Lex Fridman Podcast - #280 – Cristiano Amon: Qualcomm CEO
Episode Date: April 27, 2022Cristiano Amon is the CEO of Qualcomm, world-leader in 5G wireless communication and computation systems inside premium Android phones and other robots. Please support this podcast by checking out our... sponsors: - Scale: https://scale.com/lex - Truebill: https://truebill.com/lex - BiOptimizers: http://www.magbreakthrough.com/lex to get 10% off - Four Sigmatic: https://foursigmatic.com/lex and use code LexPod to get up to 60% off - Fundrise: https://fundrise.com/lex EPISODE LINKS: Cristiano's Twitter: https://twitter.com/cristianoamon Qualcomm's Website: https://qualcomm.com PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ YouTube Full Episodes: https://youtube.com/lexfridman YouTube Clips: https://youtube.com/lexclips SUPPORT & CONNECT: - Check out the sponsors above, it's the best way to support this podcast - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman OUTLINE: Here's the timestamps for the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time. (00:00) - Introduction (06:43) - Football/soccer (07:38) - Smartphones (10:09) - 5G (26:27) - Snapdragon (32:45) - Apple and Google (37:19) - Future of Qualcomm (48:20) - Autonomous vehicles (50:05) - Robots (52:31) - Chip shortage (56:40) - Lawsuits (1:00:07) - Leadership (1:04:26) - Advice for young people (1:08:17) - Meaning of life
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The following is a conversation with Cristiano Amon, the CEO of Qualcomm.
The company that's one of the leaders in the world in the space of mobile communication
and computation.
That's 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G that connects billions of phones, and the Snapdragon processor
and system on a chip that is the brain of most of the premium Android phones in the world.
And now a quick use that can mention of each sponsor. that is the brain of most of the premium Android phones in the world.
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Check them out in the description, it's the best way to support this podcast.
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This is the Lex Revenent Podcast,
and here is my conversation with
Koshiano Amman.
You are originally from Brazil, so let me ask the most important question, the most
profound question, the biggest question.
Who's the greatest football soccer player of all time?
Look, everybody's going to say Pele, and actually I was born during the game of Brazil and Italy
that Pele gave gave Brazil the championship.
Actually, it was my dad tells me that the doctor had a TV on
at the delivery room.
But so everybody will say, but I really like Ronaldo.
The first, not Ronaldo, the first Ronaldo,
I really like him.
That's my favorite player.
By the way, not everybody would say, but we should leave that on the table and agree to disagree.
Brazilians would say Billy.
Yes.
There's other countries around that region that made this
a little bit of area where
Qualcomm is largely responsible for 5G and
some of the greatest processors in our smartphones ever built.
So, we got communication and computation tech that impacts probably billions of people.
So, if you zoom out, use a human, look at humans on earth in general.
This will blow your mind that we have these billions of smartphones communicating and each of them have the computational power.
You talk about 10 billion transistors that's a million times more than 50 years ago in the best computers in the world.
If you just zoom out as a human.
Is that blow your mind?
Absolutely. Look, one of the reasons I think I love this company is, we know that the technology
would develop and change the word.
And I'll tell you one more thing.
Beyond the amount of processing power that you have now and the palm of your hands and
the being every one of the word that's connected, it will broadband technology.
This smartphone is also mankind's, the Lord's development platform. There's nothing like it.
So you respect both the hardware and the software. Both. Both.
If aliens were observing Earth over the past 50 to 70 years, how do you think they
would describe this particular turmoil, fun things going on on the surface of this
particular little planet? We live in interesting times. In one time we see incredible development of technology for mankind,
just what happened in the last century. You know, the night from 1900 to 2000, it was incredible
development. Just look, 2000 or 22 years ago, how far we're coming and where we're going with technology.
It's incredible.
What do you think that would notice?
So there's road networks, there's all kinds of networks.
There's lights that keep popping up cities,
bringing up, like from an alien perspective, you observe.
Well, what I'm gonna tell you is you have this contrast
of incredible development of technology,
but then you see some of the contrast of incredible development of technology, but then you see
some of the things that are happening right now, which is probably we don't expect them
to happen on the 21st century, just what happened in Ukraine.
So I think that that will be a more puzzling question for the aliens, I would imagine.
The new technology is kind of impressive.
Actually there might not be so puzzling because that's just human nature revealing itself as it has throughout human history.
That's correct.
Let's talk about wireless communication. So Qualcomm was instrumental in developing 5G. Now you were with Qualcomm since the early days, the good old 90s with the 2G.
But what is 5G, including sub-6 gigahertz 5G and millimeter wave 5G? How does it work?
And maybe the most important question is how will it change the world in the coming years?
When we set ourselves to develop 5G, and you know, we look at this, every generation of technology
had a problem to be solved, right?
So you mentioned 2G, 2G challenge, the challenge of CDMA was can we give every
person on Earth a cell phone? That was can you get to a technology that you can basically allow
everyone to have a mobile phone. 3G was about the ability to connect that to the internet. I think
4G was broadband and with 4G was about the ability for you to have a computer in the palm of your hand.
We'll just talk about that.
5G, the challenge was a little bit different.
It's how do we build a technology for a society
that is going to be 100% connected to the cloud?
How do we provide a technology that is going to be
the last mile connectivity for everything?
So 5G has basically been designed,
eliminate all issues with data congestion,
whether you are in, in, uh, stadium, we talk about soccer, you were in a stadium and everyone
should be ability to have access to broadband. So deal with congestion. Deal with the fact that
not only people, but billions of things need to be connected. Create a technology that for the first time in wireless,
you could deliver mission critical services.
Wireless used to up to 4G is best effort.
In 5G, it can guarantee that you are connected with the cloud.
And then the last point of that is provide this fabric
that will allow us as a society to look at things that are
not connected and say that's the exception. That's why we made a comparison in the early
days of 5G that that's going to be like electricity. Right now you don't have a discussion about
what is the use cases for electricity. You don't talk about that anymore. You just assume
it's there. And that's how we think about everything connected
to the cloud.
That's what 5G is and that's the role of 5G.
So first of all, everything connected to the cloud
is interesting because the space of everything
is constantly increasing.
That is correct.
