Cristiano Amon: Qualcomm CEO | Lex Fridman Podcast #280

00:00:00.000 | talking about an exciting thing for an engineer.

00:00:03.420 | The same Snapdragon that goes to a phone

00:00:05.760 | and it can go to a Galaxy phone, for example,

00:00:07.840 | Samsung, the same, not a special one,

00:00:10.520 | went all the way to Mars.

00:00:12.600 | You expect to have a full day of battery life.

00:00:16.980 | But then you want it to not be sending data

00:00:20.320 | into 10 or 100 megabits, you want gigabits.

00:00:24.800 | You want it to be able to have eight core processors.

00:00:28.080 | You want to have a GPU with ray tracing.

00:00:30.720 | You want to have all of those things

00:00:32.600 | that you can only get into sometimes a desktop PC.

00:00:37.600 | To do all of that in your phone is an incredible thing.

00:00:41.160 | - Some people raise concerns

00:00:42.960 | about there not being enough studies

00:00:44.520 | about the effects of 5G on the human body.

00:00:47.540 | Is 5G safe?

00:00:48.960 | The following is a conversation with Cristiano Amon,

00:00:55.040 | the CEO of Qualcomm,

00:00:57.200 | the company that's one of the leaders in the world

00:00:59.800 | in the space of mobile communication and computation.

00:01:03.120 | That's 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G that connects billions of phones,

00:01:08.120 | and the Snapdragon processor and system on a chip

00:01:12.280 | that is the brain of most of the premium

00:01:14.560 | Android phones in the world.

00:01:16.720 | This is the Alex Friedman Podcast.

00:01:18.720 | To support it, please check out our sponsors

00:01:20.640 | in the description.

00:01:21.800 | And now, dear friends, here's Cristiano Amon.

00:01:26.700 | You are originally from Brazil,

00:01:28.520 | so let me ask the most important question,

00:01:31.280 | the most profound question, the biggest question.

00:01:33.200 | Who's the greatest football, soccer player of all time?

00:01:36.560 | - Look, everybody's gonna say Pelé,

00:01:38.480 | and actually, I was born during the game

00:01:42.440 | of Brazil and Italy that Pelé gave Brazil the championship.

00:01:47.440 | Actually, it was, my dad tells me

00:01:50.560 | that the doctor had a TV on at the delivery room.

00:01:54.920 | But, so everybody will say Pelé,

00:01:56.600 | but I really like Ronaldo, the first,

00:01:59.540 | not Ronaldinho, the first Ronaldo.

00:02:01.760 | I really like him.

00:02:02.880 | That's my favorite player.

00:02:04.420 | - By the way, not everybody would say Pelé.

00:02:06.800 | - Yes.

00:02:07.640 | - But we shall leave that on the table

00:02:09.640 | and agree to disagree.

00:02:11.400 | - Brazilians will say Pelé.

00:02:12.680 | - Yes. (laughs)

00:02:14.380 | There's other countries around that region

00:02:17.520 | that may disagree a little bit.

00:02:19.120 | - Very aware.

00:02:19.960 | - Qualcomm is largely responsible for 5G

00:02:25.300 | and some of the greatest processors

00:02:28.060 | in our smartphones ever built.

00:02:29.800 | So, we got communication and computation tech

00:02:33.420 | that impacts probably billions of people.

00:02:36.800 | So, if you zoom out, you as a human,

00:02:39.420 | we'll look at humans on Earth in general,

00:02:41.460 | does it blow your mind that we have these billions

00:02:47.580 | of smartphones communicating,

00:02:49.820 | and each of them have the computational power?

00:02:53.240 | You know, you talk about 10 billion transistors.

00:02:56.060 | That's a million times more than 50 years ago

00:02:59.740 | in the best computers in the world.

00:03:01.380 | Like, if you just zoom out as a human,

00:03:04.360 | does that blow your mind?

00:03:06.260 | - Absolutely.

00:03:07.380 | Look, one of the reasons I think I love this company

00:03:10.300 | is we know that the technology we develop

00:03:13.620 | can change the world.

00:03:14.460 | And I'll tell you one more thing.

00:03:15.700 | Beyond the amount of processing power that you have now

00:03:19.140 | in the palm of your hands and being every one of the world

00:03:21.740 | is connected with broadband technology.

00:03:24.420 | The smartphone is also mankind's largest

00:03:26.780 | development platform.

