Lisa Su

Lisa Su – Life, Career, and Famous Quotes

Lisa Su, born November 7, 1969 in Taiwan, is a trailblazing Taiwanese-American electrical engineer and businesswoman who transformed AMD into a global powerhouse. Explore her life, leadership, and inspiring quotes.

Introduction

Lisa Su (Lisa Tzwu-Fang Su) is widely regarded as one of the most influential leaders in the global technology and semiconductor industry. Born in Taiwan and raised in the United States, she rose through the ranks of engineering and business to become president, CEO, and later chair of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD). Under her leadership, AMD shifted from a struggling tech company to a formidable competitor to giants like Intel and Nvidia. Her journey is a testament to technical brilliance, resilient leadership, and breaking barriers—especially as a woman in a male-dominated field. Today, she is not only an icon in STEM and business circles but also a role model for aspiring engineers and entrepreneurs worldwide.

Early Life and Family

Lisa Su was born on November 7, 1969, in Tainan, Taiwan. Lisa Tzwu-Fang Su (Chinese: 蘇姿豐).

When she was about 3 years old, Su immigrated with her family to the United States. Su Chun-hwai (her father, a statistician) and Sandy Lo (羅淑雅) (her mother, initially an accountant, later entrepreneur) .

From an early age, her family nurtured her interest in mathematics and science. Her father would quiz her on multiplication tables by age seven.

As a child, she also displayed mechanical curiosity: at around age 10, she began dismantling and repairing her brother’s remote-control cars.

These early experiences combined with parental encouragement planted the seeds for her technical and leadership trajectory.

Youth and Education

In New York, Su attended the Bronx High School of Science, a prominent STEM-oriented public high school. She graduated in 1986.

After high school, she enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she pursued electrical engineering. She earned her Bachelor’s, Master’s, and Ph.D. degrees from MIT. silicon-on-insulator (SOI) MOSFETs, under the supervision of Dimitri A. Antoniadis and James E. Chung.

During her graduate work, Su became one of the early researchers to explore how SOI technology might reduce leakage and improve performance in ultra-scaled transistors—a technical focus that would align with her later career contributions in semiconductor design and manufacturing.

Her academic background gave her deep insight into device physics and semiconductor technology—foundational to her later leadership in the chip industry.

Career and Achievements

Lisa Su’s career path is marked by a series of technical and leadership roles that progressively expanded her influence in the semiconductor and tech industries.

Early Career: Texas Instruments & IBM

After completing her Ph.D., Su joined Texas Instruments (TI) in 1994 as a technical staff member in the Semiconductor Process & Device Center. IBM to join its research staff, focusing on device physics and semiconductor process innovation.

At IBM, she eventually rose to vice president of the Semiconductor Research & Development Center. During her tenure, she contributed to a key industry advancement: enabling copper interconnects in semiconductor manufacturing (replacing aluminum) while managing copper contamination—a critical transition that improved chip performance by up to ~20%.

She also served as the technical assistant to IBM CEO Lou Gerstner for a year, and founded IBM’s Emerging Products Division, which pursued biochips and low-power, broadband semiconductor solutions.

Freescale Semiconductor

In 2007, Su joined Freescale Semiconductor as Chief Technology Officer (CTO).

Entry into AMD

In 2012, Su joined AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) as Senior Vice President and General Manager, overseeing the company’s global business units.

In October 2014, she was promoted to President and CEO of AMD, succeeding Rory Read. Chair of AMD’s Board (in 2022) following AMD’s acquisition of Xilinx.

Leadership and Turnaround at AMD

When Su assumed leadership, AMD was under significant financial pressure, with low stock value and unclear strategic direction. Under her guidance, AMD adopted a sharper focus on competitive advantages:

• She streamlined product lines and ended AMD’s push in low-power/mobile processors to focus on high-performance computing, data center, graphics, and semi-custom chips.

• AMD under Su emphasized development of the Zen architecture (Ryzen for consumer CPUs, EPYC for servers).

• The company secured major design wins, such as playing an integral role in the chips for Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox consoles.

• Su invested in R&D, improved customer relationships, and pushed a culture of execution and efficiency.

These strategic moves yielded dramatic results. AMD’s market capitalization rose from under $3 billion when Su began to well over $100+ billion in subsequent years. CEO of the Year for her role in this turnaround.

In 2022, AMD completed a major $49 billion acquisition of Xilinx, strengthening its position in programmable and adaptive computing.

Under Su’s leadership, AMD overtook Intel in market capitalization (for the first time) and solidified itself as a serious contender in AI, datacenter, and computing platforms.

Board & Professional Affiliations

Beyond AMD, Su has held board positions at Analog Devices and formerly Cisco Systems. U.S. Semiconductor Industry Association and the Global Semiconductor Alliance.

She is a Fellow of the IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) and in 2021 became the first woman awarded the IEEE Robert N. Noyce Medal.

