Today we're going to get a bit personal with Dr. Lisa Su, one of the most consequential leaders in the modern semiconductor era. As the chair and CEO of AMD, Lisa is widely credited with one of the most remarkable turnarounds in Silicon Valley history. We'll explore the journey of a true industry builder, one who broke barriers and redefined success. Lisa is recognized for her strategic clarity, her deep technical acumen as an MIT-educated electrical engineer, and her fierce commitment to innovation. I had the opportunity to work closely with Lisa when she was the GSA chair in 2018 and 2019. During this time, we accomplished two important goals. One was the creation of the GSA Women's Leadership Initiative. Specifically, she championed and personally funded the GSA University program. And the second important accomplishment was the GSA's pivot to encompass software systems, solutions, and services alongside SIMs. And we brought on key leaders from Microsoft, Meta, Google, and Tesla to name a few. You'll have the opportunity to learn about the women behind the decisions, the doubts, the sacrifices, and the moments that shaped her leadership long before the spotlight ever found her.
Lisa, how are you?
Good. It's great to see you and you've had an amazing show here at CES.
It has been a busy week for sure.
Yes. Yes. So, you're a real star here. That is for sure. So, it has been an amazing couple of years for you. I mean, your whole career and journey has been amazing. But the last couple of years you've really, you know, you are a great leader among great leaders and people are really recognizing that. So you have prepared and positioned AMD to be one of the major enablers and benefactors of the AI era and as a result of that you have been named person of the year two times in a row by Time magazine. Okay. I think that you're the only person consecutively to do that.
Well, I would say with a group. Individually in 2024, as a group of AI architects in 2025, right? So, it's, again, very proud of you.
It's really amazing. What is it like to get that phone call and to get it twice and how do you prepare for that? I mean, are you on a short list? Do you know about it?
It's funny that you say that. I can honestly say you don't know. Okay. You don't know. So, you know, when these things come around, as you know, Jody, I don't actually love the spotlight all that much. But we certainly have a lot of passion around AI and what AI can do for the world, for businesses, for people. And so I like talking about AI and I think, you know, I think 2025 was really a year when people started to realize just how impactful it is. And so it's fun to be in a place where you know you're sort of at the center of the technology that is, you know, sort of the most important technology that we've seen in the last 50 years. So yeah, it's very...
So you do talk a lot about innovation and technology and AI. So I appreciate the trust that you've put in me to get a bit personal today.
Yeah, I'm a little worried about that. Let me just say, but let's see. I'll be nice.
But, you know, I think that one of the main reasons that I've decided to do this is because people like you have become true celebrities and people want to know about the celebrities, okay? And they want to know about the people that are really going to impact their lives and impact the world. So, I think it's important. So, again, I really do appreciate, you know, getting an idea of the personal story behind the public success.
Jody, anything for you? Okay. You will see afterwards. Right.
Okay. So, I'm going to start actually with a kind of tough question that I think most people would have a difficult time answering. And how would you introduce yourself if you did not mention anything about AMD or your role or your title? So, who is the real Lisa Su?
Well, you know, I usually describe myself when I'm talking, you know, to someone as, you know, they'll ask me, 'What do you do?' and I say I'm an engineer. Like that's really how I describe myself. That's how I think of myself. You know, over, you know, sort of if I think about everything that I've enjoyed about my career or about, you know, sort of my life, it is, there's so much that revolves around being an engineer and building things and, you know, working on products that come to reality. Now the fact that I'm doing it at AMD and that I'm doing it as a CEO is fantastic and phenomenal. But, you know, when you write on those immigration forms they ask you what is your occupation? I always write engineer.
Okay. Well, it's a much bigger job. How much engineering do you actually get to do?
Not much, I must say. Not much. These days, I mean, we have brilliant engineers. We have 25,000 engineers at AMD. They do all the real hard work. What I get to do is talk to them about strategy, you know, talk about how to think about, you know, sort of our market position and some technical strategy, I would say. Some of the larger decisions, but yes, it's been a long time since I've designed chips, that's for sure.