00:03:27.980 | There's nothing like it.

00:03:29.580 | - So, you respect both the hardware and the software?

00:03:31.940 | - Both.

00:03:32.980 | - Both.

00:03:33.820 | If aliens were observing Earth over the past 50 to 70 years,

00:03:36.860 | how do you think they would describe

00:03:38.500 | this particular turmoil, fun things going on

00:03:43.500 | on the surface of this particular little planet?

00:03:47.900 | - We live in interesting times.

00:03:50.860 | In one time, we see incredible development

00:03:54.260 | of technology for mankind.

00:03:56.100 | Just what happened in the last century.

00:03:59.300 | You know, from 1900 to 2000,

00:04:02.860 | it was incredible development.

00:04:04.420 | Just look, 2000 was 22 years ago.

00:04:07.700 | How far we're coming and where we're going with technology.

00:04:10.580 | It's incredible.

00:04:11.920 | - What do you think they would notice?

00:04:13.580 | So, there's road networks.

00:04:15.340 | There's all kinds of networks.

00:04:16.580 | There's lights that keep popping up,

00:04:19.340 | cities springing up.

00:04:20.540 | Like, from an alien perspective, you're observing--

00:04:22.300 | - Well, what I'm gonna tell you is,

00:04:23.580 | you have this contrast of incredible development

00:04:26.980 | of technology, but then you see some of the things

00:04:28.980 | that are happening right now,

00:04:30.420 | which is probably you would not expect them to happen

00:04:33.700 | on the 21st century, just what happened in Ukraine.

00:04:36.900 | So, I think that that will be a more puzzling question

00:04:40.340 | for the aliens, I would imagine.

00:04:42.540 | - The new technology's kind of impressive.

00:04:44.920 | Actually, that might not be so puzzling

00:04:46.500 | because that's just human nature revealing itself

00:04:49.020 | as it has throughout human history.

00:04:50.620 | - That's correct.

00:04:51.460 | - Let's talk about wireless communication.

00:04:54.900 | So, Qualcomm was instrumental in developing 5G.

00:04:58.560 | Now, you were with Qualcomm since the early days,

00:05:01.140 | the good old '90s with the 2G.

00:05:03.980 | But what is 5G, including sub-6 gigahertz 5G

00:05:08.180 | and millimeter wave 5G?

00:05:10.140 | How does it work?

00:05:10.980 | And maybe the most important question is,

00:05:13.380 | how will it change the world in the coming years?

00:05:15.940 | - When we set ourselves to develop 5G,

00:05:18.340 | and we look at this, every generation of technology

00:05:22.020 | had a problem to be solved, right?

00:05:24.220 | So, you mentioned 2G, 2G challenge,

00:05:26.620 | the challenge of CDMA was,

00:05:28.180 | can we give every person on earth a cell phone?

00:05:30.940 | That was, can you get to a technology

00:05:33.100 | that you can basically allow everyone to have a mobile phone?

00:05:37.700 | 3G was about the ability to connect that to the internet.

00:05:41.140 | I think 4G was broadband, and with 4G,

00:05:44.460 | it was about have the ability for you to have a computer

00:05:46.800 | in the palm of your hand.

00:05:48.020 | We'll just talk about that.

00:05:49.540 | 5G, the challenge was a little bit different.

00:05:52.180 | It's how do we build a technology for a society

00:05:55.140 | that is gonna be 100% connected to the cloud?

00:05:57.980 | How do we provide a technology that is going to be

00:06:00.860 | the last mile connectivity for everything?

00:06:04.260 | So, 5G has basically been designed,

00:06:07.980 | eliminate all issues with data congestion,

00:06:10.300 | whether you are in a stadium, we talk about soccer,

00:06:14.500 | you were in a stadium and everyone should be,

00:06:16.900 | ability to have access to broadband.

00:06:19.340 | So deal with congestion, deal with the fact

00:06:21.700 | that not only people, but billions of things

00:06:24.020 | need to be connected.

00:06:25.980 | Create a technology that for the first time in wireless,

00:06:29.780 | you could deliver mission critical services.

00:06:32.980 | Wireless used to, up to 4G is its best effort.

00:06:37.180 | In 5G, it can guarantee that you are connected

00:06:40.500 | with the cloud.

00:06:41.340 | And then the last point of that is provide this fabric

00:06:47.300 | that will allow us as a society to look at things

00:06:50.700 | that are not connected and say, that's the exception.