You know, I don't think the refrigerator over there,
it looks kind of smart, but I don't think it's connected yet
to the cloud.
So this includes Internet of Things.
What is the full space of everything?
The full space of everything is it's maybe going back to where you start defining Qualcomm.
Qualcomm is about communications and advanced computers for low-power devices.
And can we make everything smart?
You know, it can range it from the robot you have right now on the floor to your refrigerator to to a
camera to, you know, machines and manufacturing to retail, etc. I can give
us some examples. When when we think of something as simple as going
to the grocery shop, we see technology now with something that's stuff we've been working
with companies like Walmart, electronic shelf labels. The ability for you to have smart
cameras, they can look at shelves and can the cameras smart enough to say some product
needs to be replenished. Ability to see was true.
So it's about really providing processor connectivity,
artificial intelligence to everything.
And I think that's one of the largest
addressable markets we have for technology
because you can't really define everything.
Right, exactly.
It's a nice market because it keeps growing
potential acts, potentially in speed.
What about coverage? So how are we doing on the everything part? So you know, there is like I mentioned sub six gigahertz 5G and there's a millimeter wave 5G. So not all 5G's made the same. So there's a speed.
There's a bandwidth thing and then there's coverage. How many people get to enjoy today,
and how does the progress of the next 5, 10, 20, 30, 50 years
you think looks like in terms of coverage?
Great topic of conversation.
So let's talk about this.
When I meet with regulators across the globe,
I tell them resistance is futile.
I locate every spectrum to wireless.
Every spectrum needs to be allocated to wireless.
The reality is when we start moving from CDMA to OFDMA,
we knew that this industry has done a lot
to get more bits per hertz.
But the reality is the massive amount of improvements that is required in capacity
and in speed, you need more spectrum.
There's not so much we can rely on more bits per hertz, you just need more spectrum.
If you look, for example, what carriers since the 2G era, they participate in different
license and auctions, and every spectrum they accumulated from 2G or 3G or 4G, all of
that, you may be able to get one or two channels max of subsix, which is a channel about
a hundred megahertz or a two hundred megahertz.
And that's it.
So we need more spectrum. So 5G's
been designed to work across every spectrum from the low frequency bands. That's what we call the sub-6.
But you need it more, you need it to go to the millimeter wave. So that's why 5G's a technology
that you can employ from 450 megahertz as an example or 600 or 700 all the way to in the 42 gigahertz.
And that's where millimeter wave comes into the picture. Now, let's now connect this to your
question about coverage of 5G. The easiest thing to do is to deploy 5G in the new spectrum you can get, which is in the
sub-6 UC bands being auctioned across the globe in the 3.5 gigahertz.
There's nothing special about the band.
Is this the one and one that was available?
Because everything else has been used for 4G.
And you can deploy on that going to existing cell towers and just put a new equipment without
having to build new towers.
But when you go to technologies just a millimeter wave, then you have to build more dense networks.
You need to build more stations because the deployment in that case look like a Wi-Fi deployment.
It's almost like Wi-Fi access points.
When you need to build more stations, you need permits.
You need to build fiber. So it takes more time to densify.
So what you see happening is coverage is being built fast
with sub-six across the globe,
but now the United States also have the sub-six.
So that gets you to coverage very fast,
but millimeter wave, it's moving.
And if you all will say, for example, Verizon, the United States has had a leadership in building millimeter wave, it's moving. And if you, I will say, for example, Verizon,
United States has had a leadership in building millimeter wave.
It takes time.
I'll say cities like Chicago, Manhattan,
starting to get coverage.
It will be a process over a number of years
as you build those different access point type networks,
but is inevitable.
There's not enough spectrum.
So every 5G operators just a matter of time
will have a millimeter wave as well.
Resistance is futile.
Okay, so for a millimeter wave,
we need density of access points.
And what's the biggest resistance for Qualcomm,
for human civilization?
Is it politicians, regulators, federal regulators?
Is it individual humans?
Is it not enough money from the consumer perspective?
Like, who is the biggest pain?
But from a Qualcomm standpoint, but answering the question about what it takes to build
all this technology.
I think regulators across the board understood the importance of 5G. I have not met a regulator that said,
it's really important to be late on 5G. I don't think anybody wants to be late on 5G.
As a result, we've seen enormous amount of progress in getting spectrum allocated to 5G.
I think the real issue is the time that it takes
to build infrastructure.
You know, investment in 5G infrastructure,
especially in Millamit,
a way of it's like building roads and ports,
it's critical infrastructure.
And those things take time.
Like one of the number one obstacle
you're gonna hear from operators is site permit.
You know, sometimes they have to negotiate
municipality by municipality about permits to get new cell sites.
But, you know, the networks will be densified and you're going to need all of the capacity
for the promise of the fully immersive augmented reality that will replace phones
and everything being connected 100% of the time.
This would not be a conversation with the CEO if I did not ask
questions that make you nervous. Some people raise concerns about their not being enough studies,
about the effects of 5G on the human body. It's 5G safe. Look, I have a very simple answer
a very simple answer to this question. As we built new capabilities such as 5G, power is going down,
especially when you think about reducing the number of base stations, the networks becoming more dense. So as you do that, the power becomes lower.
If you're phone radiated from the phone and from the tower,
as you get closer to the tower,
you don't need that much power to reach the tower.
So, as we move from 4G to 5G,
I think we see reduction in the amount of power
it's required to close the radio link.
Now, also you have a number of organizations.
The FCC, for example, has rigorous programs,
which they do a lot of tests to validate, you know,
the safety of those devices.
And I think we have, has been a model for other countries
to also adopt the same things.
Cellular has been around for a number of decades now.
I think smartphone is our most beloved device today. I would argue how it's difficult to answer
those questions, but I'll argue that the data to date, as we've seen in Tweet G and 4G,
date, ever seen in Tweet G and 4G, you know, has shown that a lot of the initial concerns were not valid. We look at 5G even though it was new. It's just last power. So we look
it from a physics standpoint. So from a physics, from a biology perspective, there's a lot of evidence, there's studies that show that it's not dangerous,
that it is in fact safe. However, the concern that people have is when you scale technology
exponentially, how will that change human civilization? I mean, that doesn't apply to 5G
that applies to every technology. How you said smartphones are the most beloved device, beloved sometimes hurts.
