「The Thought Stack」Leading Without Fear: AMD CEO Lisa Su’s Long-termism in the Age of AI
In an age where AI is seemingly everywhere—and threatening to be everything—it’s hard to name a single domain untouched by its influence. The uncertainty it brings has become one of the most profound sources of anxiety about the future. Some of the world’s most influential voices have publicly expressed their concerns, and in some cases, outright pessimism, about the direction we’re heading.
But while AI reshapes the technological landscape, something else is changing quietly in the background:
Tech leadership itself is evolving.
At the forefront of this shift is Lisa Su, CEO of AMD and TIME’s 2024 CEO of the Year—a leader whose clarity, confidence, and composure may offer an antidote to AI anxiety.
Lisa Su: A Different Kind of Tech Leader
Born in Taiwan and raised in the U.S., Lisa Su is a trailblazing engineer with a doctorate from MIT and a reputation for turning a struggling semiconductor company into an innovation powerhouse. When she took the helm at AMD in 2014, the company was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy, burdened with over $2.2 billion in debt, and hitting historic lows in both market share and valuation. By swifty refocusing AMD’s strategy on a targeted set of high-potential products and forging new partnerships to rebuild investor confidence, Su orchestrated a dramatic turnaround—an almost impossible one given the limited resources that she had.
Fast forward a decade, and AMD is now a dominant player in high-performance computing, challenging long-time industry giants and redefining what’s possible in the semiconductor world with ground-breaking processors like the Ryzen series.
Su showing off Zen 4 CPUs at the company’s CES
Su’s achievements are widely recognized, but what truly sets her apart is her leadership style. In an industry long dominated by white male executives, she brings something different to the table—a unique blend of the American can-do spirit, East Asian modest assertiveness, and the coolheaded pragmatism of an MIT-trained engineer. Although she had to learn the management and leadership skills “on the job”, as she admitted on multiple occasions, she has established herself as an approachable and quick-thinking CEO whose witty and straightforward remarks often cut to the point of thorny issues. With her tenure at AMD now entering its second decade, Su continues to defy long-standing stereotypes about tech CEOs with consistent high performance and personal charm, earning overwhelmingly positive feedback wherever she goes.
Take the Harder Path, But One that Comes with More Freedom
Lisa Su with Students at National Taiwan University, April 2025
Su didn’t become the most recognized and highest-paid female CEO by chance. At critical points in her career, she consistently made bold, counterintuitive decisions—often going against the advice of those around her. After earning a PhD in electrical engineering from MIT, she declined multiple faculty offers to take a role at Texas Instruments, a move her mentor considered risky. From there, she steadily climbed the ranks, taking on leadership roles at IBM and Freescale. Just as her career appeared to reach its peak, she made yet another daring leap—joining the then-struggling AMD, a company described by one former executive as “deader than dead.”
“I was given a piece of advice when I was a young engineer at IBM that has really stuck with me. Someone told me, ‘You should run toward problems,’” she told Austin Woman. “If you’re going to work on something, work on something that’s really important.”
“AMD attracts people who want to take a risk, do something very special in the industry, and fight the battle with less resources and more freedom.”
---Lisa Su
Lisa Su with customers and partners at their Advancing AI event in Beijing in April 2025, demonstrating AI PCs in action and visiting AMD teams in China.
While numerous studies suggest that women tend to be more risk-averse by nature, Lisa Su’s bold and adventurous career challenges that assumption head-on. For Su, risk-taking is integral to AMD’s DNA. She believes the company attracts those who are willing to “take a risk” and “do something very special in the industry.” In an era where gender equality and women’s empowerment are becoming central to corporate culture, Su makes a compelling case that it’s not simply about shifting power from men to women or softening competition—it’s about “fighting the battle with less resources and more freedom.”
In fact, a recent study by the Center for Women in Business (CWIB) at Rutgers Business School echoes Su’s philosophy of “fighting the battle with more freedom.” The researchers found that while men often associate power with control, women are more likely to view it through the lens of freedom. According to female participants, empowerment means “the freedom to choose to make decisions for the group as a leader or open the floor up for more group-based decision-making.” Interestingly, this aligns closely with Su’s leadership style. Known for inviting engineers to the decision-making table, many of her strategic choices and long-term visions at AMD have been shaped by conversations with the very people building the technology.
Embrace AI with Optimism, Not Fear
Lisa Su in Europe attending the #AIActionSummit in Paris with many leaders in the AI ecosystem, 2025
What makes Lisa Su especially compelling today is her calm, rational stance amid the growing turbulence around AI. While many of her peers fixate on existential risks, Su emphasizes opportunity and collaboration. As she puts it, “1 plus 1 is greater than 3,” a phrase she uses to describe the synergy she sees when hardware and software makers collaborate with application and end-user solution providers.
This mindset is more than a clever phrase—it’s the foundation of AMD’s open, developer-friendly AI strategy. Under her leadership, the company has doubled down on collaboration, even in geopolitically complex situations. Su has shown a willingness to engage with global players—including Chinese firms like Alibaba and Lenovo—despite increasing political pressure in the U.S. To promote joint development of AI applications, AMD announced the establishment of the China AI Application Innovation Alliance in March 2024. The Alliance is expected to have 170 independent software vendor (ISV) partners by the end of 2025.
