The Economist—Saturday profile: Lisa Su, chief executive of AMD
The Economist spotlights alumna Lisa Su S.B. ’90, S.M. ’91, PhD ’94, who is the chief executive of the chip maker AMD.
| Photo: Reuters |
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Tech is a man’s world. And nowhere more so than in the part of the industry that churns out the microprocessors that power the world’s devices. Which makes Lisa Su’s achievement even more remarkable: the turnaround of AMD, a once troubled chipmaker based in California. If further proof of the revival were needed, Ms Su, who became the company’s chief executive in 2014, delivered it on July 27th with another set of stellar quarterly results. Compared with a year ago, revenue almost doubled to $3.85bn and net income jumped by 352% to $710m—both records for the firm.
“Great leaders are trained, not born,” she said in a recent interview—a view for which she is an excellent example. Born in Taiwan in 1969, she moved to America as a toddler and grew up playing the piano competitively, but was also good at fixing things. So she ended up studying electrical engineering at MIT and went on to work for several American chipmakers, including 13 years at IBM. “I learned that when I chose something very difficult, and did well, it would give me great confidence for the next challenge,” she explained.
“Run towards problems,” a mentor once told Ms Su, who often wears a black leather jacket when giving speeches at tech conferences, where she is received like a rock star. That was definitely the approach she took when she joined AMD in 2012, which after years of mismanagement was a basket of problems. Once at the helm, she took swift action. She changed the architecture of AMD’s chips, shifted fabrication to TSMC, the world’s biggest semiconductor manufacturer, and focused on selling ones for desktops and laptops.
Ms Su will need all the confidence she can muster for the next challenge. After years in crisis, Intel, AMD’s big Silicon Valley rival, seems to be getting back on its feet under its latest boss Pat Gelsinger, who recently announced an ambitious plan “to fight for every socket”, referring to the slots for processors in a computer. Ms Su replied she would do the same. Historically, at least, a strong AMD has meant a weak Intel, and vice versa. But count on Ms Su to break that rule, too.