Her influence and profile continue to grow: in 2024, Time named her one of the “100 Most Influential People in AI” and again CEO of the Year.

Historical Milestones & Context

To fully appreciate Lisa Su’s achievements, it’s important to see them in the broader context of the semiconductor industry and shifting technology landscapes:

Industry Challenges & Transformations

• The semiconductor industry is capital-intensive, with rapid innovation cycles and fierce competition among a few major players (Intel, Nvidia, TSMC, AMD, etc.).

• In the 2010s, AMD was struggling with declining revenues, weak margins, and market perception issues. Entering that context, Su faced the difficult task of realigning strategy, culture, and product vision.

• The shift to data-centric computing, cloud infrastructure, AI, and accelerated computing placed enormous demands on chip companies to innovate at scale—and survive trade, supply chain, and geopolitical pressures.

AMD’s Turnaround as a Case Study

Su’s tenure is often cited in business schools as a premier example of a turnaround driven by technology leadership, strategic refocusing, execution discipline, and bold bets (e.g. doubling down on performance computing). For instance, Harvard Business School has included AMD’s transformation under Su in its curriculum.

Relation to Broader Geopolitics

Given that semiconductors are critical to the global digital economy, Su’s leadership sits at the intersection of technology, international trade, and national strategy. AMD, under her, must navigate export restrictions, supply chain vulnerabilities, and competition in AI acceleration.

Lisa Su is also distantly related to Jensen Huang, founder and CEO of Nvidia; they share a familial connection through their Taiwanese roots.

Legacy and Influence

Lisa Su’s legacy is still being written, but many significant impacts are already evident:

• Breaking gender barriers in technology leadership. She is one of the few women globally to lead a Fortune 500 tech company, and her success helps inspire more gender diversity in STEM and executive ranks.

• Transforming AMD’s public perception and market position. Under her leadership, AMD went from underdog to serious contender, with technology credibility, financial strength, and innovation momentum.

• Elevating technical leadership. She merges deep technical understanding with business acumen—this dual fluency has become part of her leadership signature.

• Inspiring the next generation. Su has funded fellowships (e.g. at MIT) to support women in STEM and often speaks about mentorship and encouraging young minds.

• Strategic influence in the technology ecosystem. As AMD chips increasingly power AI, data centers, and cloud infrastructure, Su’s decisions ripple across tech trends and national strategies.

Personality and Talents

Lisa Su is often described as quiet but deeply disciplined, intellectually curious, and relentless in execution. She blends technical excellence with humility.

• She is known for being hands-on—even as CEO, she understands deep architectural and device-level details.

• Her communication style is focused, with a clear emphasis on vision, metrics, and accountability.

• Outside of work, Su engages in kickboxing training as a form of exercise.

• She reportedly sleeps about 5–6 hours nightly, and more on weekends.

• She lives a relatively private personal life; her spouse is Daniel Lin.

Her blend of emotional restraint, technical mastery, strategic clarity, and personal discipline forms a leadership style that thrives in high-stakes environments.

Famous Quotes of Lisa Su

Here are some notable quotations attributed to Lisa Su that reflect her philosophy and mindset:

1. “I don’t believe leaders are born. I believe leaders are trained.”

2. “People are really motivated by ambitious goals.”

3. “Feedback is a gift even when it’s critical.”

4. “We needed to bet on what we were good at.” (referring to AMD’s strategy)

5. “You can’t go wrong with undervalued assets.” (on AMD’s late-2014 valuation)

These quotes reflect her emphasis on discipline, clarity of focus, humility, and a growth mindset.

Lessons from Lisa Su

From her life and career, we can distill several key lessons:

1. Technical depth + business vision = powerful advantage. Her ability to speak both the language of engineers and executives gives her credibility and influence.

2. Focus matters. Su redirected AMD into areas of strength rather than spreading too thin—she cut peripheral projects and doubled down on performance computing.

3. Long horizons. Many of her key bets (new architectures, R&D, acquisitions) require patience and sustained commitment.

4. Execution discipline. Grand vision means little without consistent follow-through, metrics, accountability, and operational rigor.

5. Resilience under pressure. Leading in a volatile, competitive, trade-impacted industry, she remained steady, data-driven, and composed.

6. Mentorship and giving back. She actively supports female engineers and the next generation—leadership is not just achieving, but helping others achieve.

Conclusion

Lisa Su’s story resonates as a modern exemplar of how brilliance, grit, and strategic clarity can reshape giants. From her early curiosity in Taiwan to dismantling toys and mastering circuits, to leading AMD’s soaring resurgence, she embodies a rare synthesis: engineer turned business leader turned trailblazer.

Her impact extends beyond AMD’s financial success. She’s challenged norms about who can lead in tech, empowered more women to envision careers in STEM, and shaped trajectories in an industry pivotal to global progress.

If you want, I can also compile a deeper list of her speeches, interviews, media appearances, or translate some quotes into Vietnamese. Would you like me to do that next?