00:06:53.300 | That's why we made a comparison in the early days of 5G,

00:06:57.100 | that that's gonna be like electricity.

00:06:58.620 | Right now, you don't have a discussion

00:07:00.980 | about what's the use cases for electricity.

00:07:03.300 | You don't talk about that anymore.

00:07:04.740 | You just assume it's there.

00:07:05.900 | And that's how we think about

00:07:07.540 | have everything connected to the cloud.

00:07:09.420 | That's what 5G is and that's the role of 5G.

00:07:13.100 | - So first of all, everything connected to the cloud

00:07:15.380 | is interesting because the space of everything

00:07:17.540 | is constantly increasing.

00:07:19.020 | - That is correct.

00:07:20.540 | - I don't think the refrigerator over there,

00:07:22.700 | it looks kind of smart,

00:07:23.540 | but I don't think it's connected yet to the cloud.

00:07:27.020 | So this includes internet of things.

00:07:29.500 | What is the full space of everything?

00:07:31.600 | - The full space of everything is,

00:07:33.860 | it's maybe going back to where you start defining Qualcomm.

00:07:38.460 | Qualcomm is about communications and advanced computers

00:07:41.900 | for low power devices.

00:07:44.060 | And can we make everything smart?

00:07:45.900 | You know, it can range from the robot

00:07:49.220 | you have right now on the floor,

00:07:51.120 | to your refrigerator, to a camera,

00:07:54.700 | to, you know, machines and manufacturing,

00:07:59.700 | to retail, et cetera.

00:08:03.540 | I can give you some examples.

00:08:05.420 | When we think of something as simple

00:08:08.260 | as going to the grocery shop,

00:08:11.260 | we see technology now with something,

00:08:14.220 | the stuff we've been working with companies like Walmart,

00:08:17.620 | electronic shelf labels,

00:08:19.520 | the ability for you to have smart cameras

00:08:21.620 | that can look at shelves

00:08:22.700 | and can the camera smart enough to say

00:08:24.780 | some product needs to be replenished,

00:08:27.020 | ability to see with stress.

00:08:28.220 | So it's about really providing processor connectivity,

00:08:32.580 | artificial intelligence to everything.

00:08:35.300 | And I think that's one of the largest

00:08:39.060 | addressable markets we have for technology

00:08:41.180 | because you can't really define everything.

00:08:43.340 | - Right, exactly.

00:08:44.260 | It's a nice market 'cause it keeps growing

00:08:46.180 | potentially exponentially in speed.

00:08:48.020 | What about coverage?

00:08:51.100 | So how are we doing on the everything part?

00:08:53.180 | So, you know, there is, like I mentioned,

00:08:55.940 | sub six gigahertz 5G and there's millimeter wave 5G.

00:09:00.100 | So not all 5G is made the same.

00:09:02.780 | So there's a speed, there's a bandwidth thing.

00:09:05.460 | And then there's coverage.

00:09:06.780 | How many people get to enjoy today?

00:09:10.220 | And how does the progress in the next five, 10, 20,

00:09:13.100 | 30, 50 years you think it looks like in terms of coverage?

00:09:15.820 | - Great topic of conversation.

00:09:17.060 | So let's talk about this.

00:09:19.140 | When I meet with regulators across the globe,

00:09:23.020 | I tell them resistance is futile.

00:09:26.140 | I'll locate every spectrum to wireless.

00:09:28.980 | Every spectrum needs to be allocated to wireless.

00:09:31.660 | The reality is when we start moving from CDMA to OFDMA,

00:09:37.460 | we knew that this industry has done a lot

00:09:41.780 | to get more bits per Hertz.

00:09:43.980 | But the reality is the massive amount of improvements

00:09:48.980 | that is required in capacity and in speed,

00:09:54.100 | you need more spectrum.

00:09:55.460 | You know, there's not so much we can rely

00:09:59.300 | on more bits per Hertz.

00:10:00.460 | You just need more spectrum.

00:10:02.020 | And if you look, for example,

00:10:04.700 | what carriers since the 2G era,

00:10:08.180 | they participate in different license and auctions

00:10:11.100 | and every spectrum they accumulated from 2G or 3G or 4G,

00:10:16.100 | all of that, you may be able to get one

00:10:18.820 | or two channels max of sub-6,

00:10:22.660 | which is a channels about 100 megahertz or 200 megahertz.

