Time names AMD boss Lisa Su the CEO of the year

[midian182]

What just happened? Few could have predicted at the start of 2024 that Intel boss Pat Gelsinger would be forced out of Intel while Lisa Su is crowned CEO of the year. Intel's misfortunes over the last 12 months (and longer) are in stark contrast to AMD's success, which has been driven by Su's leadership.

Time notes that AMD's stock price has increased 50-fold in the decade since Su took over. She arrived at a firm in debt that had fired 25% of its staff, sold and leased back its Austin office, and spun off its expensive chip factories.

The company's fortunes really turned around following the launch of the first Zen architecture in 2017, but the most significant milestone came in February 2022 when AMD's market cap surpassed that of CPU rival Intel for the first time ever.

Team Red's brand value has also been climbing. Kantar BrandZ's formula for determining this value placed AMD in 41st position this year, above Intel, Disney, Samsung, and Xbox.

AMD still lives in the shadow of Nvidia when it comes to graphics cards and AI accelerators, but it has been dominating sales in the consumer processor market recently. Zen 5 was pretty underwhelming, though not as disappointing as Arrow Lake, but then the mighty AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D arrived as the new gaming king.

Almost 90% of the motherboards sold by German retailer Mindfactory during the Black Friday sales were AMD boards, and the US Amazon sales charts for both mobos and CPUs are a red wave. AMD has also gained its highest-ever share in the Steam survey's processor section.

With AMD responsible for most of the custom chips inside today's consoles and handhelds and its increasing share in a multitude of other areas, it's understandable why Time gave Su the honor. Is she a born leader?

"I don't believe leaders are born. I believe leaders are trained," Su said in an extensive interview with the publication.

Not everything has gone AMD's way this year. Bank of America downgraded the company's stock from Buy to Neutral this week, citing competition in an AI chip industry dominated by Nvidia, as well as weakening PC sales.

In 2021, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, Su's cousin, appeared on the cover of Time magazine after being named one of the most influential people of the year. His image had a less AI-generated look than Su's, ironically.

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Time names AMD boss Lisa Su the CEO of the year

 

[Felusy]

GPU division needs improvement.

 

[godrilla]

GPU division needs improvement.

Let's see how they deliver on their promise on flooding the market with 9800x3ds next quarter that everyone is hyped about as well as 8800XT competition to the midrange at the price everyone is hoping for.

 

[yRaz]

Let's see how they deliver on their promise on flooding the market with 9800x3ds next quarter that everyone is hyped about as well as 8800XT competition to the midrange at the price everyone is hoping for.

Right? Everyone says they need a new product, they're releasing a better one shortly and nVidia hasn't even released their new cards yet. What do they want AMD to do? They whole reason we didn't get a 7X50 refresh is that they acknowledged the issue they had with the MCD/MCM/MCU, whatever people want to call it, and said they were just going to rebuild it from the ground up. The 8800XT could end up being the defining card of this generation and people will still complain AMD doesn't have a 4090 competitor. Well, honda doesn't compete with Lamborghini. Noone is saying "don't buy a lamborgini" but people shouldn't complain when a Civic doesn't go faster than an Aventador.

I remember "in the old days" where every single generation was almost a necessary. Now, graphics have been good enough for long enough that there aren't really revolutionary graphics improvements. We have Ray Tracing, which most people's favorite thing about is that you can turn it off if you want better FPS. With 120hz becoming the new 60hz, I think it will be another 2 generations before raytracing enters the midranged.

Hardcore gamers have to be some of the most toxic people. They want everything now and they want everyone to do what they say. Meanwhile, they're responsible for the state of the games industry with micro transactions and the increase in graphics cards. If they weren't buying from scalpers then "the rest of us" wouldn't be paying ridiculous prices now. The GPU shortage showed manufacturers that they were leaving money on the table and now we have $2000+ 4090s instead of $1200 titans.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Right? Everyone says they need a new product, they're releasing a better one shortly and nVidia hasn't even released their new cards yet. What do they want AMD to do?

Release competitive products.

