저자: LisaSu · 외국인
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AMD 애널리스트 데이(3년만)에서 향후 3~5년 매출 연 35% 성장, AI 데이터센터 사업 연 80% 성장 및 2027년 수십억 달러 매출 가능성 제시. AI 인프라 투자는 '큰 도박이 아니라 올바른 도박'이라 주장하며, 시장 신호상 기술은 아직 초기이나 생산성 개선이 가시화되고 있다고 설명. OpenAI 손실 우려에 대해서는 컴퓨팅 수요와 실제 생산성 효과를 근거로 반박. 영상 후반부는 스노보드 리그(Snow League) 관련 내용이며 주식 투자 예측과 무관.
다듬은 글
Bring in show music, please. Hi, I'm CNBC producer Katie Kramer. Today on Squawk Pod, Lisa Sue, CEO of chipmaker AMD, on the promise of artificial intelligence for her $380 billion company. The signals in the market right now say that we're still at the very beginning of the technology, but you're starting to see significant productivity.
and for how we live, where we work, what we buy, the chips we need to power AI. I don't think it's a big gamble. I think it's the right gamble. And the flying tomato, Olympic gold medalist Shawn White on the new opportunity in snowboarding. Where's the next Shawn White? I'm like, they're there already.
We're just not telling their story. From the halfpipe to big business. It's been deemed action sports for the longest time, but it is sports. Plus, the rest of today's news that got us squawking, like the Trump administration reportedly weighing curbs on powerful proxy firms and index fund managers.
Most people do not have the ability, time, resources, energy, or effort to look through those votes. Got us really squawking. I'm buying American business. It is Wednesday, November 12th, 2025. Squawk Pod begins right now. Stand back by in three, two, one. Cue it, please. Joe Kernin and Andrew Ross Sorcin.
Good morning. Thanks all here. Meanwhile, the government and airlines warning that disruptions have cropped up during the shutdown could end up continuing even after things reopen in DC. The FAA now instituting that uh instituted flight cuts in order to keep things safe. As you know, at US airports during a press conference at Chicago's O'Hara airport, transportation secretary Sean Duffy saying that easing those restrictions will depend on air traffic controllers coming back to work.
And he warned of further chaos if the government doesn't reopen. Big disruption thus far, massively more disruption as we come into the weekend if the government doesn't open. Um it is it is going to radically slow down. So so the house has to do its work. And Flightware is saying that about 1,200 flights have been canceled so far.
That's just today. Yesterday there were about 1,900 cancellations. Airlines are supposed to be cutting about 6% of their schedules. Reports say uh finance industry executives have been invited to dinner with President Trump at the White House tonight. JP Morgan CEO Jamie Diamond, NASDAQ CEO Adena Freriedman are said to have uh been invited and among the other potential uh guests reported by uh Bloomberg in this case, Goldman Sachs CEO David Solomon, Black Rockck CEO Larry Frink, and Morgan Stanley CEO Ted Pick.
The Trump administration reportedly now looking at steps it could take to reduce the influence of proxy advisory firms like ISS and Glass Lewis and index fund managers including Vanguard and BlackRock. The Wall Street Journal reporting that one option could be a broadb shareholder recommendations. Another could target recommendations on companies that have hired the proxy firms to do consulting work.
That's a that's a conflict that we've talked about on this broadcast that other CEOs have talked about as well. Additionally, the report says the Trump administration is looking at forcing index fund managers to vote on proposals in the way their clients vote. I think that's a little more problematic.
My own opinion there. Uh proxy firms have faced heavy criticism from corporate leaders including Elon Musk who called them terrorists. Jaime Diamond has uh made some comments over the years just about the influence and some of the conflicts. One of them being this idea that you know if you're playing on on both sides.
The idea though, I don't know where you guys land on this. To me, the idea of either preventing them from making recommendations, I mean, there is a first amendment. You should be able to do to do that. I I have no problem with that. I think getting rid of some of the conflict part of this is important, but the also the idea of taking away the vote from a Black Rockck or a Vanguard or somebody else and just saying it's up to the individuals who are are trading or or own the shares.
So do I. So it's interesting that you say that the default the what happens then I think could be wrong. They just go with the company. Most people unfortunately don't vote at all. And so what you are do what effectively you're doing by default is giving you talk about who's got the power. You're giving more this is a this is a trade-off.
Who do you want to have the power? Do you want the management to have the power or do you want ostensibly ostensibly Vanguard and these other funds should be representing the interests of the shareholders? That is that is at least ostensively what they should be doing which is different to some degree than what the managers necessarily are doing.
It's not always a line. I just don't like that. I I don't like giving them my power. Well, no. But just just to be clear, Vanguard, Black Rockck, all of these funds, if you want to vote yourself, you have every right to vote yourself. you you can go on and vote now that almost everybody most people don't
almost everybody's giving you the right to it's not it's not that they're taking your vote from you but most people don't it's just that most people are not I just don't want them speaking on my behalf no and it goes back I well then that's if you're saying then you don't want anyone to speak on your behalf and you don't want to vote then what you're saying is you want the management
but I don't want them to I don't want them to I if I choose not to vote that doesn't mean I'm giving you my vote right and the late great Charlie Mer even said who made Larry Frink king and and there was a time when at we or somewhere he said we need to force behavior about this happened to be about climate change and whatever you believe about climate change.
