In an interview with Norway’s sovereign wealth fund, AMD CEO Dr. Lisa Su shared her views on current company performance, the industry as a whole, and the importance of employee productivity. During the period, she also shared some interesting experiences during her work, such as how she liked the feeling of getting a new product for the first time. In addition, Lisa Su explained that working at AMD is very appealing to her because the company has always been at the forefront of technology development.
Su Zifeng expresses pride in all AMD products
Su Zifeng even talked about her own childhood, revealing that her parents’ attention to science and engineering played a big role in shaping her interest. With the encouragement of her parents, Su Zifeng actively received education on these topics and believes that everyone can work together to change the world.
As for the strategic shift at AMD, the executive highlighted some of the big decisions she made as CEO, including focusing her business on products, analyzing which technologies are at inflection points, and building strong relationships with customers.
Su Zifeng also delved into the philosophy of communication, which involves repeating the desired goals, decisions and steps over and over again. In addition, she also launched an inside-out analysis of the rise of Taiwan as a global semiconductor manufacturing center.
"It can be seen that with the increasing complexity of manufacturing, companies need to invest heavily in chip production to achieve this. However, the wisdom of Taiwan is that practitioners understand this early on, thereby maintaining its long-term advantage. Su Zifeng is also optimistic that AMD is committed to long-term markets such as high-performance and adaptive computing, and that the demand for related businesses will maintain steady growth over time. If you want to survive in this industry with only a few players but extremely competitive industry, the key is how to differentiate your own products from competing products and how to increase added value."
For engineers, one of the main benefits of working at AMD is that they can have a huge impact on the technology industry, even if the company is not the largest in the industry.
According to Su, making everyone proud of their work and focusing on making technology meet customer needs is a key to managing the company’s workforce.
AMD also has its own considerations for the geopolitical situation that has been frequently brought to the table in recent years. Lisa Su said:
"On the one hand, as a U.S. business, the company is well aware of some national security concerns. On the other hand, AMD is very focused on doing business in a globalized market and has a large number of partners around the world. Frankly, AMD has people all over the world, and we've worked really hard to try and strike a balance between the different parts of the company. At least at this stage, we still believe that this is the best way to operate for AMD."
At the end of the day, it’s clear that developing great products requires a long-term goal and consistent effort.
In the case of the Zen architecture CPUs, for example, AMD began five years ago to focus on becoming a leader in the field by setting step-by-step goals and measuring its progress.
AMD is known for its philosophy that “no one is perfect and no company is perfect”. But engineers focused on their long-term projects can still learn from each effort and strive to do better the next time.
