AMD's Lisa Su First Female CEO to Lead Trillion-Dollar Company
Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, has made history as the first female leader to guide a company past the $1 trillion market value mark. The milestone was achieved on September 21, as AMD's stock surged amid an AI-driven rally, placing the chipmaker among an elite group of companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Nvidia. Su celebrated the achievement at the Imperia summit, calling it a 'pretty darn good moment.' AMD's market value later dipped to $984.4 billion by September 28, according to Fortune.
Su's journey to this milestone began in 2012 when she joined AMD, a company struggling financially with shares trading around $2. As CEO since 2014, she focused on product innovation and high-performance computing, revitalizing AMD with the Zen processor architecture. Her leadership also expanded AMD's role in AI and server chips, making it a strong competitor to Nvidia. By 2024, Su became the first female CEO of a major semiconductor company to reach billionaire status, with a net worth of $3.5 billion as of October 4.
Born in Taiwan and educated at MIT, Su's career includes stints at Texas Instruments, IBM, and Freescale Semiconductor. Her latest move involves acquiring World Labs, co-founded by AI researcher Fei-Fei Li, for $8.2 billion. The acquisition aims to strengthen AMD's AI capabilities, with Li joining as chief scientist. This strategic expansion underscores Su's commitment to advancing AMD's position in the rapidly evolving AI landscape.