Okay. But he was voting I get it for activists that were forcing fossil fuel companies to do stuff based on Larry thinks ideas about and his own personal woke ideas about which he's totally backed off. I'm hearing you. My question to you though I think that was just egregious ridiculous. Okay. My question to you is a different one though.
If you're saying that you don't you you don't want to vote. No, I'm not saying I don't want to vote. There are times when I do vote. By the way, I have money in all of these places, too. There are times when I do vote. But if I choose not to vote, it doesn't mean that I'm giving you my vote. But I think then there's a question which is I I would think that you should be able to give the vote to the firm or not, and that should be an option.
But but it shouldn't be an opt out. It should be an optin if I choose to give you my vote. And I if I that's a to do that. And the question is whether you think to give that vote to any I I appreciate that. The question is whether you think that most Americans whose 401k plan is effectively being managed by these funds and the reason you're by the way the reason you're having a targetdated fund for example
which I would never invest in. Okay, that's but there's a lot of people that have targetdated funds or have S&P funds in their 401k plans or other things that are being managed and the reason you're using them is these these are the firms that you're hiring to do this. No, these are the firms my company are hiring.
So these are my choices in my 401k. Well, and that's the question. And the question is whether they give you if you get the choice, you can use the choice and if you don't use the choice, whether the firm should be able to have that choice. But it should be an opt-in, not an opt out. And if you if if you decide, I like this company.
I want to own it. I like what management's doing. I'm long their stock. What's the problem with defaulting to doing, you know, to where the company has more influence than some outside proxy firm that might have all these ridiculous uh notions in their head? I just think the conflict immediately think about CEO compensation.
Let's get rid of the conflict piece. Okay, let's start with like are you talking about CEO compensation that you don't want that rubber stamped or are the corporations always doing something bad trying to put something? No, the question is No, but the question is who is arguably going to have more of your interests?
The management. This is the trade-off. It's aligned. If it's aligned with if they're aligned with the shares going up like you are, then then they'll have. But the question is, who's looking out for you? Is it going to be the the management or would you like to have somebody else do that? You put your money into that stock for a reason because you like the management, you like what they're doing.
Yeah. But most of the people are not putting their money in each individual stock. So here's I just want to lay one issue out so everyone's on the same page. The reason why people don't vote and the reason why this is an issue is most of most people have uh money in their you know an S&P 500 fund and so there's 500 companies in that fund.
Each of those each of those companies has a proxy has a proxy vote every year that could have a dozen or 20 different elections that have to be made. Most people do not have the ability, time, resources, energy or effort to look through those votes. So then the question is if you're saying that you just don't just just blindly say whatever management says is great go with God.
That's one view. But it's not it's not whatever the proxy owners say. I would I would defer to I'd defer to them before your friends in in the proxy. I'm not talking about the proxy guys. Ostensibly what you're trying to do is the reason people hire um people to manage their money to do things for them is because they are spending money and resources to try to look at each individual issue arguably for you.
Now again, you take the conf not index funds, but the reason I invest in the S&P 500 is because I don't want to pay somebody a lot of money to manage that stuff. And I certainly don't look there I I I don't there may be times when I would agree with the proxy firms on some of these things. There would be times I would agree with management, but I would like if I I I'm not taking your vote away.
No, but I'm not blindly giving it to them either. If if I opt into that, fine. But I they should not the def the the default should not be that they get my vote if I don't take it. And so how would but how would you like that to work because what's going to happen under your your scenario is people will have a 401k plan when they're that when they're first enrolled in the plan
25 years ago if you're starting somewhere they're going to have a check box that's going to say would you like me to do it or would you not like me to do it? Some people will just check it blindly some people won't check it blindly. And and and that that's the thing with opt-in. You're going to get a much smaller percentage of people who are doing that.
And I think that's okay. And you think that's okay? Yeah. Because then the and even if they never vote again and never touch it, but it but again it's like who do you put your blind trust in? Do you put your blind faith and trust in the head of the proxy of the manager? Your default is it seems to be that the corporation's trying to put something over on you and you need some I ask you a question.
If you had a contract, if you had a contract Yeah. of any sort, I assume you would have a lawyer look at it for you. Maybe you wouldn't, but the reason you'd have the lawyer look at it for you because ostensibly they work for you, right? And ostensibly they are trying to look out for your best interest because the the people that you're buying the product from hopefully do, by the way, like I think when I buy a pair of sneakers, I hope that they have my interest at you see that you see an index fund manager in that light.
I don't at all. Put the stocks in there. Put the stocks make the fees low and I'll take my chances. I'll handle it. Don't do not be voting your own ridiculous notions in in with my stuff. You're not king. There was a no king's day. Don't forget that. And Joe marched. Yeah. And and you but you you recognize who you're making the king then.