00:10:25.660 | And that's it.

00:10:26.700 | So we need more spectrum.

00:10:28.700 | So 5G has been designed to work across every spectrum

00:10:32.300 | from the low frequency bands,

00:10:35.060 | that's what we call the sub-6,

00:10:36.980 | but you needed more,

00:10:38.380 | you needed to go to the millimeter wave.

00:10:40.340 | So that's why 5G is a technology that you can deploy

00:10:43.820 | from 450 megahertz as an example,

00:10:46.060 | or 600 or 700, all the way to in the 42 gigahertz.

00:10:51.060 | And that's where millimeter wave comes into the picture.

00:10:57.140 | Now, let's now connect this to your question about coverage.

00:11:02.380 | A 5G.

00:11:03.540 | The easiest thing to do is to deploy 5G

00:11:08.340 | in the new spectrum you can get,

00:11:10.540 | which is in the sub-6,

00:11:12.420 | you see bands being auctioned across the globe

00:11:14.860 | and the 3.5 gigahertz.

00:11:17.420 | There's nothing special about the band,

00:11:18.740 | is just the only one that was available

00:11:20.180 | because everything else has been used for 4G.

00:11:22.540 | And you can deploy on that,

00:11:24.380 | go into existing cell towers and just put a new equipment

00:11:27.860 | without having to build new towers.

00:11:29.460 | But when we go to technologies,

00:11:31.060 | such as millimeter wave,

00:11:32.700 | then you have to build more dense networks.

00:11:35.260 | You need to build more stations

00:11:37.140 | because a deployment in that case

00:11:38.700 | look like a wifi deployment.

00:11:40.500 | It's almost like wifi access points.

00:11:42.900 | When you need to build more stations, you need permits,

00:11:45.980 | you need to build fiber.

00:11:48.140 | So it takes more time to densify.

00:11:50.580 | So what you see happening is coverage has been built fast

00:11:54.260 | with sub-6 across the globe.

00:11:56.660 | Now the United States also have the sub-6.

00:11:58.940 | So that gets you to coverage very fast.

00:12:02.940 | But millimeter wave, it's moving.

00:12:05.620 | And if you always say, for example, Verizon,

00:12:08.780 | United States has had a leadership

00:12:11.220 | in building millimeter wave.

00:12:12.420 | It takes time.

00:12:13.260 | I'll say cities like Chicago,

00:12:16.260 | Manhattan starting to get coverage.

00:12:18.780 | It will be a process over a number of years

00:12:21.540 | as you build those different access point type networks.

00:12:26.220 | But it's inevitable.

00:12:28.180 | There's not enough spectrum.

00:12:30.020 | So every 5G operators, just a matter of time,

00:12:33.220 | will have millimeter wave as well.

00:12:35.020 | - Resistance is futile.

00:12:36.740 | Okay, so for millimeter wave,

00:12:39.300 | we need density of access points.

00:12:42.140 | And what's the biggest resistance for Qualcomm,

00:12:47.140 | for human civilization?

00:12:49.660 | Is it politicians, regulators, federal regulators?

00:12:54.500 | Is it individual humans?

00:12:57.700 | Is it not enough money from the consumer perspective?

00:13:00.580 | Like who is the biggest pain in the butt?

00:13:03.340 | - From a Qualcomm standpoint,

00:13:04.540 | but answering the question about

00:13:06.420 | what it takes to build all this technology.

00:13:09.420 | I think regulators across the board

00:13:11.740 | understood the importance of 5G.

00:13:13.660 | I have not met a regulator that said,

00:13:15.940 | it's really important to be late on 5G.

00:13:18.100 | I don't think anybody wants to be late on 5G.

00:13:20.340 | And as a result, we've seen enormous amount of progress

00:13:22.980 | in getting spectrum allocated to 5G.

00:13:26.300 | I think the real issue is the time that it takes

00:13:29.380 | to build infrastructure.

00:13:31.660 | You know, investment in 5G infrastructure,

00:13:34.220 | especially millimeter wave,

00:13:35.180 | is like building roads and ports.

00:13:37.060 | It's critical infrastructure.

00:13:38.900 | And those things take time.

00:13:40.020 | Like one of the number one obstacle

00:13:41.660 | you're gonna hear from operators is site permit.

00:13:45.020 | You know, sometimes they have to negotiate

00:13:46.780 | municipality by municipality about permits

00:13:50.020 | to get new cell sites.