The team to pack that in society, we don't know. There's a little bit of fear. There's both
excitement and fear. It's a great topic of conversation actually. So let me give you my perspective
on this. And you started to see something's actually happening right now. So let me step back.
And let's talk about the fact that we are in a fully
interconnected society that when when you look of the situations, they would talk about smartphones,
largest development platform so much now of our life, we are connected to the smartphone. And we are all connected and we're connected.
And then we're building digital twins of everything.
Right, so when you look at that picture,
when you look at the picture of this connected society,
you started to have the following thoughts,
which I think are very healthy,
which means in the same way that in the following thoughts, which I think are very healthy, which means in the same way
that in the physical world, you're entitled to some rights you have obligations, and there's
a lot of things that protect your integrity.
I think as a rule, we're going to see the society evolving, so those things extend to your digital being of people and things.
And I think just natural, it's just natural.
It's just a natural path.
And you started to see things like that.
For example, the Europeans has done a lot in this area.
I'll say the Europeans probably ahead in the United States, thinking about privacy loss,
digital privacy is a lot.
Most recently, the DMA, the digital
market's act, which I think is a great thing. I think we believe there's incredible
thought into enable ability to regulate the digital market so that there's innovation
and competition. So not a single company can control all the data and then decide how
things can be worked on the digital realm.
And even if we think about the potential things,
like the metaverse, as we're connecting
physical and digital spaces.
So I think it's a natural evolution.
Of course, regulation and loss always follow technology.
But the fact that we're moving to our interconnected society,
there's no going back.
We are a fully interconnected society.
But there is opportunity to think about how the digital to win should people and governments
should think about it so that we get the best of a technology without any downside.
Yeah, so when you say digital to win, that's one of the other things you're excited about, which is the metaverse
are basically building worlds in the digital space and you have to start to think about all the basic human rights that
transfer from our physical
meat vehicles out to the digital
copies of ourselves, representations of ourselves. It's really important to think about the The thing you mentioned about regulators that has been, this is me speaking, frustrating, is like you said, they follow
technology. So sometimes they don't get the technology at all. So they're very clumsy
in writing laws that censor that technology in interesting ways. They mean good, but they
can do a lot of unintended damage. Now, both, it's a dance.
It's a beautiful dance, but I just wish governments were better dance partners.
I just see what they're kind of writing now about regulating social media and platforms
like YouTube, and it's just really, really clumsy.
They don't understand how machine learning works, I recommend their systems work, and I
just wish they kind of caught up a little more because it's really important to be great at regulation.
But also it's important to let companies flourish and embrace this new wave of technology.
That weird dance, I am more and more learning looking at public policy, how much positive
government can do, and how much clumsy negative it can do.
Unintentionally, just out of sheer incompetence or lack of curiosity about tech.
That's my rant about regulators.
I think it's a valid point.
As I said before, I think the Europeans probably have a very good framework, but the way
I'll think about it, we depend on have the ability to innovate, we
depend on the free markets, we depend on the ability to create technology that will
be disruptive, but at the same time, I think the tech companies probably should spend time
helping governments understand, helping understand ahead of, so that they can be better prepared.
Let's talk about one of my favorite topics,
Snapdragon.
So Snapdragon is a system on a chip.
This processor has probably powered billions of smartphones
over its pretty long history now, a decade and a half maybe.
So it's constantly iterating.
There's constantly just like a turmoil of beautiful innovations happening. So last year
was Snapdragon 888 was the main one with the 5 nanometer and this year it's
Snapdragon 8 Gen 1. It's a new naming scheme. Okay, what's the sexiest, most
beautiful idea or concept to you about Snapdragon start there.
The way I would describe it and I think the reason we have been successful with it
is to really understand how to build a platform, a single chip, like a single chip,
that will have every single capability if you want to make this smartphone and a palm of your hand,
something that has all of your computing needs. And it was the ability to get from an engineering
standpoint, ability to get into a single chip, not only all possible connectivity technology,
from cellular to Wi-Fi Bluetooth, to every single constellation
of satellites for position location. But at the same time, you know, a very power-efficient,
you know, single-trade and multi-trade CPU. A GPU for your, all of your graphic demands, gaming,
fastest growing segment for gaming is mobile gaming.
An artificial intelligence processor, which we call the Neural Processor Unit.
And then a video engine, a multimedia engine for every single application, I'll do everything.
So it's a single chip that has every single computing technology you need in the phone.
And what's exciting about it is what we already knew, for example, when you think about camera or
computer vision, you see that the advancements in the technology now happens in the smartphone
first versus additional camera. So the beauty about the Snapdragon is we always have this thing with in Qualcomm.
The phone, it's small, you have to be able to hold it.
You're going to touch your face so you cannot be hot.
You have to manage thermals.
You expect to have a full day of battery life. But then you wanted to not be sending data
into a 10 or 100 megabits.
You want gigabits.
You wanted to be able to have eight core processors.
You want to have a GPU with ray tracing.
You want to have all of those things
that you can only get into sometimes a desktop PC.
And to do all of that in your phone
and be able to be in the leadership position generation
after generation is an incredible thing.
And we're very proud of that at Qualcomm.
Yeah, so you have to do the Y5, 5G, all the...
And you have to be good at everyone,
all of those technology.
And pack it all in.
And there's also pressure to make the thing faster and faster and faster.
And then there's more and more applications that you're supposed to be effortlessly using.
And then you mentioned the NPU, GPU, CPU.
They have to also dance together somehow, that to communicate well, share memory or not
depending on what the application is.
And your battery has to last all day.
So, so think about that. From a company, I welcome. depending on what the application is. And your battery has to last all day. Yeah.
So think about that.
From a company like Qualcomm, we have to be good
and each and every one of those technology.
We can just say, oh, we're a CPU company,
we're a GPU company, or we're AI company.
We have to do everything.
What does it take to design a great processor?
So design this system on a chip that you mentioned,
is there some insight you can provide in this chaos of engineers, designers, leaders,
the people that think about how much this is all going to cause, all the whole mess of it?
I'm of course very partial about it. I've been this company for probably more than 26 years.