Um the CEO. Bingo. In the board. Bingo. I trust that's why I'm buying their stock. Okay. And you're But you're not buy but you buy I'm buying the I'm buying American business. Cheese will be next. Next on SquawkPod, Lisa Sue, CEO of Chipmaker AMD, had a big message for Wall Street and consumers. AI is for everyone.
Like, everyone should get a piece of AI. The full conversation with Lisa Sue is right after this break. Welcome back to Squawk Pod. You're watching Squawk on CNBC. I'm Andra Sorcin along with Joe Kernan and Becky Quick on a Wednesday morning hump day. The end of the shutdown could be close. The House expected to vote on the continuing resolution later today to reopen the government.
You're looking at a beautiful live shot right now of the capital as the sun comes up. Let's hope it comes up and uh maybe a deal gets made against that backdrop. It's almost like it comes up every day no matter what. U Thank God. checking uh the sun will come up also rises and the sun will come up tomorrow.
Tomorrow sun also rises your bottom dollar. We'll find that tomorrow. AMD hosting an analyst day yesterday. It's the first time in three years. The chipmaker says that revenue growth will expand 35% a year over the next three to five years. And the company's AI data center is expected to grow at 80% a year and potentially hit tens of billions of dollars in sales by 2027.
Joining us right now is the AMD CEO, Lisa Sue. A note on this, AMD stock up phenomenally. You can see since she took over 7,589 589%. Um, Lisa, I think when you took over this was a $2 billion market cap. I think today it's above $386 billion. Um, congratulations. Thank you. Who's counting? Well, it's great to be here with you guys this morning.
Thanks for having me. It's great to see you, too. Last week you had earnings that came out that uh beat all expectations and yet the stock actually declined. I think people were waiting to see what you said at the investor day. They liked what they heard, especially when it came to the revenue, the annualized growth that you're expecting.
35%. I think most people were looking for closer to 30%. Um, predictions are hard though, especially about the future. And I guess the big question is what makes you so confident? Well, you know, first of all, it was a great day yesterday. It's always nice to sometimes take a step back from just, you know, what's happening on a quarterly basis to really talk about long-term strategy.
And it has been, you know, as you said, it's been three years since we've hosted an analyst day. But what we thought is like there's been so much that's changed in the market just over the last, you know, 12, 18, 24 months that we kind of needed to kind of just take a step back and talk about the company as a whole.
And frankly, I mean, we're in just an amazing cycle um for, you know, technology and spec specifically around AI. So, you know, back to, you know, the major points, I mean, the the market is accelerating at a pace that we, you know, just did not understand until, uh, you know, over the last few years.
Um I think we started a couple of years ago we thought you know the AI accelerator town might be you know $300 billion and that sounded like a really big number. Um and then each year we took it up and now when we take a step back you know we see this massive opportunity um you know really uh over a trillion dollar um you know overall market as we get through 2030.
Um and it's a place where everybody needs technology. you know, think about it as you can think about computing as equating to intelligence. And if you can get more intelligence, why wouldn't you want more computing? And that's kind of the market that we're in. And so, um, you know, from that standpoint, um, you know, we're really excited about, uh, what we have.
It's a product portfolio. It's a set of partnerships. Um, but it's also a vision for, you know, where, uh, computing is going in the future. What, what makes you so sure of that demand? What do you see that makes you think not only that this demand is going to be big, but that it's real and that it's not going to disappear?
Well, uh, you know, Becky, we spend a lot of time, um, in the ecosystem and, you know, being in this industry for as long as I've been in this industry over 30 years, I think you see a lot of cycles and you see, you know, a lot of technologies take off. Um, the key is, uh, what people are saying as they're actually utilizing the technology.
So we work with all of the largest hyperscalers in the world, all of the largest enterprises. And if you looked at, you know, sort of the AI trajectory over the last couple of years, I think people started with tremendous excitement. You know, chat GPT came on board. Everyone was like, "Wow, you know, this is pretty good." Um, and then enterprises started using it and and frankly, uh, the early enterprise usage was u a little bit slow.
I mean, people were kind of just trying to figure out what to do. Uh but if I tell you what we've seen in the last 12 months, uh we've seen uh every one of our largest customers say we can see the inflection point now Lisa like we can see you know demand is accelerating because people are now starting to get real productivity um out of the AI use cases and you know we have all of the largest hyperscalers in the world saying they're investing more in capex because they can see the uh return on the other side of it.
So it it is uh something that we always are looking for the signals in the market but the signals in the market right now say that we're still at the very beginning of the technology but you're starting to see significant productivity improvements. really think that they can see the returns on the other side or do you think there's a little bit of a big gamble going on?
Which is to say that there's a bunch of them will tell you quite openly, look, I'd much prefer to be ahead than behind. Meaning ahead than behind. I'm worried that if I don't invest enough now, I won't have enough capacity later, but I can't necessarily fully math out how it's going to work out on the other end either.
I I I don't think it's a big gamble. I think it's the right gamble. And the way I would say it is we can also definitely see uh that more computing and more investments equate to a faster pace of innovation. I think that's definitely there. Um I think you can also see all of the uh all of the the pointers to you know more productivity and more capability.