They whole reason we didn't get a 7X50 refresh is that they acknowledged the issue they had with the MCD/MCM/MCU, whatever people want to call it, and said they were just going to rebuild it from the ground up. The 8800XT could end up being the defining card of this generation and people will still complain AMD doesn't have a 4090 competitor. Well, honda doesn't compete with Lamborghini. Noone is saying "don't buy a lamborgini" but people shouldn't complain when a Civic doesn't go faster than an Aventador.

The problem with your analogy is that Honda didnt release a Lamborghini competitor then follow it up with a Civic. The 8800xt wont be the defining card, AMD has already said they are dropping out of the high end this generation, and all signs point to the 8800xt being a 7900GRE with maybe better RT.

I remember "in the old days" where every single generation was almost a necessary. Now, graphics have been good enough for long enough that there aren't really revolutionary graphics improvements. We have Ray Tracing, which most people's favorite thing about is that you can turn it off if you want better FPS. With 120hz becoming the new 60hz, I think it will be another 2 generations before raytracing enters the midranged.

Hardcore gamers have to be some of the most toxic people. They want everything now and they want everyone to do what they say. Meanwhile, they're responsible for the state of the games industry with micro transactions and the increase in graphics cards. If they weren't buying from scalpers then "the rest of us" wouldn't be paying ridiculous prices now. The GPU shortage showed manufacturers that they were leaving money on the table and now we have $2000+ 4090s instead of $1200 titans.

You ever notice that the people who cry about "toxicity" are always the ones who either cannot afford to play or dont want to? Like, the "hardcore gamurz" with their 4090s are out playing games on their 4090s instead of whining on forums all day.

Since we brought up cars: it's like the truck scene. It's not the F-150 bros or the silverado chads that bring out the worst toxicty and anger. It's the small truck owners, the ones with tacomas or, more recently, the maverick, that have an axe to grind about how they're totes secure and they dont need size enhancers and blah blah blah. You pose ANY criticism of the maverick on their forums and they go absolutely bonkers.

MTX isnt the fault of the "hardcore" either. It got started, and pulls most of its money, from the mobile space, the exact opposite of "hardcore", or from esports titles that sell skins, which you can run on a potato.

I'm sorry us high end PC owners would ike AMD to continue competing instead of leaving the market (again), but I guess we'll have to go back to just nvidia. Shame, I like my 6800xt and would have loved a 8900xtx, assuming the gap was the same as the 6900-7900xtx gap, but AMD has decided we are not worth the effort. So I guess RTX 5080/ti/5090 it is.

 

[Ashford]

Well deserved for the turnaround she led.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Well deserved for the turnaround she led.

I remember when AMD was down to $1.67 per share, had no CPUs in the pipeline, and was a year from bankruptcy. My how times change.

 

[Endymio]

Release competitive products.

Hear, hear. Let's face facts: Time wanted a woman CEO, period. And while Su's been a better head than Read or Meyer, the fact remains she mostly looks impressive not because of her own decisions, but simply by contrast with Intel's even worse ones.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

Hear, hear. Let's face facts: Time wanted a woman CEO, period. And while Su's been a better head than Read or Meyer, the fact remains she mostly looks impressive not because of her own decisions, but simply by contrast with Intel's even worse ones.

Hmmmm.....I dont agree. Lisa took AMD when they were losing hundreds of millions of dollars a quarter and made them not only profitable, but stole the performance crown from intel for the first time since 2005. AMD went from the garbage that was the construction core to ZEN!

And while intel has been asleep at the wheel, there have been some moves. Rocket lake had a 20% increase in IPC over skylake and alderlake was a further 20 ish percent improvement over Rocket lake. Arrow lake, while not taking the crown back in gaming, made huge improvements to perf/watt and has a fierce game of tug-of-war on the productivity side.

Despite this, AMD has maintained consistent improvements to their CPUs, has dominated the DIY market (which is still worth several billion $$$, despite outcry), and has maintained the consumer performance lead, especially with x3d.

this also doesnt account for EPYC, AMD was totally out of the server and workstation market for over half a decade, and frankly it'd been almost 15 years since they had any sort of presence. EPYC has reversed that from scratch, and that is a huge, lucrative industry. AMD now sits at a 25% market share, capturing 33% of the market's revenue. That's huge, and is the reason AMD is so profitable today. And of course honorable mention to maintaining a grip on 2/3rds of the console race for 2 generations now.