00:13:51.740 | But you know, the networks will be densified

00:13:54.220 | and you're gonna need all of that capacity

00:13:56.740 | for the promise of the fully immersive augmented reality

00:14:01.100 | that will replace phones and everything being connected

00:14:03.980 | 100% of the time.

00:14:05.620 | - This would not be a conversation with a CEO

00:14:07.980 | if I did not ask questions that make you nervous.

00:14:12.080 | Some people raise concerns

00:14:14.860 | about there not being enough studies

00:14:16.420 | about the effects of 5G on the human body.

00:14:19.420 | Is 5G safe?

00:14:21.420 | - Look, I have a very simple answer to this question.

00:14:26.420 | As we built new capabilities, such as 5G,

00:14:33.860 | power is going down.

00:14:36.020 | Especially when you think about reducing

00:14:38.780 | the number of base stations,

00:14:40.500 | the network's becoming more dense.

00:14:43.020 | So as you do that, the power becomes lower.

00:14:48.020 | If your phone-- - Power radiated from--

00:14:49.620 | - Power radiated from the phone

00:14:51.180 | and from the tower.

00:14:52.020 | As you get closer to the tower,

00:14:53.820 | you don't need that much power to reach the tower.

00:14:56.100 | So as we move from 4G to 5G,

00:14:59.500 | I think we see a reduction in the amount of power

00:15:02.580 | is required to close the radio link.

00:15:05.340 | Now, I also have a number of organizations,

00:15:08.340 | the FCC, for example, has rigorous programs,

00:15:11.940 | which they do a lot of tests to validate,

00:15:16.460 | you know, the safety of those devices.

00:15:19.260 | And I think we have, has been a model for other countries

00:15:22.740 | to also to adopt the same things.

00:15:24.620 | Cellular's been around for a number of decades now.

00:15:29.820 | I think smartphone is our most beloved device today.

00:15:34.380 | And I would argue how it's difficult

00:15:38.180 | to answer those questions because you,

00:15:40.700 | but I'll argue that the data to date,

00:15:43.620 | have we seen in 3G and 4G, you know,

00:15:47.700 | has shown that a lot of the initial concerns

00:15:52.700 | were not valid.

00:15:55.020 | We look at 5G, even though it's new,

00:15:57.140 | it's just less power.

00:15:58.580 | So we look at it from a physics standpoint.

00:16:01.860 | - So from a physics, from a biology perspective,

00:16:05.140 | there's a lot of evidence, there's studies

00:16:08.700 | that show that it's not dangerous,

00:16:11.180 | that it is in fact safe.

00:16:13.020 | However, the concern that people have

00:16:14.620 | is when you scale technology exponentially,

00:16:18.100 | how will that change human civilization?

00:16:20.740 | I mean, that doesn't apply to 5G,

00:16:22.340 | that applies to every technology.

00:16:23.980 | How, you said smartphone is the most beloved device,

00:16:27.300 | but love sometimes hurts.

00:16:29.940 | - That's-- - So the impact on society,

00:16:32.380 | we don't know.

00:16:33.380 | And there's a little bit of fear,

00:16:34.700 | there's both excitement and fear.

00:16:36.740 | - It's a great topic of conversation actually.

00:16:39.180 | So let me give you my perspective on this.

00:16:41.140 | And you started to see something exactly happening

00:16:43.220 | right now.

00:16:44.060 | So let me step back and let's talk about

00:16:46.740 | the fact that we are in a fully interconnected society.

00:16:51.020 | That when you look of the situations,

00:16:55.900 | they would talk about smartphones,

00:16:58.300 | largest development platform,

00:17:01.700 | so much now of our life,

00:17:04.980 | we are connected to the smartphone.

00:17:07.500 | And as a result, and we are all connected

00:17:10.060 | and we're connected.

00:17:11.580 | And then we're building digital twins of everything.

00:17:15.220 | Right, so when you look at that picture,

00:17:17.340 | when you look at the picture,

00:17:18.540 | this connected society,

00:17:19.900 | you started to have the following thoughts,

00:17:25.140 | which I think are very healthy,

00:17:26.780 | which means in the same way that in the physical world,

00:17:30.220 | you're entitled to some rights,

00:17:32.340 | you have obligations,

00:17:33.740 | and there's a lot of things that protect your integrity.