Now exactly timing of ROI if you're talking about you know is it you know 12 months or 24 months I think that's where it becomes a little fuzzier uh but I would say that look our largest customers are extremely disciplined companies and you know they have the balance sheets to invest and this I'll give you an example the one that everybody talks about is OpenAI.
Yeah. So Open AI in 2028 is expecting to lose $74 billion by the way they have 13 billion in revenue right now. I believe that's the number. They believe that between somehow between 2028 and 2030 that they will all of a sudden become a profitable business. So they have to make a swing from a $74 billion loss.
Something magical has to happen in the course of 24 months. So the question that I would ask you as somebody who by the way has to think of them to some degree as a customer slash creditor of sorts, how you think about that math? Yeah. So I would take a step back and say uh when you look at the entirety of what uh the AI you know sort of technology uh companies are you have the largest hyperscalers you have you know I call it the the AI native leaders like open AI anthropic others and what the underlying foundation is the same they all need computing now relative to you know your your comment about u open AI I think open AI is a phenomenal company.
I mean, oh, I do too. I use it every every second. I love I love the business. I love what they're trying to do. I just don't I'm trying to understand the math. Let's start with the vision and then we'll come to the math. When you look at the math, the the the the vision will say you need more computing.
That today computing is a limiting factor in how much people can adopt AI. Um and you you can see that in a number of different places. And so yes, you have to invest ahead of the curve so that you can get the entire user base um on there. But if you just take a look at the growth in users and not not just at OpenAI but across the entire AI ecosystem, we're seeing that growth and we're seeing that growth because there is true productivity coming at the other end of it.
And you know from that standpoint you know I think we are all like I said we're disciplined business people but we see a incredible opportunity in front of us and absolutely if if one has the capability to uh to address that with you know a fantastic balance sheet you would absolutely do that. Let's talk about your plans for AI data centers.
Um you are scaling pretty rapidly. you see the growth there in terms of revenue being greater than 80% over the next several years and potentially getting to have more than a 10% uh market share in that business over the next few years. Um to do that you're going to have to go through Nvidia because there by some estimates they have more than 90% of the market share right now.
What's your plan for doing that? Well, I would say once again, this is an amazing market with tremendous growth. And whenever you have a market that is, let's call it early in the cycle and also on a steep growth curve, it really favors innovation and it favors partnership. Um, you know, from, you know, our standpoint technology roadmap, we're super excited about the new products that we're bringing out.
We have, um, you know, our MI350 series currently in production. uh we have a big step up with you know new rack scale architectures uh coming next year. What we also have is um a really strong set of partnerships, you know, uh OpenAI, we have partnerships with Oracle, Meta, all of the large hyperscalers.
And the key in this type of market, Becky, is that um everybody wants to have, you know, sort of multiple solutions. And and frankly, there's no one solution that, you know, fits all. Um you can see with different workloads, you're going to want to have the best technology for each one. And uh we do believe we will have a you know, significant piece of this market.
Um I think between large hyperscalers, enterprises as well as um you know sovereign nation states that are out there building um large data center installations. Um I think you know we are an excellent option and we've we've talked about some of the key partnerships to do that. Mindboggling what what I've seen with AMD and we we spoke just briefly about found Jerry one of the co-founders Jerry Sanders who I I knew for a while who started this in 1969 I think at he was at Fairchild.
Every employee got stock stock options when he started. And you told me I didn't I haven't kept up. He's he's still alive. Still wa maybe he might be watching. He's he's 89 years old. I think the the reason I bring this up, Lisa, I watched AMD challenge Intel for years and years and and I I had to I have to rethink everything because I thought of it as an also ran back back then and it always seemed to be almost a it seemed to be copying or cloning a lot of things that that Intel did.
The chart doesn't even work uh on and this is only what is that that's only 10 years for Intel versus AMD. Something happened somewhere. Can you can you tell me where Intel missed something or or AMD capitalized or or capital I mean obviously but was it I don't know GP did things change in the business?
What caused Intel to lose its its preeminence? Well, first of all, Joe, um as I said, we love Jerry. I hope Jerry's watching. Uh he absolutely founded a fantastic company and I'm honored uh to be a CEO. Uh look, you know, I've been CEO for 11 years. a little bit over 11 years and um as I said you know what you find in technology is when you're at inflection points in technology you have to make the right strategic bets you have to decide hey I know where it's going to go and I'm going to invest in those places and you know that's what we've done uh I think you know we had a vision that high performance computing was going to be the most important thing and that's what we were going to invest in and uh with that uh you know we we systematically gained confidence you know Becky back to your earlier question when I started I think we had 1% of the CPU market and you know today we're probably about 40% and I think we have a path to be uh you know over 50% or number one in the market and that that came from you know just a true belief of where the technology is going and how do we partner with the largest companies uh out there
I I am not anybody to question your ability to do it but it is really hard I'm told to come up with this rack scale uh infrastructure And obviously you care about putting your customers first. You care about building trust with them. You're not going to do anything that would put that at risk. But even Nvidia stumbled when they brought out the Blackwell uh chips, which is their third iteration of that architecture.