Radeon is having problems, but the rest of AMD is doing frankly fantastic. I think she deserves her place, nobody else could figure out how to wrangle AMD into a sensible position.

 

[Endymio]

Hmmmm.....I dont agree. Lisa ...stole the performance crown from intel for the first time since 2005. AMD went from the garbage that was the construction core to ZEN!

But that steal came primarily because TSMC's manufacturing buzzed ahead orders of magnitude ahead of Intel, which spent a decade at 14nm. Sure, Su erased the Bulldozer debacle -- that was hardly rocket science, though. And had Intel not stumbled through a monumentally egregious series of misteps, Zen would have debuted as a second-place processor, no?

 

[godrilla]

Right? Everyone says they need a new product, they're releasing a better one shortly and nVidia hasn't even released their new cards yet. What do they want AMD to do? They whole reason we didn't get a 7X50 refresh is that they acknowledged the issue they had with the MCD/MCM/MCU, whatever people want to call it, and said they were just going to rebuild it from the ground up. The 8800XT could end up being the defining card of this generation and people will still complain AMD doesn't have a 4090 competitor. Well, honda doesn't compete with Lamborghini. Noone is saying "don't buy a lamborgini" but people shouldn't complain when a Civic doesn't go faster than an Aventador.

I remember "in the old days" where every single generation was almost a necessary. Now, graphics have been good enough for long enough that there aren't really revolutionary graphics improvements. We have Ray Tracing, which most people's favorite thing about is that you can turn it off if you want better FPS. With 120hz becoming the new 60hz, I think it will be another 2 generations before raytracing enters the midranged.

Hardcore gamers have to be some of the most toxic people. They want everything now and they want everyone to do what they say. Meanwhile, they're responsible for the state of the games industry with micro transactions and the increase in graphics cards. If they weren't buying from scalpers then "the rest of us" wouldn't be paying ridiculous prices now. The GPU shortage showed manufacturers that they were leaving money on the table and now we have $2000+ 4090s instead of $1200 titans.

Hey I am advocating for anyone holding on to a 4090 especially after 2 years used sell it now for maximum equity. I sold my used 25 month 4090 suprim liquid for the same price I bought it. I am using the Nvidia Now ultimate $10 trial. I can't tell the difference at 4k120 hz hdr 10 bit maximum stream with dlaa/reflex in Vermitide 2. You can try out the Lamborghini mini for $10 now.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

But that steal came primarily because TSMC's manufacturing buzzed ahead orders of magnitude ahead of Intel, which spent a decade at 14nm. Sure, Su erased the Bulldozer debacle -- that was hardly rocket science, though. And had Intel not stumbled through a monumentally egregious series of misteps, Zen would have debuted as a second-place processor, no?

Zen DID debut in second place, it took until zen 3 for AMD to actually take the crown. Intel's foundries have screwed up, yes, but they can still make good products, and intel saw a 40% IPC jump from skylake to alder lake.

Intel did fumble repeatedly, but, crucially, AMD didnt. They cranked out banger after banger for years. That's Lisa, AMD before her kept stumbling and falling face first every time it attempted something.

Hey I am advocating for anyone holding on to a 4090 especially after 2 years used sell it now for maximum equity. I sold my used 25 month 4090 suprim liquid for the same price I bought it. I am using the Nvidia Now ultimate $10 trial. I can't tell the difference at 4k120 hz hdr 10 bit maximum stream with dlaa/reflex in Vermitide 2. You can try out the Lamborghini mini for $10 now.

Yeah...no thanks, I have no interest in high input latency and being dependent on an internet connection to play a game. I'll stick with my GPUs.

 

[godrilla]

Zen DID debut in second place, it took until zen 3 for AMD to actually take the crown. Intel's foundries have screwed up, yes, but they can still make good products, and intel saw a 40% IPC jump from skylake to alder lake.

