AMD CEO Lisa Su Isn’t Afraid of the Competition

Last week, some of the most forward-thinking minds in tech, culture, and politics came together for WIRED’s Big Interview event—a series of live, in-depth conversations with industry leaders. To kick off the event, Lauren Goode sat down with AMD’s CEO Lisa Su. In this episode of Uncanny Valley, hosts Michael Calore and Lauren sit down to discuss the key ideas that came up during the interview, as well as the other conversations that caught everyone’s attention during the event. Articles mentioned in this episode: - AMD CEO Lisa Su Says Concerns About an AI Bubble Are Overblown - Can AI Look at Your Retina and Diagnose Alzheimer’s? Eric Topol Hopes So - San Francisco Mayor Daniel Lurie: ‘We Are a City on the Rise’ - Watch the Highlights From WIRED’s 2025 Big Interview Event Right Here You can follow Michael Calore on Bluesky at @snackfight, Lauren Goode on Bluesky at @laurengoode, and TK on Bluesky at @TK. Write to us at uncannyvalley@wired.com. How to Listen You can always listen to this week's podcast through the audio player on this page, but if you want to subscribe for free to get every episode, here's how: If you're on an iPhone or iPad, open the app called Podcasts, or just tap this link. You can also download an app like Overcast or Pocket Casts and search for “uncanny valley.” We’re on Spotify too. Transcript Note: This is an automated transcript, which may contain errors. Michael Calore: Hey Lauren, how you doing? Lauren Goode: Mike, I've been pondering the word tape. Michael Calore: Because we're taping a podcast? Lauren Goode: Because we say we're taping a podcast. Michael Calore: Sure. Lauren Goode: I don't think the kids know what that means. Michael Calore: I mean, they may know what it means in the abstract, but I don't think they've had the visceral experience of actually recording something onto tape. Lauren Goode: Onto tape and rewinding the tape. Be kind, rewind, all of that. Michael Calore: Yep. Lauren Goode: No, so I guess we're supposed to say we're recording a podcast now. Michael Calore: Recording works. Lauren Goode: Recording. Yeah. Michael Calore: Yeah. It's like when people say, let me film that. You're not actually filming anything. You're shooting a digital video. Lauren Goode: So then if you have a video podcast, are you shooting the podcast? What do you say? Do you say taping, then? Michael Calore: I think you say recording because it just— Lauren Goode: Recording the pod. Michael Calore: Yeah. Lauren Goode: We're recording the pod. Michael Calore: It covers all the bases. Lauren Goode: We're capturing it. Michael Calore: That's what we're doing. Lauren Goode: We're sublimating it. All right. Well, should we record this pod? Michael Calore: I would like to, yes. Lauren Goode: Let's do it. Michael Calore: Honestly, I'm still recovering from last week's Big Interview event. My throat is still feeling a little bit raw, even though it's been like four or five days. Lauren Goode: You sound delightful to me. Michael Calore: Thank you. Lauren Goode: But that really was an epic event. Michael Calore: It was. Lauren Goode: Yeah. Michael Calore: You were on stage. Lauren Goode: I was. I was first up in the morning. Katie, our boss, gave the intro to the conference and then it was me and Lisa Su, the CEO of AMD. And not only was it a really interesting conversation, but then I was done for the day. I didn't have to do any more interviews after that. And I just got to listen and absorb, and there were some other really great talks. Michael Calore: There were, yes. And we're going to talk through some of them. We're also going to listen to your conversation with Lisa Su, and then we'll talk about it, and we'll take listeners behind the scenes of The Big Interview. Lauren Goode: Let's take them behind the curtain. Michael Calore: Let's do it. This is WIRED's Uncanny Valley, a show about the people, power, and influence of Silicon Valley. Today, we're breaking down the key conversations that went down at our Big Interview event in San Francisco last week. Since last year, WIRED has hosted this space where the most forward-thinking innovators, whether they're in tech, politics, science, or culture, have in-depth conversations with us that go beyond the headlines. This year, the lineup included Anthropic's cofounder, Daniela Amodei, scientist and author of Super Agers, Eric Topol, and Wicked's director, Jon M. Chu, among many others. We'll dive into what ideas caught our attention the most, which ones we're skeptical about, and what these conversations tell us about the future of the industries that shape our lives. I'm Michael Calore, director of consumer tech and culture. Lauren Goode: And I'm Lauren Goode. I'm a senior correspondent. Michael Calore: Lauren, before we hear your conversation with AMD's Lisa Su, it is worth saying that this is not your first time speaking with her. Can you share a bit about her background and how your previous reporting informed