“Sometimes you make the wrong bets...but the important thing is sticking to those bets.”---Lisa SuA veteran engineer and businesswoman, Su is well aware of the deep-rooted skepticism and fears surrounding cutting-edge technologies—both ideological and technical. As she shared in a Fortune interview, “Sometimes you make the wrong bets — and hopefully, most of the time you make the right bets — but the important thing is sticking to those bets.” While the long life cycle of semiconductors may have naturally encouraged Su and AMD to take a long-term approach, few leaders in today’s fast-changing and crowded tech landscape are genuinely thinking in terms of five-year or even decade-long strategies, or have the confidence to commit to them.
Know Your Advantage and Build on It
As a Taiwanese American, Lisa Su always seems unperturbed – sometimes even light-hearted – when it comes to the recent tariff snafu. Her stance is clear: it’s good to have the key materials and plants at home, but it will take time to move them back to the US. For a high-stake tech company, a careful balance has to be stricken between national security concerns and cooperating with one of the biggest high-tech markets in the world. Under her leadership, AMD is committed to collaborating with the open-source community to “build an open and developer-friendly AI ecosystem”.
“Competition is a good thing, but I believe there are multiple winners in this market.” ---Lisa SuFor her, competition is a good thing, but it’s not a winner-takes-all market. “I believe there are multiple winners in this market,” she said in her interview with TIME. “The key for us is – Are we putting out new technology? Are we putting out technology that is changing the world? Are we helping solve some of the world’s most important problems?”
Lisa Su doesn’t chase trends. When asked why AMD didn’t pursue mobile chip markets, she gave a candid response: “It’s not fundamentally what we are best at.” Instead, she doubled down on AMD’s core strength: high-performance computing (HPC). This kind of strategic clarity—knowing your company’s advantage and building on it—is a hallmark of effective leadership, especially in fast-moving tech sectors like AI and Web3.
“I don’t think we’re anywhere near plateauing. We’ve always had this notion as engineers that when you reach a roadblock, you find your next set of ideas to go forward.” ---Lisa SuAnd while some industry insiders suggest AI innovation is already flattening out, Su challenges that notion. “I don’t think we’re anywhere near plateauing,” she told TIME. “We’ve always had this notion as engineers that when you reach a roadblock, you find your next set of ideas to go forward.” It’s this kind of engineering optimism—rooted in reality but driven by vision—that sets Su apart in a time of widespread uncertainty.
Smarter Devices, Smarter Leadership
Lisa Su with AMD employees. #AccelerateAction, 2025
In the inaugural piece of our new column, The Thought Stack, we chose to spotlight Lisa Su as she exemplifies the very definition of a true thought leader. She sets a tone not just for AMD but for the tech industry at large: one that values clarity, partnership, and long-term thinking.
In an era of relentless upgrades and iterations, we don’t just need smarter products—we need smarter leadership. While the future remains a prototype under development, with thoughtful, courageous people at the helm, there can be plenty of reasons to be optimistic.
Works Cited
“AMD CEO Lisa Su Visits China, Touting AI Chip Compatibility with DeepSeek, Alibaba Models.” South China Morning Post, 18 Mar. 2025.
Jacobs, Sam. “CEO of the Year: A Conversation with AMD’s Revolutionary Lisa Su.” Chief Executive, https://chiefexecutive.net/ceo-of-the-year-a-conversation-with-amds-revolutionary-lisa-su/. Accessed 18 Apr. 2025.
Stanford Graduate School of Business. A Conversation with Lisa Su, CEO of AMD. YouTube, 30 Apr. 2021, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4GM7_Cf0N4.
TIME. Inside the Mind of the CEO of the Year: Lisa Su of AMD. YouTube, 4 Jan. 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIokM_4i1i0.
Fortune Magazine. Lisa Su: The Woman Who Saved AMD. YouTube. Published March 21, 2024. Accessed April 25, 2025. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amBe2bofVas&t=386s
China Daily. AMD forges ahead with AI cooperation in China. China Daily. Published March 19, 2025. Accessed April 25, 2025. https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202503/19/WS67dab423a310c240449dbbd7.html
Martin I. Lisa Su saved AMD. Now she wants Nvidia’s AI crown. Forbes. Published May 31, 2023. Accessed April 25, 2025. https://www.forbes.com/sites/iainmartin/2023/05/31/lisa-su-saved-amd-now-she-wants-nvidias-ai-crown/
Harvard Business Review. How to improve women’s advancement programs. Harvard Business Review. Published July 2024. Accessed April 25, 2025. https://hbr.org/2024/07/how-to-improve-womens-advancement-programs
Fortune Magazine. How Lisa Su Turned Around AMD. Published April 25, 2025. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amBe2bofVas&t=386s&ab_channel=FortuneMagazine. Accessed April 25, 2025.
Moorhead P. AMD CEO Lisa Su And The Art Of A Turnaround. Forbes. November 1, 2016. Accessed April 28, 2025. https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickmoorhead/2016/11/01/amd-ceo-lisa-su-and-the-art-of-a-turnaround/