So what are you doing? How how how can you be so confident? What are you doing to make sure um that this pulls off without a hitch? Well, uh, Becky, I can say that our track record is we've built an execution machine and, uh, we are very confident in our ability to bring out new products. Uh, one of the things that, you know, when you look at the past 5 years, we've invested over a hundred billion dollars, uh, both organically and inorganically in the company.
So, organically, um, you know, really built up our engineering capability, hardware, software, systems. Inorganically, we've done $60 billion dollars of acquisitions with the idea of let's bring in the talent required to ensure that we can really uh pay off you know these big bets. Um, you know, the key in technology is you have to make the right decisions and um I think we've made many right decisions.
is we recently acquired a company called ZT systems that specializes in data center rack scale solutions and they have been um absolutely key uh to our roadmap uh going forward in addition to a number of other hardware and software acquisitions over the last few years. Lisa big question in the industry is how to think about the depreciating value of these chips.
So you're talking about sort of this fascin you know fabulous new technology and changing you know increasing and making that technology better every single year as so many people are building these data centers the fundamental question is how long do these chips actually work or when I say work are meaningful if you have to upgrade them given how quickly things are moving every every call it two or three years or four years or whatnot and what happens to them afterwards.
Yeah. Uh, absolutely. I I think what we've actually seen is uh I think this was something that people were wondering. Is it like the next chip is so much better that I have to rip out our current gear and put in new gear? Um, what we're finding is that's just not the case. We're finding that um as AI workloads expand, right?
Think about it this way. You have uh the most advanced foundational models that need the latest and greatest and will take the newest chip as soon as it comes out. Um, and then you have, you know, a whole bunch of other AI companies that are out there that are just servicing, you know, let's call it regular demand, uh, medium-siz models, maybe even small models.
Like large enterprises, uh, may do quite a bit of, uh, fine-tuning on their models. So, they don't need the latest and greatest. What they want is something that is very reliable, very steady, has shown through the entire capability. And so, they'll use, let's call it, um, you know, the current technology.
And you know what we're finding is uh there is a a large set of use cases like we only always talk about the bleeding edge and what I'd like people to think about is AI is for everyone like everyone should get a piece of AI and that means in the cloud that means you may use um you know the current generation technology and and by the way I'd love you to be using AI in your PCs because I think that will also be one of the
I totally get it. The big question is, are we building railroad tracks that are going to be here for a very long time? Are you going to have to replace the tracks every 5 years, 10 years? I mean, look, this phone, which is the iPhone 17, I actually just found an old iPhone 2. You can't use the iPhone 2.
You can't use really the iPhone 10. You probably maybe the iPhone 12. So this is this is the fundamental question in terms of all of the money that's going into this space and how those chips I I agree with you. They'll get used in some way somehow. But how again this goes to the sort of the math of all of this.
I I think the math of people who are thinking hey is four years too long? uh I think are now beginning to see you can definitely use these assets you know five six years and um some would say even beyond for let's call it more of the workhorse applications and that's what you know kind of makes the growth rates what it is because for the absolute bleeding edge new technology you're going to build big new data centers and they're going to be you know different form factors but the rest of the assets will continue to be used
and you you need a 5year depreciation schedule in order for that to really pay off that that's about Back to to Andrew's earlier question, just going back to some of the deals that we've seen from the outside. It looks like this crazy whirlwind where anybody and everybody in the industry, both when it comes to technology and energy, are meeting all the time.
We just have Mike Worth here talking about how he's talking to somebody, we don't know who, about building out an AI data center in Texas. Um, is it like that from the inside? Is it this crazy whirlwind of you got to meet with everybody all the time? uh it is a whirlwind I will say it is a whirlwind and as as we look across the ecosystem I think one thing has changed uh we've gone uh beyond you know as a silicon company we used to talk to our customers and our customers customers like we would talk to the hyperscalers we would talk to end users like the enterprises um you know the mics of the world um I think what's becoming clear is now we need the entire value chain that includes uh the people who are building the data centers the people who are providing the power and the people who are also uh you know providing the financing.
Um Andrew to your to your point about all of these things are important uh for us to to put together. Uh it is a a broad ecosystem and you know the way I think about it is that that's actually the way it should be because we need all of the pieces uh to accelerate for us to you know really uh put on all of this compute in the um uh as fast as possible.
Are we is the Trump administration using industrial policy in terms of intel in terms of the did the Biden administration in terms of the chips act? Are those good things? Is there a way to do it that makes sense or you just do what you're doing and Well, I I think it's a fact of life that semiconductors are now essential to every country.
