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© History Oasis
1969-2002
Jerry Sanders co-founded AMD with seven Fairchild Semiconductor colleagues. He built the startup from scratch into Intel's primary rival. Known for his flamboyant personality and marketing genius, Sanders famously declared "real men have fabs." Sanders led AMD through multiple recessions. He refused layoffs in 1979 and instead asked employees to work Saturdays. He’s most known for securing x86 licensing agreements with Intel and launching the Athlon processor in 2000—this became the first CPU to reach 1GHz.
2002-2008
Born in Mexico, Hector Ruiz crossed the border daily for high school. He pulled himself up from his bootstraps to become a U.S. semiconductor executive. He led AMD during the company’s strongest competitive period (2003-2006). It was a time when AMD chips were considered superior to Intel's chips. Ruiz greenlit the ATI acquisition and filed a major antitrust lawsuit against Intel. But, his tenure ended badly with seven consecutive quarterly losses totaling billions. He resigned in July 2008 amid a financial crisis. Later, Ruiz became embroiled in an insider trading scandal, where he allegedly shared confidential AMD information with hedge fund traders.
2008-2011
A chip engineer who designed AMD's breakthrough Athlon processor, Dirk Meyer, inherited AMD in a financial freefall. He spun off AMD's expensive manufacturing operations into GlobalFoundries, transforming AMD into a "fabless" design company. This decision freed resources but required partnership with external foundries. Meyer focused AMD on traditional PC and server markets. He also managed the development of Bulldozer and Bobcat architectures. Despite stabilizing finances, the board fired him over disagreements about mobile strategy and AMD's future direction.
2011-2014
Former IBM and Lenovo executive Rory Read pioneered AMD's semi-custom chip strategy, designing specialized processors for customers. Because of this, AMD chips powered PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and other console generations. These semi-custom designs became AMD's primary revenue source by 2016. Read restructured operations, improved AMD’s outlook, and was given a one-million dollar salary for his good work.
2014-Present
MIT-educated engineer Lisa Su has taken AMD from near-bankruptcy into an industry powerhouse. She launched the Ryzen processor family in 2017, finally delivering competitive performance against Intel after years of inferior products. Under Su's leadership, AMD's market capitalization exploded from $3 billion to over $200 billion. The company even surpassed Intel's market value for the first time in history. Su has green-lit the $49 billion Xilinx acquisition, expanding into AI processors, and became the first woman to top CEO compensation surveys. Su has won numerous awards, including TIME's 2024 CEO of the Year. The future looks bright for Lisa Su.
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