But I guess at the end of the day, an engineer is someone who solves problems, and my guess is you do a lot of that every single day.
I do enjoy knowing what we're doing. And knowing, helping the team kind of think through, you know, sometimes one of the things about engineers is like you almost have too much information and what I really believe we need to do is simplify to what are we really trying to accomplish, what are the most important things that we're really trying to accomplish and I spend a lot of time thinking about that.
Okay. So give us an idea of some of the experiences, events or people that really impacted the young or the younger Lisa Su and, you know, how it helped shape the leader that you are today. So maybe growing up or even in your, you know, early teens or as a young adult.
Yeah. Well, you know, Jody, my parents immigrated to the United States when I was really young. So I was, you know, three years old. My dad came to the US for grad school and he brought the family. And I think what I really remember influencing, you know, me when I was young is really just my parents and the work ethic and their expectations of what their kids were supposed to do. And this idea of, you know, we're here in the US, this is, you know, the greatest opportunity ever. We want to ensure that, like for my dad it was all about, hey, our kids are going to be great at math and science and so those were the things that we spent time on and I think as you grow up you realize you gravitate to different things and perhaps in my case, like I always had this curiosity about how things worked and so I tell the story about how my brother had his remote controlled car that was going down the hallway and one day it stopped working and I was like, that's really interesting. Why did it stop working? And so we unscrewed it and recognized that there was a wire that had come loose and if we connected back the wire it started working again and that was such an aha moment that you could do these things. So, you know, those are some of the things that I remember. And, you know, I went to school in New York. I went to the Bronx High School of Science with a lot of other geeks and nerds and got a chance to spend a lot of time on, you know, sort of math and science type things.
Were you the smartest person in your class?
Absolutely not. I can tell you for sure. I often felt inferior to the people who were around me. Like I would join the math club and be like, you know, why can't I solve these math problems as fast as these brilliant people around me, but it was very motivational. It was motivational to hang out with really smart people, right?
Yeah. And so when you look back, are any of your classmates in positions like you were in today? I mean, do you keep up with any of them? Track their success?
You know, I keep up with a few of them. I would say in different areas. Some folks have started companies. Others have, you know, sort of gone out of engineering type stuff and gone into finance, you know, type stuff. But yes, there were some, you know, pretty inspirational people in terms of just how smart they were.
Probably the most famous alumni.
I don't know about that, but I would say that, you know, we each went our own ways.
Okay. And your parents just must be so proud. What do they think about your career and how it's gone?
Well, I like to tell the story like, you know, my mom was such an inspirational figure to me. You know, she passed away a few years ago. But what inspired me about her is, you know, she came to the US with my dad, didn't really speak English, you know, really well. Had to learn English, how to bring up a family in a new place and she decided she was going to start her own company. And this was like when we were, you know, maybe in junior high school or so. She decided she was going to start her own company and like that was just amazing. Like just watching her build that company from, you know, just her, it wasn't my dad and her, it was her, and then building up over time to a multi-million dollar company. And so she was doing important export stuff from Taiwan and Asia. And from time to time, you know, when I was growing up or when I was in school, she would say, 'Well, someday, Lisa, you should come take over my company.' And I would say, okay, I mean, you know, like we would talk about some of the things, you know, what customers did. I learned a bit about business that way. And I think it was sometime maybe when I was at AMD or maybe when I became CEO, I think she finally said, 'Well, I guess you're not going to come run my company.' And I said, 'Mom, no problem. We will always be able to talk about your business, but yeah, I have a few things that I need to take care of.'
So did she stay with it even after you were CEO of AMD?
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Actually, I'm actually really proud of what she's built and it's one of those things where you can see just how hard it is, you know, to build something from scratch and make that work. But it's still around and I still check in with the company every once in a while.