00:17:38.740 | I think as a rule,

00:17:41.660 | we're gonna see the society evolving

00:17:43.580 | so those things extend to your digital being

00:17:46.740 | of people and things.

00:17:49.340 | And I think it's just natural.

00:17:50.700 | It's just natural.

00:17:52.140 | It's just a natural path.

00:17:54.020 | And you started to see things like that.

00:17:55.540 | For example, the Europeans has done a lot in this area.

00:18:00.020 | I'll say the Europeans probably ahead in the United States

00:18:03.940 | thinking about privacy laws, digital privacy laws,

00:18:06.940 | most recently the DMA, the Digital Markets Act,

00:18:09.820 | which I think is a great thing.

00:18:11.820 | I think we believe there's incredible thought

00:18:15.860 | into enable ability to regulate the digital markets

00:18:19.220 | so that there's innovation and competition.

00:18:20.940 | So not a single company can control all the data

00:18:24.820 | and then decide how things are gonna be work

00:18:28.580 | on the digital realm.

00:18:29.940 | And even if we think about the potential things

00:18:32.020 | like the metaverses,

00:18:32.860 | we're connecting physical and digital spaces.

00:18:35.420 | So I think it's a natural evolution.

00:18:37.460 | Of course, regulation and laws

00:18:40.780 | always follow technology.

00:18:42.940 | But the fact that we're moving

00:18:45.580 | to our interconnected society,

00:18:47.060 | there's no going back.

00:18:49.380 | We are a fully interconnected society.

00:18:51.980 | But there is opportunity to think about

00:18:55.140 | how the digital twin,

00:18:56.940 | should people and governments should think about it

00:19:00.820 | so that we get the best of a technology

00:19:03.340 | without any downside.

00:19:05.260 | - Yeah, so when you say digital twin,

00:19:06.860 | that's one of the other things you're excited about,

00:19:08.460 | which is the metaverse,

00:19:09.740 | are basically building worlds in the digital space.

00:19:13.340 | And you have to start to think about

00:19:14.660 | all the basic human rights

00:19:16.660 | that transfer from our physical meat vehicles

00:19:20.460 | out to the digital copies of ourselves,

00:19:22.900 | representations of ourselves.

00:19:24.180 | It's really important to think about.

00:19:25.700 | The thing you mentioned about regulators

00:19:27.140 | that has been, this is me speaking, frustrating,

00:19:29.700 | is like you said, they follow technology.

00:19:32.780 | So sometimes they don't get the technology at all.

00:19:36.900 | So they're very clumsy in writing laws

00:19:40.180 | that censor that technology in interesting ways.

00:19:43.720 | They mean good, but they can do a lot of unintended damage.

00:19:47.320 | Now, both, it's a dance.

00:19:49.460 | It's a beautiful dance,

00:19:50.620 | but I just wish governments were better dance partners.

00:19:54.100 | I just see what they're kind of writing now

00:19:55.820 | about regulating social media and platforms like YouTube,

00:20:00.340 | and it's just really, really clumsy.

00:20:02.420 | They don't understand how machine learning works,

00:20:04.580 | how recommender systems work.

00:20:06.300 | And I just wish they kind of caught up a little more

00:20:08.940 | because it's really important to be great at regulation,

00:20:12.860 | but also it's important to let companies flourish

00:20:15.340 | and embrace this new wave of technology.

00:20:17.180 | That weird dance, I am more and more learning,

00:20:20.380 | looking at public policy,

00:20:22.580 | how much positive government can do

00:20:25.580 | and how much clumsy negative it can do unintentionally,

00:20:29.300 | just out of sheer incompetence

00:20:31.200 | or lack of curiosity about tech.

00:20:34.140 | That's my rant about regulators.

00:20:36.900 | - I think it's a valid point.

00:20:38.380 | As I said before, I think the Europeans

00:20:41.260 | probably have a very good framework,

00:20:43.420 | but the way I'll think about it,

00:20:46.180 | we depend on have the ability to innovate.

00:20:50.220 | We depend on the free markets.

00:20:51.540 | We depend on the ability to create technology

00:20:56.540 | that will be disruptive.

00:20:59.260 | But at the same time, I think the tech companies

00:21:01.100 | probably should spend time helping governments

00:21:03.860 | understand ahead of time

00:21:06.940 | so that they can be better prepared.

00:21:08.740 | - Let's talk about one of my favorite topics, Snapdragon.