Intel did fumble repeatedly, but, crucially, AMD didnt. They cranked out banger after banger for years. That's Lisa, AMD before her kept stumbling and falling face first every time it attempted something.

Yeah...no thanks, I have no interest in high input latency and being dependent on an internet connection to play a game. I'll stick with my GPUs.

Yeah dedicated hardware is definitely superior but in the interem until Blackwell drops next month for a market correction in the 4090s selling new for $2500 to $3500 the 4080 in the cloud is awesome. I was playing with gamers from Brazil yesterday and had better ping comparable to my dedicated 4090 in Vermitide 2. Obviously the 4090 input lag is ideal, but if you want maximum equity on 2 year old hardware before market correction the time to sell is now! imo

Update at a minimum you can try it. In my experience it beats integrated graphics on my 9800x3d and a dedicated low end cards in between upgrades if you know what I mean.

 

[Endymio]

Intel did fumble repeatedly, but, crucially, AMD didnt. They cranked out banger after banger for years.

Zen 4 and 5 were hardly "bangers" -- the uplift was so small, in fact, they allowed Intel to largely close the gap that Zen 3 had opened. And it's easy for a second-place firm to vault ahead, when the current leader is floundering chaotically, no?

Su certainly deserves credit for steering a solid path. But CEO of the year? There are many chief executives who in 2024 garnered more impressive gains, and against tougher odds.

 

[wiyosaya]

But that steal came primarily because TSMC's manufacturing buzzed ahead orders of magnitude ahead of Intel, which spent a decade at 14nm. Sure, Su erased the Bulldozer debacle -- that was hardly rocket science, though. And had Intel not stumbled through a monumentally egregious series of misteps, Zen would have debuted as a second-place processor, no?

Not with Intel continually relying on smoke and mirrors over the past decade or so. Its as if Intel thought it was king of the hill and that no-one would be able to dethrone them. This is exemplified, IMO, by Poor Boy Pat saying "AMD is squarely in our Rear-View Mirror" while AMD was taking over Intel's server market.

Frankly, Intel suffered, and seems to still suffer, from "Big company hubris" so much so that they F'd themselves in the process and let AMD put Intel squarely in AMD's rear-view mirror, IMO. I've seen it before from within the ranks of a once "king of the hill" company. That company evaporated and is only a shadow of its former self, with none of its former glory on any horizon for that company.

 

[wiyosaya]

Hear, hear. Let's face facts: Time wanted a woman CEO, period.

Spare us the misogyny.

 

[maestro0428]

Well deserved. She has helped AMD turn its server and consumer cpu division around. The gpu driver team has come lights years since they were branded ATI. Their GPUs are competitive where it counts, they just need to get back a ton of mind share on that front. She always seems cool and collected. She is most likely smart enough not to be so dramatic as some tech CEOs have been and still are today.
I don't even use AMD hardware... maybe that should change?

 

[Achaios]

Word on the street is that someone is eating his Leather Jacket out of spite.

 

[yRaz]

Release competitive products.

The problem with your analogy is that Honda didnt release a Lamborghini competitor then follow it up with a Civic. The 8800xt wont be the defining card, AMD has already said they are dropping out of the high end this generation, and all signs point to the 8800xt being a 7900GRE with maybe better RT.

You ever notice that the people who cry about "toxicity" are always the ones who either cannot afford to play or dont want to? Like, the "hardcore gamurz" with their 4090s are out playing games on their 4090s instead of whining on forums all day.

Since we brought up cars: it's like the truck scene. It's not the F-150 bros or the silverado chads that bring out the worst toxicty and anger. It's the small truck owners, the ones with tacomas or, more recently, the maverick, that have an axe to grind about how they're totes secure and they dont need size enhancers and blah blah blah. You pose ANY criticism of the maverick on their forums and they go absolutely bonkers.

MTX isnt the fault of the "hardcore" either. It got started, and pulls most of its money, from the mobile space, the exact opposite of "hardcore", or from esports titles that sell skins, which you can run on a potato.

I'm sorry us high end PC owners would ike AMD to continue competing instead of leaving the market (again), but I guess we'll have to go back to just nvidia. Shame, I like my 6800xt and would have loved a 8900xtx, assuming the gap was the same as the 6900-7900xtx gap, but AMD has decided we are not worth the effort. So I guess RTX 5080/ti/5090 it is.