So that's very cool. Yeah. I had the opportunity to meet your mom and dad when you won that.
That's right. That's right. Actually, when I won the Morris Chang award, my parents were able to come to the ceremony. By the way, that ceremony meant so much to them.
Oh, that is great. To be there. So, yeah, that's really fun. And you so deserved it that year. I don't know if you remember that was kind of the year of women because you won Morris Chang and that was the first year that we introduced the women's leadership initiative award as well. So it was absolutely a really great night. So okay. So I want to, if you can just sort of highlight a few things in your academic and professional career and maybe walk us through the trajectory and give us some highlights of decisions that you made that you look back on now that are critical to getting you where you are today.
Well, let's see. So as I said, I went to high school at Bronx Science, did a lot of math and science stuff. I ended up going to MIT for undergrad and again showing up at MIT is also a place where there are just a lot of really, really brilliant people and probably one of the most important things that shaped my career is I decided that I needed to get a job because this idea of, you know, I mean, of course my parents took great care of me but this idea like I wanted to have a job and so at MIT there were a lot of undergraduate research opportunities where I mean I think I got paid like $4 an hour or something, something very, very nominal. But my first undergraduate research assignment was in a semiconductor lab. I was actually in Hank Smith's lab at MIT working on X-ray lithography and Jody, I was doing nothing really interesting, like I was taking like little 2-inch wafers and putting them into a reactive ion etcher and pressing the button and coming back an hour later. I was basically a grad student's grunt person. But it was so interesting for me. I was like, 'Oh my goodness, this is like, it was just remarkable.' I would put it on the microscope and look at the little lines. And I think that's what really got me into semiconductors, like this idea that you could do this. And I don't want to say it was kind of random, but it was actually kind of random. Like I could have gotten a job, actually I did do a programming thing on the side and it didn't seem interesting, frankly. Like just being on a computer by yourself didn't seem interesting but being part of a lab and doing experiments and actually seeing research being done is what first got me into semiconductors and throughout my college years like I was not the best student, I mean I was an okay student, I was probably an A-minus student, like I would get some A's, I would get some B's but I was not like the best book smart but put me in a lab and put me with a team and give us a project that had goals and that was like super interesting and that's kind of where I really got interested in being a semiconductor device person.
Okay. Okay. So it's also interesting that you at some point at MIT you worked for Analog Devices.
That's right. That's right.
And you're on the board now. Don't you love that full circle moment?
It was, so again this is very much part of this notion of we wanted to get practical experience and so we had the opportunity to do summer assignments and Analog was right outside of Boston so I could, you know, stay in Boston and just drive out there and yeah I did three summers at Analog. And actually did my master's thesis doing some work at Analog Devices and at that time, you know, again I was very, very, very low on the totem pole but Ray Stata is like such an icon in the industry so it was just I enjoyed being there and then years later meeting Ray and having him ask me to join the Analog Devices board. I'm not on the board now, but I was on the board, you know, for some time was like, 'Wow, you know, that's pretty cool.' And actually, some of the people who supervised my internship were still there in much more senior positions than when I was doing an internship. But that just tells you the longevity in the semiconductor business.
Yeah. You have to pinch yourself thinking that you, you know, meet someone that was probably your hero as a young woman.
Very cool. So, let's move on to AMD. So, you got a phone call from the chair of AMD that said it's time. And so, I want to talk a little bit about this leadership research concept of glass cliff. So when you get the phone call, AMD was not in a great position. It was a very fragile company. I think that, you know, a lot of people felt like whoever became the leader that AMD may not be around in a few years. So when you get that phone call, how do you evaluate? And by the way, glass cliff, which I'm sure you know, is the idea that women get key positions when companies are in crisis. That often sets people up for failure. So, how did you assess whether or not this was a genuine opportunity or if you were being set up? Or by the way, if you even cared if you were being set up, maybe you were so confident that you could make it successful and maybe where did that confidence come from?