But I'll argue that there are a couple of things that are
ingredients for success. So we talk about the fact that they have all those different
technologies, they evolve at their own pace and you have to be good and each one of them
and you need a then to make them working together. So you need to have an engineering organization that is with an incredible collaboration culture
because everybody has to be working.
The train is going to leave the station every card needs to be there.
Right?
When it leaves the station, it needs to leave on time, especially in the phone business,
you can change Christmas, you cannot change Black Friday, you cannot change all of the selling
seasons.
So the phones are going to launch on time and every technology needs to be there.
The engineer needs to work as one.
And we do have that a quacka.
The other thing you have to have incredible discipline because you know, those are very
complex systems.
So in one way, you have to design with quality because in many cases, we're going to be ramping
production.
And even before we have to silicon back, and you have to rely on our simulation models,
and you have to rely on the fact that you design for commercial applications.
That takes a while to build.
And it's probably been the history of a semiconductor business
at Qualcomm.
So you mean like the framework of how many people can use
simulation software and all that kind of stuff to build the thing
with a hard deadline that you might not even get back
from like manufacturer before.
And you're not allowed to have any mistakes.
No wonder our name is quality communications.
Oh, I never even thought about the quality.
So quality and there's a bar that's high and you're not allowed to mess up.
I mean, to me as an engineer that's exciting, hard deadlines, no room for mistakes.
I love it.
Super stressful, but I love it.
So there's a couple of other small companies called Google and Apple.
So Google is now using its own chips for the Pixel 6. Apple using its own.
How does Qualcomm outcompete Google and Apple? How does it beat them?
We don't have to, I'll compete Google.
Actually, if you look of our mobile strategy today, and then one of the things I was very
clear when I became CEO, I think there's a lot of confusion in the market, our mobile
strategy is very clear. We are focused off making Snapdragon synonymous with premium Android
experience. That's what Snapdragon is. Android. The phone of the people. Yes. I just have a love for Android. No, I'm constantly talking
trash. So I phone people. Sorry, go ahead. Premium Android experiences. So we do produce
Snapdragon at multiple tier for every price point. But, you know, every year, you mentioned
the HN1, and every year we provide the flagship product and then
the other series that is trying to get the best of every possible technology at that time.
And it's really focused on enabling the Android ecosystem.
So I'll give an example.
So you asked me the question how to compete with Google.
It's not about competing with Google.
We're the number one enabler off the Google Android ecosystem.
And the largest, largest, the number one customer there
is Ecclay Sansung.
And if you look what happened to Sansung, Sansung,
I always had, since I began my relationship with them,
that is they always had their own chip.
They always had their own chip.
And if you look at what happened right now,
with the Galaxy S22, the Gislaunch,
you know, they used to balance their business
about 50% Qualcomm, they will get the most advanced markets
like the United States and China and Japan
and Korea, they will sign a Qualcomm. and then they have their own chip for the markets that they would be
like more emerging markets open markets markets that they have a control on
the channel because they sell a lot of appliances and other things if you look
what happened right now GS22 75% is Qualcomm and then the next large OEMs and Android system are the Chinese ones.
Companies like Xiaomi, one of the fastest growing, it was number one in Europe at some point last year,
then followed by OPPO and OnePlus and Vivo. So those are some of the largest Qualcomm customers and they actually drive the Android ecosystem.
And that's our mobile strategy and fully aligned with Google and it's working.
And I was, you know, I'm not to get into a lot of the investor conversation, but we're also happy we became in a beneficiary of the shifts that
we saw in the marketplace.
As Huawei became a smaller OEM as a result of the sanctions, we saw the rise of a lot of
the other OEMs from China, especially for China domestic market.
Xiaomi OPPOVIVO, they move to the premium category and they are all
doing that with Qualcomm. So we're actually very fortunate and happy with the position we are
in mobile business. We do have an Apple relationship. We provide modem technology to Apple.
It's a multi-year relationship. Apple has been very public. They are investing to develop their own modem.
But the Qualcomm strategy has been clear. We're really focused on Snapdragon. Our mobile
strategy is not defined by providing a cellular modem to Apple. Our mobile strategy is this
that we just talked about. It's about the unique thing of Snapdragon that has every single technology integrated
into a single SLC and that's what we're doing.
And focusing on the Android ecosystem.
I don't know if I can ask you this kind of question.
It's like picking your children or something like this,
but what smartphone with a Snapdragon?
You mentioned Samsung Galaxy S22, OnePlus, those are phones I personally really enjoy.
What phone do you currently use? Or do you have multiple phones? I do have multiple phones, but I do use Galaxy S22.
That's your favorite one. All right, well you heard it here first folks.
Okay, so excellent. Can Qualcomm also, let's take a brief step away from mobile?
And it's take on Intel and Apple and other such companies in the laptop and desktop space.
So the nature of what a computer is seems to be changing.
It's like smartphones like merging.
It's all being a smartphone just with the biggest screen or something like this.
So what does the future of that look like?
Before I answer that question, let me just step back a little bit because, and I'm sure we can
talk more about those things, but the reality is Qualcomm is changing a lot. And we use, I know we
spend a lot of time talking about 5G and smartphone and Snapdragon. And I think that has been what had
defined Qualcomm for many years, but the reality is even consistent with that 5G conversation,
which is a technology to connect everything. Qualcomm is also changing. Our technology, there was in many cases,
design for phones, and we said it in the beginning, connectivity and processing, is going to virtually every industry.
And as a result, Qualcomm is really changing with it and expanding to a number of different
addressable markets.
Some of those markets is the PC, as you talk about it, the conversions of mobile and PC.
And the reason I'm excited about this, because you see a lot of things happening
that bring this right front and center
when you think about the future technology.
So what we learn with the pandemic
is that the number one use case
of personal computers is communications.
It is interesting when you think about that.
That's the number one use case on a PC today is communications. It's actually funny because in the cellular industry, actually, I'll say, let me step then in the wireline, even before the internet and IP,
I, I, I, SDN, you remember those, uh, AT&T desphones of a little screen and I said, you can do
a video telephony. We don't watch that, uh, in, uh, back to the future too. Then when we
started developing 3G, said people said, what's the application for having data to
self, all video telephony. Then we started doing 4G. And in the beginning, people said, what's the application for having data to self all video telephony. Then we started doing 4G and in the beginning people said, well, why do you need all this
broadband all video telephony? But it took a pandemic to make video telephony to kill
our application. And that's now the number one use case on a PC. So now think about that for a second.