They're essential to the United States. I think you know the Trump administration has actually been uh very very helpful uh in terms of you know engaging industry u you know a bunch of my peers myself we spend a lot of time uh there just ensuring that there's a very clear understanding of how semiconductors you know the US wants to lead in semiconductors and we absolutely want to um to be able to enable that I think we lead today we want to extend that uh but it is a a case where yes I think it's such a critical asset that it's a fact of life that we need to make sure that we're very uh you know very much
do we want to design them or do we want to make them with we want to do both even if it's cheaper somewhere else. Yes. Yes. We lead in design today but we must have manufacturing in the United States and even if it's um a little bit more expensive that's totally fine. Uh because you know if you think about the value that we're adding to the economy you absolutely want to have
How about the chips? Was that done? Is that the way to do it or how was it administered? Say something bad. No, say something bad. No, I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. Well, what I will say is that it's it's really important for the US to continue to serve the entire world. So, I think we all believe in this notion of uh we want uh the world using you know, you know, US semiconductors and US technology, the US AI stack.
And so that's a that's a key imperative. So do you think it's a mistake then for this administration to and the prior administration to try to put limits on chips that are being exported? Um I I don't think it's a mistake. I think export controls are also make a lot of sense given national security.
Um I think how you implement is uh you know the devil is in the details and that's where you know we want uh to be very involved in you know sort of the the regulations and how they come out. But given how important semiconductors are I think export controls are again a fact of life. I I just had a separate question which we I didn't get to earlier.
U Masasan yesterday uh dumped his entire stake in Nvidia effectively $6 billion worth 5.8 billion worth to use that money to commit to open AI and I'm so curious what your reaction to that is or was. I don't know Andrew that I have a particular reaction to it. I mean I have a lot of respect for Masasan.
I think he makes he makes his decisions. You know, I look I view this as the AI ecosystem is in a place where people are making bets and people are deciding what bets they want to make and whether you know which part of the stack you want to make the bets. You know, from our standpoint, we're certainly at the foundational silicon level, but we invest in um a number of AI companies as well because we want access to that.
But I just wonder whether he's saying to himself that the chip piece of this has run its course and that he thinks clearly the next stage of value is in a large language model like OpenAI. That I mean that seems from the outside that seems to be what he's saying without saying it aloud. Well, I would say being someone on the chip side, I think the chip the the chip trade or the chip industry is doing very very well.
He got out in 2019 and that was a mistake for him to get out too. So we'll see. We'll see. Lisa, let me ask you about Intel and Nvidia because I know you don't like particularly being compared to either one of them, but now the two of them are have a partnership themselves. And from a competitive standpoint, um what does that mean to you?
How do you change at all if if there's anything you would change in terms of how you face either one of those companies? Well, I think Becky um our industry is such that we compete and then we also partner like we actually have a partnership with Intel as well on the x86 uh ecosystem. You know, our chips run interoperably with Intel chips uh in some cases with Nvidia chips.
Um it's a complex ecosystem. Uh you know, my main goal is to ensure that we have the right partnerships and partnership is actually very core to our principles. You know, I'm a big believer in there's no one company that has all of the right solutions. You actually need to bring the best of the best together.
So, I like to say when we, you know, create partnerships, it's how do we do 1 plus 1 is greater than three. And uh we find, you know, we have lots of partnerships um in the ecosystem to uh ensure that we, you know, operate, you know, well to really deliver everything that you need for the complexity of AI.
Like AI is the most exciting, but it's also the most complex thing that we are bringing out there. And so you should expect that there going to be partnerships with people who compete in some areas, but who also partner in other areas. I think you have something in common with Condisa Rice. She started out wanting to be a concert pianist, and I think that was your first choice.
I wasn't good enough. She's much better than No, she said she wasn't good enough either. So, Secretary of State was her second choice. Uh I think we are lucky to have this be your second choice. We're lucky that you weren't better at it, Lisa. And I I had one more this theoretical question. So I used to wor like I don't have enough to worry about, but I used to worry about Moore's law and physical physical constraints and that the party's going to end.
It almost became moot, didn't it? Because we're everything sort of attached. Do we need Moore's law to continue? Would it help if we could go on forever or and is it ending? We we all love Moore's law. Moore's law is in its traditional sense slowing down, but what we've added many more laws on top of that and the idea is when you have smart people and you focus them on a problem, they can do amazing things
around getting around physics is hard. But they got around it in an elegant way to get to the next level of physics, right? That's that's what happens. You you say, "Hey, I'm constrained. I mean, I people used to say like there's no reason to keep investing in semiconductors. Semiconductors are going to be a mature industry.
you know it's going to kind of you know just grow at a slow pace and then what what did you find you found um you know AI came in and all of a sudden uh the foundation is semiconductors like everybody needs semiconductors and so the world does find a way when there is a need whether it's computing or it's power um or it's other things uh you know engineers find a way to uh make sure they
mouth never made I don't think he ever won a bet did he I don't think he did and and they when they tried to close a patent office in 1880 cuz nothing new was going to come around. I guess that was we've learned that wasn't a very good idea either. I can't believe it's going to continue without So you can't really explain it.
I guess to me probably would take a while. How how do you get around um Moore's law? Well, I'll give you one quick idea. Um if it if it gives you any uh comfort. So we I might not understand it, but I'm We used to do everything in two dimensionals and and when we said, "Hey, we ran out of space." We decided we're going to put things on top of each other.