00:21:13.740 | So Snapdragon is a system on a chip.

00:21:17.340 | This processor has probably powered billions of smartphones

00:21:20.500 | over its pretty long history now,

00:21:23.880 | a decade and a half maybe.

00:21:26.060 | So it's constantly iterating.

00:21:27.260 | There's constantly just like a turmoil

00:21:29.060 | of beautiful innovations happening.

00:21:30.620 | So last year it was Snapdragon 888 was the main one

00:21:34.180 | with the five nanometer.

00:21:35.660 | And this year it's Snapdragon 8 Gen 1.

00:21:40.060 | It's a new naming scheme.

00:21:41.640 | Okay, what's the sexiest, most beautiful idea

00:21:44.740 | or concept to you about Snapdragon?

00:21:47.020 | Let's start there.

00:21:47.940 | - The way I would describe it,

00:21:49.060 | and I think the reason we have been successful with it

00:21:53.300 | is to really understand how to build a platform,

00:21:59.340 | a single chip, like a single chip

00:22:01.500 | that will have every single capability

00:22:06.220 | if you wanna make this smartphone in the palm of your hand,

00:22:10.120 | something that has all of your computing needs.

00:22:13.500 | And it was the ability to get,

00:22:15.180 | from an engineering standpoint,

00:22:17.300 | ability to get into a single chip

00:22:20.100 | of not only all possible connectivity technology

00:22:24.260 | from cellular to Wi-Fi to Bluetooth

00:22:26.660 | to every single constellation of satellites

00:22:29.940 | for position location.

00:22:31.480 | But at the same time, a very power efficient,

00:22:35.620 | single-threaded, multi-threaded CPU.

00:22:39.540 | A GPU for all of your graphic demands,

00:22:44.420 | gaming, fastest growing segment for gaming is mobile gaming.

00:22:49.420 | An artificial intelligence processor,

00:22:52.160 | which we call the neural processor unit.

00:22:55.100 | And then a video engine,

00:22:57.300 | a multimedia engine for every single application,

00:23:01.620 | audio, everything.

00:23:03.740 | So it's a single chip

00:23:06.420 | that has every single computing technology

00:23:09.340 | you need in the phone.

00:23:10.580 | And what's exciting about it is what we already knew.

00:23:14.300 | For example, when you think about camera or computer vision,

00:23:17.300 | you see that advancements in this technology

00:23:20.700 | now happens in the smartphone first

00:23:25.100 | versus additional cameras.

00:23:26.380 | So the beauty about the Snapdragon

00:23:28.420 | is we always have this thing within Qualcomm.

00:23:32.980 | The phone, it's small, you have to be able to hold it.

00:23:37.220 | You're gonna touch your face, so you cannot be hot.

00:23:40.600 | You have to manage thermals.

00:23:43.260 | You expect to have a full day of battery life.

00:23:47.660 | But then you want it to not be sending data

00:23:50.980 | into 10 or 100 megabits.

00:23:53.900 | You want gigabits.

00:23:55.480 | You want it to be able to have eight core processors.

00:23:58.740 | You want to have a GPU with ray tracing.

00:24:01.400 | You want to have all of those things

00:24:03.280 | that you can only get into sometimes a desktop PC.

00:24:08.280 | And to do all of that in your phone

00:24:11.340 | and be able to be in the leadership position generation

00:24:14.980 | after generation is an incredible thing.

00:24:17.020 | And we're very proud of that at Qualcomm.

00:24:18.980 | - Yeah, so you have to do the Wi-Fi, 5G, all of the--

00:24:22.340 | - And you have to be good to everyone

00:24:23.860 | of those technologies. - All of it.

00:24:24.700 | And pack it all in.

00:24:26.300 | And there's also pressure to make the thing

00:24:28.740 | faster and faster and faster.

00:24:30.660 | And then there's more and more applications

00:24:32.460 | you're supposed to be effortlessly using.

00:24:34.820 | And then you mentioned the NPU, GPU, CPU.

00:24:37.540 | They have to also dance together somehow.

00:24:40.420 | They have to communicate well, share memory or not,

00:24:42.780 | depending on what the application is.

00:24:44.380 | - And your battery has to last all day.

00:24:46.540 | (laughing)

00:24:48.220 | - So think about that.

00:24:49.060 | From a company like Qualcomm, we have to be good

00:24:51.820 | in each and every one of those technologies.