Personal computers now, their technologies that people and they're going to buy a PC. So now think about that for a second. Personal computers now, their technologies that people
and they're going to buy a PC, they didn't care much about
and now they do. Camera. Camera. How good is the camera?
The audio is that connected. How good is the connectivity?
Do you have the latest and greatest Wi-Fi and cellular?
What's the battery life? Because you're going to be working
from anywhere. Sometimes you know that, sometimes you're not.
So all those things, what's the portability like? So those things started to change
how we should think about the PC, but I won't stop there. Let me talk about another trend.
So in it, and all come as a result of what we saw the pandemic. Let's say that you are
an engineer, you're the computer aided design, you, you have an events, you do computer aided design. You have an advanced desktop computer or workstation in your office.
But you want to work from home someday.
So you're not going to move that to your home.
So what do you need to do?
You're going to have to rely on that.
You're going to run that on the cloud.
And you're going to run another cloud that you need high bandwidth because you almost want
to decloud to be the same as your computer for that use case
that's the 5G on-demand computing use case. The use 5G is also a link between two computers.
But then, you know, CIOs are saying, well, my workforce is going home for some days. I want all the data to be in the cloud.
You look at, for example, Microsoft OneDrive or the ability to collaborate,
you need to bandwidth. So, when you put all of those things together, you start thinking about
what is the next generation PC? And that's the opportunity for Quacka. I'm just giving an example.
Back in Mobile World Congress, recently, Lenovovo they have a line of
of
Enterprise laptops called the thinkpad. I'm sure you're familiar with it. So they announced the thinkpad based on Snapdragon
with 5G on
28 hours of battery life. So
So that's next generation is just a nice screen with extremely high
nice screen and keyboard and extremely high connectivity
to maybe an even more like a more powerful machine
in the cloud.
Something more of the data connected to the data
connecting to compute all that kind of stuff.
You have the camera capabilities and let me go one step.
More Microsoft talking about some of the features
they're doing now using on Windows 11, using Snapdragon.
Remember, we talked about a Snapdragon has an AI
processor inside there.
So one of the cool features Microsoft's talking about it is,
you can be on a Teams call,
and you can make sure your eyes are looking at the camera
100% at the time.
Well, that's an interesting,
so they can be talking about that.
And you do that with AI.
Yes.
That's really tricky to pull off.
For example, the reason I'm a huge stickler for doing these in person, these conversations
in person, it's really tough to get right, but it's a worthy challenge.
So that's where the metaverse hopes to, so like, I just, because you said the importance
of this telephony of humans connecting teleporting themselves,
getting that right is really difficult. There's a lot of people hate Zoom meetings, but that doesn't
mean you can't improve that experience and get rid of the hate. A lot of people hate talking to
their car too because the voice, the natural language processing is terrible, but when it's not,
it's a beautiful thing. So getting that right is, this is an opportunity. This is an opportunity.
Think about it.
It starts with the PC, making the PC,
giving you a better experience for teams.
But then you goes right back into this trend
of connecting physical and digital spaces
and all the work we're doing with the metaverse
and virtual reality and the reality in the future
is why not call somebody or connect with somebody
with a hologram? It's possible. And also to mention some increasing amount of intelligence in our cars.
So semi-autonomous, autonomous cars and the interactivity between human and car, which for me,
things are really exciting. Let me ask you a big question. So when aliens again, now on the other side,
right, and humans destroy themselves
through nuclear war centuries from now,
let's hope not, let's hope not.
But in case, you know, let's just hypothetical thought
experiment, and they write a history of humanity
in the 21st century.
What would they remember Qualcomm in the 21st century
as a company, would be a car company,
would think of all the crazy pivots
that might happen in the next 50 years.
Because you're thinking,
you said Qualcomm enables all of these things
with 5G and they'll be probably other G's
and keeps increasing.
So basically connectivity and computation
and everything becomes connected
and everything is capable of computation
might you become a robotics and car company?
I will argue we already an automotive company today,
but let me tell you what I would like Qualcomm to be,
remember and recognize for.
I think everyone, the no-squalcom,
immediately, you know, connect us, pun intended, to connectivity and wireless.
But the reality is, we're being actually the company
providing intelligence and processing to everything on the edge.
Everything outside the data center, that's we're doing.
Those billions of devices are going to be connected.
And that's kind of explained when we talk about the connected
intelligent edge, the beyond phones, cars,
species, and all of those.
And the broader IoTos, we talk about everything
will be connected intelligent.
And that's what we want Qualcomm to be recognized for.
So by the way, for people who are not familiar,
there's some technical jargon.
People use the word edge, like edge computing.
It's, by the way, that's probably changing what that even means.
But it's basically everything that's not a giant thing that's make a lot of noise
in a building somewhere. So it's mobile devices and the mobile devices of all kinds.
Well, I've refrigerated it's not mobile, but it would be edge.
So it's like, what's a sandwich, that kind of discussion. But basically edge computing
is the edge of that expanding space that you mentioned that Qualcomm is trying to
connect and enable with computation. You just simply to describe what the edge is and edge computing is.
I think as we think about the evolution of the data center,
you need to bring the computational closure to the devices. Also, when you put the
computation together with the connectivity at the same time, you're going to see a lot of
advancement of artificial intelligence happening closer to the device. Look, it's a very, I have a simple way to describe.
Remember, in the beginning of this conversation, we talk about Indeforji era, broadband and mobile
computing evolved side by side. If you're going to have broadband, you might as well have a computer
in the palm of your hand. So we needed to invest in those two technologies. In 5G, AI develops side by side.
You're connected to the cloud 100% of the time.
You have a high bandwidth, and you have now smart and intelligent
thing that can make decision in real time.
Provide context information to the cloud
to make the models more accurate and as well,
compare and contrast with the cloud.
So there's going to be an exponential development AI happening
with all the edge devices.
The devices are outside the data center
and computation is going to go alongside that.
And a great example of that is the car.
