Re-engineering the Semiconductor Supply Chain with Intel CEO Lip Bu Tan

**Lip Bu Tan** (0:00)
Nine of the ten companies I invest, halfway they change their business plan, because market have changed. So I like to have entrepreneur team, not just one person. I always believe in when I was at Cadence, and also at Intel, is first of all, you crawl, and then be humble, listen to customer. And then first step for me, is to strengthen my balance sheets, focus on the products, and I really simplify the product, listen to customer, and then try the next generation leadership products. And then right now, the Argentic AI and Influence, CPU become highly in demand. And so in some way, I'm happy. Right now, the demand is very high for my CPU. Secondly, very happy that Jensen Huang, my old time friend, he also put 5 billion in investing and support me. His 5 billion become 25 billion now. If you look at it, 10 years from now, what would be the winning company? The one that...
Hi, listeners.

**Sarah Guo** (1:01)
Welcome back to No Priors. Today, Elad and I are here with Lip Bu Tan, the legendary investor from Walden, then CEO of Cadence, now CEO of Intel. We talk about his plan to transform Intel, having the US government as a major shareholder, how to be an amazing semiconductors investor, and whether or not we can make chips in the United States. Welcome, Lip Bu.
Lip Bu, it's great to see you. We'll start with the obvious question. This is a really hard job to go be CEO of this incredibly important American semis company. Why take the job at all?

**Lip Bu Tan** (1:33)
It's a good question. I'm 66, and people that are, well, you should retire rather than take on this hardest job in the industry.
So a couple of reasons. One is, this is an iconic company, and it's so important for the semiconductor ecosystem, and also so important for United States. So I decided to do one more after Cadence.

**Sarah Guo** (1:57)
A lot has happened in this past year. What has been the most surprising to you?

**Lip Bu Tan** (2:02)
Well, the most surprising that I don't learn from my previous job or even training, is one day early morning, President Trump asking me to resign, and conflict of interest, and there's no exceptions.
And so I had to convince myself, first of all, I don't need this job. I do it purely to save Intel. And so take that personal issue out of the way. Then I figure out, what can I do to be helpful to Intel? And so good news is, I have a meeting, Thursday morning, and then Monday I have the meeting. And then he listened to me, like I have a chance to explain myself.
I'm born in Malaysia, grown up in Singapore, went to MIT, and I live in US, I never lived outside country. And so something that I share, and then somehow he listened very well, and then he gave me the chance. And so I'm delighted.

**Sarah Guo** (2:57)
And now you have the chance to do the work. When you said the job is to save Intel, it's a really important company. What does that look like to you? What does Intel winning or thriving look like?

**Lip Bu Tan** (3:07)
Yeah, I just passed 14 months. A lot of things happened in this 14 months. So a couple of things, one is to change the culture, and then clearly want to drive more accountability.
And also in terms of decision-making had to be faster.
I'm so used to startup culture, and you move fast in the speed of light, and don't have that bureaucracy layer of meeting. And so something that I change the accountability, listen to the customer, and the customer delighted in someone like Lip Bu so humble, willing to listen and then address some of the problem that they face, and then try to delight the customer. And also the other part from day one, I decided all the engineering report to me. I'm being an engineer by training, I want to know what went wrong, and what are the things that I need to correct, listen to the customer and delight the customer, and then make sure that we have the right product, simplify our product line, and really have the roadmap and the vision for the next five, 10 years.

**Elad Gil** (4:08)
What is your vision of where Intel should be in 10 years?

**Lip Bu Tan** (4:11)
Yeah, I think a couple of things. One, I always believe in when I was at Cadence and also at Intel, is first of all, you crawl and then be humble, listen to customer, and then secondly, you starting to walk, and then finally, you're starting to run in spring. So that's kind of my culture of step by step doing it. And then first step for me is to strengthen my balance sheets.