AMD is competing, just not in the Lambo market. Unless you want 4k120 with ray tracing, it's a pretty pointless market. Quite literally 1% of the market and they keep screaming how there is no market competition. There is plenty of competition, just not in the market that they WANT. There are several GPUs outside of just what we have as dGPUS on the desktop market. You don't even need a dGPU anymore if you really want to game, you can game stream for cheaper than upgrading your PC every 2 years

There is really ONE group of people who keep complaining about AMD and it isn't even just nVidia guys, it's specifically the 4090 owners. Frankly, I don't know if what you're doing is calling me poor for pointing out how annoying this specific group of people is. As a project manager and "truck guy", I can assure you that the tools on my truck and trailer are worth a couple hundred 4090's and have likely generated atleast a few lamborginis in revenue . I look at the product and see it as a waste of money land I didn't get where I am by trying to impress people by buying stupid things. That's how I see 4090's. It isn't a BAD product, it is just a STUPID product. It's the same thing why I would rather have a truck full of tools rather than a Lamborgini. And I guerentee that that lambo is being financed, it isn't paid for.

I mean that both literally and metaphorically, most 4090's are being paid for with a 20% interest credit cards and the owners will have paid closer $500-1000 over MSRP on it by the time it's paid off. If wanting to rather spend total for a GPU what these people will spend just on interest to get one makes me someone who "can't pay to play" then so be it. That $2000 will be collecting interest in my ROTH for the next 30 years

I'm a Porsche guy, anyway.

 

[scavengerspc]

Hear, hear. Let's face facts: Time wanted a woman CEO, period. And while Su's been a better head than Read or Meyer, the fact remains she mostly looks impressive not because of her own decisions, but simply by contrast with Intel's even worse ones.

Seems to me AMD was gaining significant ground well before Intel's disastrous business moves recently.
And honestly, I think the decision to make a gaming focused CPU was near genius.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Good for her.

These "of the year" things are just overwrought opinion pieces. It's OK to disagree with them.

Technically Jen Hsun should have like CEO of The Year for the last 3 years running if not more. Nvidia has basically created entire markets on its own, this whole AI bubble fueling the entire economy is Nvidia's baby.

 

[Theinsanegamer]

AMD is competing, just not in the Lambo market. Unless you want 4k120 with ray tracing, it's a pretty pointless market. Quite literally 1% of the market and they keep screaming how there is no market competition. There is plenty of competition, just not in the market that they WANT. There are several GPUs outside of just what we have as dGPUS on the desktop market. You don't even need a dGPU anymore if you really want to game, you can game stream for cheaper than upgrading your PC every 2 years

There is really ONE group of people who keep complaining about AMD and it isn't even just nVidia guys, it's specifically the 4090 owners. Frankly, I don't know if what you're doing is calling me poor for pointing out how annoying this specific group of people is. As a project manager and "truck guy", I can assure you that the tools on my truck and trailer are worth a couple hundred 4090's and have likely generated atleast a few lamborginis in revenue . I look at the product and see it as a waste of money land I didn't get where I am by trying to impress people by buying stupid things. That's how I see 4090's. It isn't a BAD product, it is just a STUPID product. It's the same thing why I would rather have a truck full of tools rather than a Lamborgini. And I guerentee that that lambo is being financed, it isn't paid for.

I mean that both literally and metaphorically, most 4090's are being paid for with a 20% interest credit cards and the owners will have paid closer $500-1000 over MSRP on it by the time it's paid off. If wanting to rather spend total for a GPU what these people will spend just on interest to get one makes me someone who "can't pay to play" then so be it. That $2000 will be collecting interest in my ROTH for the next 30 years

I'm a Porsche guy, anyway.

I'm simply pointing out that the group that gets mad over "toxicity" is the group throwing out toxic bile at anyone they deem to be OK to dunk on. I brought up the truck example because it mirrors what I am saying, the toxicity around big trucks comes almost entirely from people who dont own them, but rather people who own small trucks or no truck throwing hate at those who own big trucks.