The car, you know, we haven't talked much about the car,
but you know Qualcomm is now, you could argue with as much
as an automotive company as wireless company working 26
global brands and
It's easy to see
If you look of our mobile heritage and we talk about form factors, thermal, battery life
You're not going to put a server in a trunk of a car
But you need as much computational capabilities. And that's what we see Qualcomm providing, you know,
as the car become a connected computer on wheels,
we provide the computational and all the sensors for you
to do assist to driving for the new digital cockpit experience,
connecting the car to the cloud.
And it's all of that's happening at the end.
Does Qualcomm want to be the brain of a lot of autonomous vehicles
in the future of
different, you said brands like Mercedes, BMW, I don't know, whatever, just whatever car,
you know, cars have the sexy thing they do and then it defines their brand and so on.
And then there's the brain that doesn't need to have branding, suppose, you know, so
this Qualcomm see that or will I be able to buy a Qualcomm car?
Like literally, you know, you're not going to be able to buy a Qualcomm car? Like literally it'll be a Qualcomm car. No, you're not going to be able to buy a Qualcomm car, but we already, we're ready on our way
to become, you know, the brains of the car.
The way you should think about Qualcomm automotive strategy is the car companies realize they
need to become technology companies.
You just look for example of the market cap of some of the new electrical
commerce and compare them with the legacy core companies.
What's one of that? I heard of... Well, let's just use an example.
One of them lives in Austin. Let's say Rivian, right? Rivian.
Oh, that one too. You know, the core companies are not going away. It's actually a mistake,
not to bet, in the core companies. The core companies are not going away. It's actually a mistake not to bet in the core companies.
The core companies need a technology partner that will provide the digital chassis for them.
That's what we're doing.
If you look at Qualcomm, we talk about a Snapdragon digital chassis.
We want to be the preferred technology partner of the car companies, and I think it's working.
The strategy is working right now.
So basically helping companies accelerate into becoming technology companies.
Connecting the car to the cloud, we designed the interior of the digital cockpit experience
and provide the computation and sensor capabilities for autonomy and assisted driving.
On the topic of robots, when millions or billions of robots roam the earth in the future, and provide the computation and sensor capabilities for autonomy and assisted driving.
On the topic of robots, when millions or billions of robots roam the earth in the future, among us humans, and I am for one concerned in a small percentage, but largely I'm excited
about that future, will Qualcomm be the thing that powers their brain?
become the thing that powers their brain.
We have an in our IoT business, which has been one of the fastest growing business for us.
A number of robotics engagement.
So I'll give you some example.
If you look of the Amazon Astro, you're familiar with that.
There's two Snapdragon in two snapdragon in there
There is this is exciting this supposed to ship it to me. Where is it? Okay, but anyway, that's really cool I didn't know it was not drags. Yeah, we we working with robotics in industrial
Of course drones, you know, we're getting more and more traction for robotics sergeant Robyn duster robotics to you said
industrial especially when you think about more and more traction for robotics, Sergeant Robin, duster robotics to you. You said of duster.
Especially when you think about what's
going to happen with the factory of the future,
the industrial side of the future, the warehouse of the future,
when you bring 5G, for example, to it.
And you have a number of different use cases.
And then you see a lot of robotics application.
Of course drones.
The most famous, I will consider that a robot, the most famous robot in the world right now,
it's powered by a Snapdragon which is the Mars ingenuity helicopter.
They hold a helicopter, the cameras and everything is powered by Snapdragon and
Talking about exciting thing for an engineer
The same Snapdragon that goes to a phone and it can go to a galaxy phone for example Samsung the same not a special one
Went all the way to Mars
Is exploring other planets looking for alien life and maybe gets to meet them
Wouldn't that be interesting if a snob dragon is the thing that first
He and Zineleon is like what the hell would did not program this in the computer version?
I once used example to go back to the conversation we had about quality
As an engineer you need to make sure it works
Can you imagine if you get to over there in Mars and it doesn't work listen?
This is very stressful
What what not so what space X with all those companies are doing is extremely stressful.
The room for mistakes is tiny, but that's super exciting for an engineer once again.
There's been a global semiconductor chip shortage. So from your perspective,
just to be interesting to get your expert analysis of the situation, what do you think are the
main reasons and how has Qualcomm been affected and how can it help? In this and in the future things like it. Okay, that's a big topic of conversation. We only have five minutes.
So I'll try to be as objective as I can. So first let's talk about what cause it. And you know,
you hear a lot of different things. I will try to put it within the right context.
The first thing that caused it really
is the acceleration of digital transformation
of pretty much everything in every industry.
Every industry has been digitally transformed.
And as such, the amount of semiconductors
that are required is much larger.
Just to give you a practical example,
if you think about the automotive as an example,
the cars, there are,
there's cars that are launched,
a new model launching today.
The new model launching today
most likely has 10X, the amount of chips,
of the prior model.
And the model is people working on this coming in next,
probably 10X, that one. So you see the amount of silicon are working on is coming in next, probably 10x that one.
So, you see the amount of silicon and then billions of things become smart. More and more
data goes to the cloud, the data center grows. So, the floor for semiconductor consumption
is went up by a lot. Then you have things that aggravated this. The pandemic aggravated
this. There is a couple of trends from the pandemic.
The enterprise transformation of the home, the home became an enterprise massive amount of upgrades on broadband and IoT.
The office has changed to the way we work now, including the ability to support collaboration tools and video, then you have the higher demand for products
doing the pandemic because people wanted to be connected,
people bought new phones and new tablets and new computers,
new gaming.
So all of those things came on top of that
as the aggravated issue, but they're not the main issue.
The main issue is it's actually a long term growth of digital.
So what I'm hearing you say is the pandemic was not the cause.
It was an aggravation.
It was an aggravation.
So is there a way we can support as a human civilization in terms of manufacture, in terms of supply,
the kind of growth that you're talking about in devices and so on.
Is there high level ideas you can say of what that's required there?
Yes.
I think that's the second part of the answer.
So what's happening now?
How are we going to get out of this? So we see a lot of capacity investments put
into place by the industry. You know, we had invested a lot over suppliers. A lot of
suppliers had made plans about, you know, increasing the capacity, the industry is planning to double
its total semiconductor manufacturing capacity within the next five
years an example.
So that's what's happening.
And then you see things which are actually good, they're good.