this conversation that you had with her at Big Interview? Lauren Goode: I first got to know Lisa Su in person earlier this year. I had the opportunity to go down to Texas where AMD has offices and labs, and that's where Su spends most of her time. And we not only spoke for a big magazine piece that I was working on for WIRED, but she gave me a tour around some of the testing facilities that they have there. So I got to see the chips they make being put through their paces in these labs. Also had this really fun opportunity at one point where we were all traveling in separate cars around, the labs are in the rolling hills of Austin, and so we had to drive between the labs. And at one point she turned to me and she said, "Do you want to come in my car?" And I said, "Of course I do." So it was me, her, her driver, and her bodyguard, and normal day for me. And we just had an in depth conversation about AI and the news and what she's focused on. And we've shared some personal anecdotes about dealing with the healthcare system, but she really is a pretty remarkable CEO. She was born outside of the United States. She was born in Taiwan in 1969, moved to Queens, New York at a very young age, was raised there. Her father worked for this city as a statistician. Her mother was an accountant who later became an entrepreneur. And then Su's background is in electrical engineering. She went to MIT. I tried reading her thesis, her PhD thesis, because she is Dr. Lisa Su, and boy was that just—go straight over my head. I actually sent it to someone who's an electrical engineer and said, "Could you help me parse this?" Michael Calore: So she's super smart— Lauren Goode: Super smart. Michael Calore: And she runs one of the biggest chip companies in the world. Lauren Goode: Yeah. Yeah. And then she made her way up through various semiconductor companies. And then she landed at AMD in 2012 and about 18 months later, became CEO. Michael Calore: Wow. Lauren Goode: And she has executed what is widely acknowledged to be a remarkable 10-year turnaround of that company. AMD was on the brink of bankruptcy in the early 2000s. Since 2014, when she took over as CEO, the company's market cap has risen from around $2 billion to nearly $360 billion. Michael Calore: It's not bad. Lauren Goode: It's pretty good. Now, the juxtaposition there, though, is of course Nvidia. People always ask about Nvidia. And Nvidia is a $4 trillion company now and it's a company that's widely recognized as having smartly foreseen the AI revolution and pivoted its business to focus on AI GPUs. And Nvidia still has the overwhelming share of the GPU market. AMD makes both CPUs based on the x86 architecture, but they also have this AI GPU and AI accelerator business, and they have a fast-growing data center business. And so what we're seeing in the chip market broadly right now is all of these different chip makers, whether it's a company that started out making chips, like an AMD or Nvidia, or whether it's a giant hyperscaler or cloud company, like Google or Amazon, now getting in the game and making chips. Everyone wants a chip. Everyone wants to make a chip, and this is what's really powering the AI revolution. So we had a lot to talk about on stage. I was frankly bummed to be limited to 25 minutes with her. I may have gone over by just a few, and I just always really enjoy talking to Lisa. Michael Calore: All right then. We're going to listen to the conversation that you had. It's a slightly condensed version of your conversation, but let's give it a listen. Lauren Goode: Dr. Lisa Su. Lisa Su: It's wonderful to be here, Lauren. Thank you for having me. Lauren Goode: Thank you so much for being here. We're so excited. I should note for everyone that Lisa revealed to be backstage, that she's already been up and boxed this morning at approximately 5:00 AM. So I think you're ready to go. Lisa Su: I am ready to go. Lauren Goode: All right. Lisa Su: Are you guys ready to go? Lauren Goode: Is everyone ready to go? Lisa Su: All right. Lauren Goode: All right. Welcome to San Francisco. You spend a lot of time in Texas. It's where your home base is. Lisa Su: Yes. Lauren Goode: So you're traveling around a lot these days. I think it's safe to say that there's a vibe in San Francisco right now, and I think that's due, in large part, to AI. Would you agree with that? Lisa Su: I would absolutely agree with that. I mean, the talent and the energy and the innovation that has come into San Francisco has definitely just accelerated over the last 12, 18 months, and it's wonderful to see. Lauren Goode: Which leads me to the question, are we in a bubble? Lisa Su: Let's start with: Are we in the bubble? And I will say, Lauren, emphatically, from my perspective, no. If we take a step back and you look at where we are in AI today, it sounds like something that people say, but it's something that I truly believe. AI is the most transformative technology of my career, of my lifetime. I mean, you can