.

After graduation, she worked at Texas Instruments, became the head of IBM's R&D department, was hired as chief technology officer at Freescale Semiconductor, and later served as vice president. In addition, she has made outstanding technical contributions in the semiconductor field. When she was working at IBM, she proposed using copper instead of aluminum for chip wires to increase the chip's transmission efficiency by 20%. At the same time, she also developed a number of best-selling chips. , such as the dedicated chip for the e-book reader Kindle. When she was sitting on these achievements, she was still less than 40 years old, and she was carving a bloody path in Silicon Valley, which was dominated by men in the past.

Challenge management positions, believing that people who study technology are better able to make business decisions

What can lead Lisa Su to continuously break through herself is not just excellence in technical strength. She once delivered a speech at the MIT doctorate awarding ceremony in 2017: "In many business environments, MIT PhD graduates work for Harvard's Master of Business Administration. I think this is unreasonable." She believes that it is precisely because she understands technology so you can make better business decisions.

So she first applied for a management position at IBM, and then started her journey of promotion. She was poached to AMD in 2012, just when AMD was at its most critical moment. In the past, AMD has always been known as the second best company in the market. Its main business is the development of CPU (Central Processing Unit). As early as the early 2000s, the products developed by AMD were actually very popular, but competing Intel (Intel) used business strategies to force them out from time to time. At that time, AMD had great ambitions. In 2006, it merged with the Canadian GPU (graphics processor) manufacturer ATI. It wanted to add GPU to its original CPU advantages and win the market with Dual Wielding.

Unfortunately, AMD had "indigestion" when it swallowed ATI, causing the company's operations to be in danger, and it may be short of cash and unable to repay its debts. In 2008, the manufacturing plant was finally split into an independent company, GlobalFoundries, which held 34% of the shares and signed a wafer supply agreement that tied the two companies together. This makes AMD a fabless semiconductor company like NVIDIA, but it is less flexible in supplier selection. Product market share has also been declining since 2009, and CEOs have been replaced one after another, with the shortest term even lasting only a few months. At that time, AMD was like a mess that everyone was avoiding, but Lisa Su was the only one willing to swim in this muddy water. She wanted to prove her ability to change the company.

Counterattack against Intel in 10 years, not afraid of doubts and focus on research and development

Lisa Su's primary strategy is to shift part of the focus to chips for home game consoles. The threshold for such products is not high and the research and development costs are low. However, because of low profits, there is little willingness to invest in competition. In order to better meet the needs of consumers, Lisa Su also launched "semi-customized" services. This was considered a thankless change at the time, but it also won AMD the Sony PS4 game console, Microsoft Xbox Order.

When she took over as AMD's president and CEO in 2014, AMD's stock price almost fell below 2 yuan. She first made a bold move to turn the main axis back to research and development. In order to concentrate resources, she had to control costs first. She first cut excessive personnel costs and terminated low-profit R&D projects, focusing all her efforts on high-profit businesses. In addition, the production technology of the manufacturing plant GlobalFoundries has been unable to meet AMD's expectations, and the delivery date has been repeatedly delayed, which made her decide to turn to TSMC to cooperate on the 7-nanometer wafer process, allowing AMD to produce smaller and more efficient chips. It is also more competitive than Intel.

What made Lisa Su famous in one fell swoop was AMD's signature "Ryzen processor". However, in the early stages of research and development, it was also questioned whether too much cost was invested in this project, which led to the departure of three senior executives within the company. Some investment institutions predict that AMD will go bankrupt in 5 years.

After facing doubts, Ryzen processors were launched in 2017, which improved performance by more than 50% compared to the previous generation. It was also at this point that AMD began to turn a profit. Looking back at that time, AMD's market capitalization was only US$2 billion, while Intel's was US$180 billion. However, AMD will exceed US$200 billion in 2022, counterattacking Intel. The key to leading AMD's turnaround is Lisa Su's emphasis on R&D. She said that R&D staff have to report to her every day, no matter the situation is good or bad, and she will go to the laboratory to see the employees, "I want them to understand that they The products we are developing are so important to the company."

The world's richest "working queen" leads the way, surpassing Intel and targeting NVIDIA!

According to Forbes, according to statistics in 2023, only 3% of the richest people in the United States are professional managers, and Lisa Su is one of them. She is also the highest-paid female CEO in the world, with a current net worth of $1.3 billion. The industry sometimes jokingly refers to professional managers as "people who work for large companies". If we use the same term, Lisa Su is not only the "Queen of Semiconductors", but also the most profitable "Queen of Workers" in the world!

When Lisa Su took office, some shareholders thought her salary was too high and sued AMD, forcing Lisa Su to accept a salary cut. But now she is able to earn almost ceiling-level remuneration in the salaried class and win the trust of the board of directors. This is all due to her outstanding achievements in leading AMD to break through the chip design market. AMD's market value exceeded the US$300 billion mark in March this year. It has now overtaken Intel, the industry leader at that time, and is now catching up with NVIDIA, another top player in the AI ​​field.

References: Forbes, WSJ, TheStreet, Business Insider, Tom's Hardware, Economist, Yahoo! finance