The initiative such as the United States Chips Act and now the European Chips Act.
The United States Chips Act is about $52 billion.
The Europeans are a 43. Their goal combined is to get at least 50% of the consumption
with manufacturing installed within the US and European
geographies.
And that's also very good.
That's yet another incentive for more manufacturing
capacity to be built and to be built with a geographic
distributed way, which that's how you play
in supply chain.
So those, I think, are good things.
So if anything we learn through the crisis, is this a micanductor?
It's important.
Micanductor companies are important, and we need to invest in micanductors.
Returning to the grilling of the CEO of the hard questions. This is almost for
my own education of the space. You mentioned regulators, Qualcomm paid out and received
payment of billions of dollars in settlement and fines. There seems to be a lot of huge
lawsuits in the space. How do you explain that? Does this get in the way of innovation
or does it promote it? I will rephrase it by saying they used to be a lot of lawsuits in this space.
In addition of what we do in semiconductors, our processors and our modems, the Snapdragon
platform, we also have a licensing business has been a part of the company's history beginning as the largest inventors of the
sensual technology in 2G, CDMA, 3G, 4G, and 5G, and
Qualcomm contribute that to the standards. So we always had
this model that rather than invent the technology and be the
only one producing the products,
we license, so everyone can produce it. And as such, we receive intellectual property
for these standard essential patents. As part of our past dispute with Apple, that's behind us now. You're friends now.
You're my customers.
And as part of that, I think the licensing model got tested in
I think in every geography.
And we succeeded in every single geography to validate the
pro-competitive niche of this model.
I think the fair, reasonable, non-discriminitive niche of this model, I think the fair, reasonable,
non-discriminatory aspect of this model.
I would argue that besides being the most successful
licensing business to date in the industry,
probably the one that's been battle-tested
and this most stable because there's not a single jurisdiction
that we have not had to validate that model.
So it's part of our past and what it creates is probably create a lot of stability in our
license and business. But having said that, the growth of the company is in the semiconductor
space. And the semiconductor, so licensing is you come up with a pretty good idea. You have a
bunch of smart people coming up with cool ideas. And then once you come up with a pretty good idea, you have a bunch of smart people coming up with cool ideas,
and then once you come up with that idea, you sell that idea to others, they get to use it. That's the sensual license. The license revenue we have is for what we call the SEP,
standard essential patents that are part of the 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G standards. So if you want to build anything with 5G, you
need it to get a license from Qualcomm because users Qualcomm is sential technology as part
of the standard. And a slightly different model or a lot different model. The semiconductor
is you design, you inject a bunch of fascinating ideas how to build the snapdragon and then there's because it's a fabulous company you have somebody build the chip and then goes into a phone with
the branding and all that kind of stuff and that has less kind of players involved it's not a
licensing. We sell the product in the semiconductor we don't license semiconductor technology. We build products and we sell products.
This is your first year as a CEO. No, not one year yet.
Not one year yet.
Yeah.
Let's hope it'll be in June.
It'll be one year.
Okay.
This is a company that's involved with a lot of fascinating
technologies and it's touching the lives of billions of people.
A lot of complicated stuff. Like I said, licensing technologies, you have to collaborate with manufacturers.
You have to then work with however many you said, car companies and all these clients and so on.
And you have to, you know, with tech companies, Apple and so on.
What's that like?
What lessons have you learned about leadership?
And maybe about yourself as a human being from this first,
almost a year, soon to be a year as a CEO of this incredible,
this complex, this large company.
Oh, that's a little bit of a question.
Let me answer in reverse order.
First thing that I learn, and I think it's probably common, That's a little bit of a question. Let me answer in reverse order.
First thing that I learned, and I think it's probably common across CEOs, especially in
our industry, is it will be great if I had more time.
I think there's, especially because we're growing so many areas and there's so many things
to learn, so many relationships to build, time to spend with a number of different technologies.
And, but I kind of reflect really the size
of the opportunity that exists for Qualcomm.
Qualcomm, it is really growing in a number
of different directions all at the same time.
And so it did got busier.
And part of this is because I'm spending a lot of time understanding the
new industries we're going in and building relationships. Second thing, which is a lot to do
with how I think about things and a little bit of my personality. At the end of the day,
business partnerships really done by people. I think the importance of having trusted relationships for
the long term is extremely important.
I've been dedicated to do that as CEO.
We're not a company that plays for the short term.
We don't. When we build new partnerships,
we expect that to be for decades.
I spend time doing that and think that's important for Qualcomm.
The other part of your question is, we do have a lot of opportunities in all different
areas, what we like.
And I've been fortunate enough to become CEO at a time that a lot of the trends are pointing
to our technology.
We talk about some of them.
We talk about merger of physical and digital spaces.
We talk about the transformation of the automobile.
We talk about the merge of computing and mobile, the enterprise
transformation of the home.
There are many of those trends.
And those trends create opportunities for Qualcomm to be providing technology first. And as such,
we're in a hurry. So I'm on a little bit of a hurry because I think the opportunity
is incredible for technology, but having fun and enjoying the job.
Is there a burden because of so much what you said is partnerships and almost like friendships,
connections with other human beings.
Me as an introvert that has a lot of social anxiety, that seems extremely stressful.
So is there that burden on your shoulders, you have to wake up every day and talk to friends
you've had for many years, it can be, you know, and then convince them and make
partnerships with them, talk with them, describe to them the future, sell them an idea, and
then yourself grow because you don't know what the heck the future is going to be like.
And you have to project both confidence and humility, all those kinds of things.
Is that exhausting?
Um, is it exhausting?
But it's something I do like to do do and it's not only with partners,
really it's also internally to your employees. I think to get alignment on division and faith
on division and execute and at the end of the day we're very fortunate. We have a lot of smart
people so people, if they're aligned with division, they know what to do and then of course as CEO,
you have to convince your investors. That's the right idea as well.
If you can put on your wise sage hat, do you have a device for young people in high school
in college?
You yourself started from the humble beginnings in Brazil, maybe a bit of a wild, risky decision to go to Japan.
And now are the head of one of the biggest, most successful, most impactful companies in
the world, given that story.
Can you give advice to young people today that they can have a career or just the life
they can be proud of?