And we call that chiplets. That's an example of one of the innovations where, you know, people were like, "Hey, that can't be done." Well, guess what? It can be done. It's not an ice cream. By the way, go with part of the reason that they took on Intel. That's right. Chiplets. That's a chip witch. Yeah.
People used to say, "Hey, you're gluing chips together." And it's like, no, we are showing you how you're supposed to build chips in the future so that you can really get around some of these constraints. So, there are lots of examples like this. Lisa, I want to thank you very much for joining us today, Lisa Sue of AMD, and uh we appreciate your time.
Thank you so much. It's great to be here. A lot of fun. Thank you. Please come back. Next on Squawk Pot. If you can have a pickle ball league, you can have a snow league. Olympic gold medalist snowboarder Shawn White, now an entrepreneur, bringing his sport to new audiences with the snow league. Traditionally, the competitions don't really provide any type of compensation.
I mean, they don't even pay to the bottom. So, we're really trying to elevate. We have the highest price has ever been in the sport. You're listening to Squawk Pod from CNBC with Joe, Becky, and Andrew. Stand by. Joe, his mic Q. The professional snowboarding and free skiing, so-called snow league, has just secured more funding in its inaugural season.
Joining us now is one of the snow league's founders, three-time Olympic US Olympic gold medalist, uh, Sean White. Great to see you. We've been talking about very excited to have you here. How how someone gets becomes you. And you you you admitted it was uh you didn't think it through on the trampoline.
You were doing you were doing things that uh that normal people would say, "No, I'm not going to do that." But you decided to to go ahead. Even more surprising, my parents were like, "Yeah, that's okay." Hold on. But how old were you? How old were you when you started on the trampoline? Gosh, I was probably like four or five.
Yeah. Jumping around. Then I I got sponsored. First sponsor. I was seven for snowboarding. Before you realize you shouldn't be doing it. Before the fear takes over, I guess. Here's my thought on this sports. I mean, what can you say about sports in in the world today? It it's expanding everywhere. And and I thought, you know what?
If you can have a pickle ball league, you can have a snow league. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, I mean, I'm surprised it hasn't happened yet. We see it. How come it hasn't? Cuz every two every four years we're riveted. Why don't we think that it would work in between Olympics? No, it's incredible to see. I mean, look, at the Olympics, it's not just an athlete going.
I mean, I was the athlete of the winter games. And there are others, you know, Khloe Kim, we have these amazingly talented athletes going in. After the Olympics, there's just nothing there for them. And you look at any traditional sport, there's tour, you know, football, baseball, soccer, UFC, F1. Uh, so it's a shame that we don't have that in the sport of free skiing and snowboarding.
So, I've, you know, felt it was my time and place to bring this about and I'm so excited for it. You know, and when you really look at the landscape, it's incredible, right? You have what maybe 66 something million participants in golf. There's 130 something million participants in winter sport with a higher household income than golf golf.
So you have this massive audience and you want to reach them in between Olympic seasons and so yeah the snow league's founded and really excited about it. How much of it is about telling the story of the particular athletes? Because it's one, you know, it's one thing I find myself like I love just watching you or watching some of the, you know, either Olympic stuff or X games or people doing crazy things.
Yeah. Yeah, but it's like if I flip onto it, I'll stay there for a long time, but I haven't found myself saying, "Okay, next Sunday I need to go watch to see where they are in, you know, in the season, right?" So, and that I assume takes a different season, right? Because that takes a different kind of dedication.
So, how much of it is about just creating the season unto itself and then how much is about creating a narrative around these different athletes so that I want to see every Sunday or whatever it is? Yeah. No. What's happening? It's a great question because for me, I get the question all the time. It's where's the next Shawn White?
You know, where's this next person in the sport? I'm like, they're there already. We're just not telling their story. So, for me, it's all about elevating the athletes, bringing them to this new place and really putting it on a pedestal cuz it's been deemed action sports for the longest time, but it is sports.
I mean, just because we're not kicking or throwing a ball, I mean, these athletes are risking so much to be out there flying down the mountain. the halfpipes, 22 feet tall, doing multiple flips. I mean, it's it's impressive to watch. So, I think really pulling back the curtain and showing the lives of these athletes and the struggles it takes to get to this place.
I mean, I was lucky that my story was really told, but now I have the chance to kind of bring these athletes up, tell their stories, and and put them on that pedestal. What's it take to get started with something? I know you got a there was a funding round 15 million. What would you need to to how much more do you need to to get fully ready to go?
Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, we're thrilled to have just closed this first round, excuse me, second round, and and and we're moving. But look, we've we're supported by these massive uh uh sports backers, private uh equity, and um you have a relationship with NBC, too. And yeah, NBC became our
Winter Olympics obviously. Yeah. I don't know for how that was a great deal when we secured that for we I say but but um being Steve Burke. Yeah, Steve Burke and and Peacock. Yeah, of course. It's been amazing. We have 359 Capital that came in, Wise Ventures, uh BitCraft, uh Left Lane, these amazing people supporting us on this vision that I have, you know, this goal, this this league.