It's all hypocritical irony, mixed with a barely contained seething hatred for the "others" that do as you do not, and you ascribe all sorts of things to them, like claiming 4090 owners are the reason MTX are so present in games.

The idea that only 4090 owners are saying AMD needs anew product is, frankly, absolutely laughable with 0 evidence to back it up.

All the talk of "most of them are using credit cards I saved it in a roth" just sounds insecure. I would love to know how you came to this conclusion.

Zen 4 and 5 were hardly "bangers" -- the uplift was so small, in fact, they allowed Intel to largely close the gap that Zen 3 had opened. And it's easy for a second-place firm to vault ahead, when the current leader is floundering chaotically, no?

so, we've gone from "zen would never succeed if intel wasnt stuck on 14nm" to "zen 4 and 5 are not bangers". Besidess, its also wrong, zen 4 represented a 15-20% uplift over the zen 3 equivalent and zen 5 showed remarkable improvement in AVX512 workloads and the 9800x3d is the undisputed gaming king.

do you consider intel's 40% IPC uplift from skylake to arrow lake, and the improvements made in productivity with arrowlake "floundering"? If so, what would you consider not floundering? Why is it that AMD must continuously prove themselves but intel is given a handwave excuse?

Su certainly deserves credit for steering a solid path. But CEO of the year? There are many chief executives who in 2024 garnered more impressive gains, and against tougher odds.

Name them.

Yeah dedicated hardware is definitely superior but in the interem until Blackwell drops next month for a market correction in the 4090s selling new for $2500 to $3500 the 4080 in the cloud is awesome. I was playing with gamers from Brazil yesterday and had better ping comparable to my dedicated 4090 in Vermitide 2. Obviously the 4090 input lag is ideal, but if you want maximum equity on 2 year old hardware before market correction the time to sell is now! imo

Update at a minimum you can try it. In my experience it beats integrated graphics on my 9800x3d and a dedicated low end cards in between upgrades if you know what I mean.

I've tried game streaming before. Never have I been impressed by it, and the input lag has always driven me nuts.

But then, I dont worry too much about hardware equity anyway. I usually keep GPUs 2-3 gens and keep my CPUs for a decade or more. My ivy bridge setup is still being used as a windows 7 retro box with SLI.

 

[Endymio]

Spare us the misogyny.

Learn what words mean. Noting the hypocrisy of Time's virtue-signaling editorial board -- which is primarily composed of men, and led by a male editorial-in-chief -- in no way constitutes "hating women".

Seems to me AMD was gaining significant ground well before Intel's disastrous business moves recently.

Sure. And had they given her the award in a different year, it may have been less controversial. But you judge a chief executive's performance by the company's performance. AMD's shares are down 40% from their highs of 10 months ago, and flat with what they were in 2022. So what did she do in 2024 to catapult her above the ranks of every other CEO in the world, including those who saw stellar revenue growth and market cap appreciation over the same period?

 

[Endymio]

so, we've gone from "zen would never succeed if intel wasnt stuck on 14nm" to "zen 4 and 5 are not bangers".

That's not quite what I said. Intel at 14nm ran a close second to AMD's 7nm chips. Had Intel then been manufacturing on TSMC's same 7nm node, AMD would not have held the performance crown. This is inconvertibly obvious.

 

[scavengerspc]

Learn what words mean. Noting the hypocrisy of Time's virtue-signaling editorial board -- which is primarily composed of men, and led by a male editorial-in-chief -- in no way constitutes "hating women".


Sure. And had they given her the award in a different year, it may have been less controversial. But you judge a chief executive's performance by the company's performance. AMD's shares are down 40% from their highs of 10 months ago, and flat with what they were in 2022. So what did she do in 2024 to catapult her above the ranks of every other CEO in the world, including those who saw stellar revenue growth and market cap appreciation over the same period?

Oh hell that is all so pretty!!!

Maybe I should, talk about all that? Because I wasn't.
What I said was "Seems to me AMD was gaining significant ground well before Intel's disastrous business moves recently.
And honestly, I think the decision to make a gaming focused CPU was near genius."

And Im right.