I think the first thing, and of course all of those answers are kind of relate to my own experience, right?
The first thing is, it always work for me to have a plan.
Even if the plan is just what I'm going to do in the next two years, but what do I want to do?
Where do I want to do? Where do I want to go? And I think it's important for people,
especially young people, is to really have a dream
and go pursue it.
And being have dreams not go back to bed, to sleep,
is really what do you want to accomplish
and then what it's gonna take to do that?
And then believing yourself,
I like to say I joined Qualcomm as an engineer.
And I didn't have any plans when I joined to BCO,
but I do want as an engineer,
what I wanted to do,
what I want to contribute,
what I wanted to work on,
and then keep evolving from that point in time.
The other thing is,
this is an advice,
it's more of like career advice that I got, I got
early in my career was extremely helpful for me. And I will give that advice to everyone
that is interesting. Spend time understanding what are the things you're good at and what
are things you're not? Like what is that real border between your area of competence and your
area of incompetence? And once you see that, once you see that, you know exactly what you have to
work on. And you can say, I can, if I did, that's what I want to go next. This is the gap I need to
do it. And it's, it's, it's faster when you can identify yourself before other people can tell you.
when you can identify yourself before other people can tell you, then it leads to automatically the next step.
Surround yourself the people, they're very good at the things that you're not.
So yes, you're radically honest about the things that you're not.
Good at, but given what you're passionate about, you need to get good at.
Or you would like to get good at, and surround yourself with those people.
How often did the plans you make actually work out? So you said
it's important to make plans. You didn't say anything about it's important to
execute on those plans. More than 50% try to keep it above 50. What was the
whole why did you end up in Japan? You know, I've been fortunate enough to work in cellular and wireless my entire career.
So I, I was like communications.
When I went to engineering school, my dad was a electrical engineer, but he worked with the utility company.
He wanted to meet a graduate in traditional electrical engineer like energy generation, distribution.
And but I like electronics communication.
So I ended up doing both.
And I always like communication
was fascinated by wireless communication.
So my first job at a college
just started working for a Japanese company down in Brazil.
It was NEC.
And within about an year in,
they transfer me to Tokyo.
That's me to go to the headquarters.
And it was the first time I left Brazil.
And a little bit different from Brazil.
Very different.
It's in the other side of the planet.
And that's how it started.
You said your father's an electrical engineer.
Do you think what you're doing now makes your father proud?
I think he's very proud.
I think especially, you know, he tells me that, you know, I'm
soon the same person that ever changed.
Does he still give you advice?
Does he criticize what you're doing?
No, I see how it improves.
My mom and dad still give me advice today.
I'm very fortunate for that.
But his proud also proud because they're very
few Brazilians that have achieved a position,
a CEO of a company that's size of Qualcomm.
And I do know that I carry a burden,
I especially for the Latino community
to be an inspiration for them and make
sure I said a good example.
It's not just your mom and dad, but the culture of the people that are originally your home.
Do you, you know, life is finite.
Do you think about your own mortality?
Look, I'm a deviled Christian,
and so I'm a big believer that there's,
this is just a transition.
But don't spend a lot of time thinking about that.
I am somebody good,
better and different that try as much as possible to leave the present.
And that's what I do.
And try to make the present better on this, on this place here.
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
And that some of these technologies, some of these ideas are kind of a different kind
of immortality as well, because they propagate through time and have impact on people in
the best possible way. So technology can be scary
Can technology can be destructive, but it seems like in the end
It can be it can do a lot of good more good people. There's more good than bad
What do you think is the meaning of this whole thing? I asked your body aliens observing us. What what's the meaning of life?
Kershiyano what's the meaning of life? Ohershiyato, what's the meaning of life?
Easy questions. That's not a easy question at all.
I think that's that's the question.
At least for me, you have to answer individually.
But I do believe we're all here for purpose.
You know, I, you know, in my prayers, I always ask that, you know,
I stay on track, in my prayers, I always ask that, you know, I stay on track, whatever my
purpose is, but I do believe we're here for purpose and we need to do the best we can
during the time we have on this earth.
So that means create beautiful things for you as an engineer?
Is it right, yes, and create beautiful things?
Yes.
What about love?
What's the role of love in the human condition?
Love is very important and it's an essential part of being human. It comes in the package.
And I think if you look at the situation, what's happening right now? I think you'll look at
the situation with some of the underprivileged communities, you look at the homeless situation,
I think we all need more love.
Yeah, and I think people that build incredible technology sometimes forget the love part,
like those are all, it's all integrated. There's no thinking about humanity is really important
when you build tools that empower that humanity because there's I think at least that person believe we're all capable of both evil and good and we have to build technology,
build societies, build governments, build communities that inspires to
connect with the good part within all of us. I'm a big believer that technology
is at the end the force for good and if you just look, if you just look, you know, not trying to
move away from a deep discussion to a more specific technical one. But if we start the conversation
talk about smartphones. And smartphones really the first time that you could say that everybody in
the world was able to connect to the internet and connect to each other.
And I think that empowerment that that provided is an incredible force for good.
Well, the company you lead, the technology you've created, one of them that I'm especially excited about,
which is Snapdragon, the whole line of processors there, currently I would say it about 10 billion transistors. If you think about the human brain,
it's about 100 billion neurons. So I think a 11 Samsung Galaxy 22s S22s are already smarter than me,
and that's being nice to me. I'm really honored to use but in your extremely valuable time with me,
even though you said PLA is the favorite player. Beyond all of that,
I think you're an incredible person, an incredible leader and you lead an incredible engineering
company. So thank you for doing that. Oh, thank you so much. Thank you for the kind of words.
Really a pleasure having this conversation. I really had a lot of fun doing it and thank you for
having me in the podcast. Thanks for listening to this conversation with Kershiyano Aman.
To support this podcast, please check out our sponsors in the description.
And now let me leave you with some words from Stephen Hawking.
For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals.
Then something happened, which unleashed the power of our imagination.
We learned to talk and we learn to listen. Speech has allowed the communication
of ideas, enabling human beings to work together to build the impossible. Mankind's greatest
achievements have come about by talking, and its greatest failures by not talking. It doesn't
have to be like this. Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future.
With the technology at our disposal, the possibilities are unbounded.
All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.
Thank you.