Um, so it's been incredible to have them, you know, support us and really, um, you know, after one event, we're heading into an Olympic year. It's just everything spinning and landing on Winter Sports. So, it's just a perfect time. How much do you need to get in terms of sponsorship for the league versus sponsorship for the athletes themselves?
And how how does that divide even work? Yeah. Well, it it kind of trickles down in a way. So, traditionally the competitions don't really provide any type of compensation. I mean, they don't even pay to the bottom. So, we're really trying to elevate. We have the highest price person has ever been in the sport.
And what we're doing is at equal pay for men and women, things that weren't happening, you know, in other So, if if you win a tournament, what do you get? Yeah. Right now, it's $50,000 for the first place spread out over the season, multiple events, and then we crown a winner at the end. But, we're hoping to grow that dramatically as the season goes on.
But uh most events they don't even pay down to 10th place. They don't. If you show up at our event and compete, you will be getting the check for participation and it's amazing. I'm guessing that streaming is what makes this all possible. The idea that there there are broadcasters, there are streamers who are are desperate for content and they're willing to pay for it.
Yeah. Um what what was the decision to go with NBC and with Peacock? How many biders did you have? How was I mean, that's that's where the action is right now. It is. I mean, look, I I I mentioned the Olympics coming our way. I'm a big fan of NBC. It was something where it just felt right, you know, uh, and they've been super supportive and other leagues before us have joined NBC and had this amazing trajectory.
Uh, the PLL, the pickle ball league, oh, excuse me, the professional lacrosse league. Um, and so we're really just kind of like learning from these other leagues, kind of using uh F1 as our our sort of northstar, you know, this high-end sort of experience where normally you go to Aspen and you get the Swiss businessman that comes through.
You get uh, you know, the Kardashians, these people, they want that experience of Aspen and snowboarding events for the longest time have had this kind of grungy culture wrapped around them, which is fine. It's kind of where we came from, this rebellious place. But we're really trying to elevate this now.
We've kind of had this paddic club style threestory glass structure at the bottom. We're serving hot sake and sushi and people and you're watching this incredible event and there's musical performances, all this stuff wrapped around it. Um but um to touch on what you said, it's a mixture of things. We're really we're bringing in some amazing sponsors.
I mean, we have Tiffany's making our trophies. We have Marriott, these massive brands uh coming into support. Um, and then we're raising obviously on the side to make sure we can extend the events because we want to get up to 10 to 15 events within the next 3 to do most of the athletes either I assume do they make money doing this?
Is it cost them? I mean a lot of golfers who are on the tour it ultimately cost them to be on the tour. Yeah. It's really only the the tippy top that are really making a you know a nice living doing this. Yeah. Well, that's that's the thing. I felt so fortunate in my career. I'm like how can we change this?
how can we make it better? So, um you'll see some athletes have posted on social and things like that how much it actually cost them to get to these events and taking first or second place didn't even cover their travel to get down there. So, we're really trying to elevate and and and really pay the athletes well and through success with the league and more stops and the growth.
I think we're really going to change the lives of the athletes, which is amazing and make a make a uh you know synergy for the season, right? I was 16. I had this undefeated season, won every competition I entered, got to the end of the year and they're like the interview I'll never forget, amazing accomplishment, Sean, like no one's ever done that, but how's it feel to not be the world champion?
I'm like, what exactly like what did I not do to earn that title? So, you really see a fragmented season. And again, like any traditional sport, we want just like a common place to show up, watch these athletes and uh I feel like I just saw you skiing indoors. Is that true? I was. Yeah. in Jersey, right?
In Jersey, all places. Could you ever could Could could you ever pull this off as an indoor situation in the middle of the summer in Dubai or something? We're talking about it. Look, it's a really truly global series. So, we're talking with New Zealand, uh, you know, South America and Chile, these places, and and yeah, we would love to do something indoors.
It's definitely going to be more challenging to build something like that cuz you need the ceiling height, you need the weight, all that. But is there is there any facility in the world right now that can do that? They're building a few right now that that could probably handle it. So, yeah, stay tuned.
But it's exciting. There's more to talk about, but it gets complicated, Sean. And that is how much this is worth. The offers that you get. You got a great offer, but the federation itself didn't like the offer or something. The the It was a $400 million media rights offer. You I I think you're you got to think it through exactly how to approach this in terms of ownership and and everything else, right?
And I don't know, I'll show you this lean, but we we got to wrap right now unfortunately, but um yeah, it's a longer conversation because it's worth a lot. You don't want to sell too early, I think, cuz these private equity guys would like to get in at a low price. Yeah, it's exciting times though. It's exciting times.
Good, Tom. Thanks. Thank you. Thanks for having me. We appreciate it. And that is Squawk Pod for today this Wednesday. Thank you for listening. Sorcin. Tune in weekday mornings on CNBC at 6 Eastern. Get the best of our TV show right into your ears when you follow SquawkPod wherever you get your podcasts.
Have a great Wednesday. We'll meet you right back here tomorrow. We are clear. Thanks, guys.
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