see the power of the technology, and we're so early in the usage of it. So I find it really interesting when people ask, "Are we in a bubble?" I'm like, "We haven't even gotten started yet." The amount of progress that we've made in the last couple of years has been wonderful, but we're still at the very early innings of seeing what AI can do and how it can really enhance productivity, how it really changes businesses, how it really changes the way we think about science and healthcare and all of those reasons. I think we are still so early in the cycle and it's a really, really exciting time for me, personally, because every day you see something new and you learn something new and that's why it's so exciting to be in tech. Lauren Goode: Do you think that the concerns, then, about it being a potential bubble are totally overstated? I mean, you have to understand, in a sense, why people might be looking at this and looking at the immense amounts of capital that are being invested right now into AI and wonder about this. Lisa Su: I do think the concerns are somewhat overstated and that's probably because we're not used to bets this big. And it is true, the types of bets that you're seeing in AI for the largest hyperscalers in the world, for the largest technology companies in the world, for companies like ourselves, we are making much bolder and bigger bets because of where we are in the AI cycle and the power that we have. But I think what people are underestimating is the fact that there is so much demand for technology that the underlying health of the ecosystem is really, really strong. I mean, there's tremendous free cash flow being generated by the largest hyperscalers. There's a tremendous demand for technology and the macro is actually really quite strong as well. And so when you add those things together, you say, "Yes, are we investing big?" Yes, we are, but we are investing big at the right time because of the technology capability. And you have to assume that the people who are running these companies are very rational, smart people. Lauren Goode: You assume a lot. Lisa Su: Oh, come on, Lauren, really? Lauren Goode: Present company excluded, you assume a lot. Let's unpack the demand aspect of this. I had a feeling that you were going to say that. Incredible amount of demand. You've said that before. The leaders of companies like Microsoft, Nvidia, everyone's talking about the immense amount of demand for AI. Unpack that a little bit. What does that actually look like? Who's demanding it? What are they demanding it for? Is this enterprise? Is this customers? Lisa Su: Yeah, I think you see it in several aspects. When we first started, if you were to go back two years ago or even 12 months ago, I think there was a lot of demand for training models. People were trying to figure out, and even today, we're trying to figure out, hey, who's going to have the best model? We've certainly seen a lot of new innovation in that area. But I think what's really driving demand today is just AI usage. People are asking AI to do more. They're asking more questions. They are putting together more complex tasks. There's more in terms of agents that are doing work. And with that demand, what we're seeing is that there's just not enough computing power that's installed today. So in a sense, the way I like to tell the analogy is if you equate computing use with using AI to intelligence and you're running a company, why wouldn't you want to have more intelligent capability? And for that reason, the investment is justified, but it takes time. There's a lag between when you want the computing capability and when you actually have it. Lauren Goode: I guess I wonder if it's more of a top-down effect right now that's happening where tech companies, hyperscalers, chip makers are saying, "No, there is demand," versus bottom-up where it's actually the consumers and the clients who are saying, "No, we want this power." Is it an element of if we build it, they will come? Lisa Su: No, I think there really is real demand from the standpoint of there are so many more things that we would want to do if there was more computing capability out there. And I think you hear that from just being in the trenches. The way I view it is, I spend a lot of time with our top customers, the top thought leaders in the area. And every conversation is like, yes, it's great where AI is today, but we know it's not yet good enough. We know that there's more innovation that can be done. From a very personal standpoint, when we look at AI within AMD, we've made significant progress using AI within AMD, but I know that it can do more. And the idea of unlocking more capability in terms of building better chips, higher quality, lower cost, really automating that whole process, which is still so early. Lauren Goode: When you look at the competitive landscape right now, who keeps you up at night? Lisa Su: When I look at the landscape right now, what keeps me up at night is how d