00:24:53.740 | We can't just say, oh, we're a CPU company

00:24:55.380 | or a GPU company or we're AI company.

00:24:57.900 | We have to do everything.

00:24:59.820 | - What does it take to design a great processor?

00:25:02.900 | So design this system on a chip that you mentioned.

00:25:06.140 | Is there some insight you can provide

00:25:08.100 | in this chaos of engineers, designers, leaders,

00:25:15.500 | the people that think about how much

00:25:16.780 | this is all gonna cause, the whole mess of it?

00:25:19.740 | - I'm of course very partial about it.

00:25:21.700 | I've been in this company for probably more than 26 years.

00:25:24.940 | But I will argue that there are a couple of things

00:25:28.460 | that are ingredients for the success.

00:25:31.820 | So we talk about the fact that we have all those

00:25:33.660 | different technologies, they evolve at their own pace

00:25:36.180 | and you have to be good in each one of them.

00:25:38.820 | And you need them to make them working together.

00:25:40.980 | So you need to have an engineering organization

00:25:44.860 | that's with incredible collaboration culture

00:25:49.860 | because everybody has to be working.

00:25:52.540 | The train's gonna leave the station,

00:25:54.220 | every cart needs to be there, right?

00:25:56.620 | When it leaves the station, it needs to leave on time,

00:25:58.660 | especially in the phone business,

00:26:00.220 | you can't change Christmas, you cannot change Black Friday,

00:26:04.020 | you cannot change all of the selling seasons.

00:26:06.420 | So the phones are gonna launch on time

00:26:08.900 | and every technology needs to be there.

00:26:10.180 | The engineering needs to work as one.

00:26:12.660 | And we do have that at Qualcomm.

00:26:14.540 | The other thing, you have to have incredible discipline

00:26:18.340 | because those are very complex systems.

00:26:22.580 | So in one way, you have to design with quality

00:26:26.860 | because in many cases, we're gonna be ramping production

00:26:32.020 | and even before we have the silicon back

00:26:34.700 | and you have to rely on our simulation models

00:26:38.340 | and you have to rely on the fact that you design

00:26:43.380 | for commercial applications.

00:26:45.020 | That takes a while to build

00:26:48.140 | and it's probably been the history

00:26:52.060 | of a semiconductor business at Qualcomm.

00:26:54.100 | - So you mean like the framework

00:26:55.460 | of how many people can use simulation software

00:26:57.620 | and all that kind of stuff to build the thing

00:26:59.940 | with a hard deadline that you might not even get back

00:27:02.820 | from like manufacture before.

00:27:05.740 | You're not allowed to have any mistakes.

00:27:08.180 | - No wonder our name is quality communications.

00:27:11.060 | Oh, I never even thought about the qual part, quality.

00:27:14.620 | So quality and there's a bar that's high

00:27:17.420 | and you're not allowed to mess up.

00:27:19.060 | I mean, to me as an engineer, that's exciting.

00:27:21.020 | Hard deadlines, no room for mistakes.

00:27:25.820 | I love it.

00:27:26.660 | Super stressful, but I love it.

00:27:27.980 | So there's a couple of other small companies

00:27:31.980 | called Google and Apple.

00:27:36.180 | So Google is now using its own chip for the Pixel 6.

00:27:39.460 | Apple using as its own.

00:27:41.540 | How does Qualcomm out-compete Google and Apple?

00:27:45.660 | How does it beat them?

00:27:46.820 | - We don't have to out-compete Google.

00:27:48.500 | Actually, if you look at our mobile strategy today

00:27:51.260 | and then one thing I was very clear when I became CEO,

00:27:53.620 | I think there's all the confusion in the market.

00:27:55.220 | Our mobile strategy is very clear.

00:27:56.980 | We are focused of making Snapdragon synonymous

00:28:01.900 | with premium Android experience.

00:28:04.740 | That's what Snapdragon is.

00:28:06.060 | - Android, the phone of the people.

00:28:08.300 | - Yes.

00:28:09.140 | - I just have a love for Android.

00:28:12.060 | I'm constantly talking trash to iPhone people.

00:28:13.820 | Sorry, go ahead.

00:28:14.660 | - Premium Android experiences.

00:28:16.540 | So we do produce Snapdragon in multiple tier

00:28:20.580 | for every price point, but every year,

00:28:23.540 | you mentioned the HN1,

00:28:26.100 | and every year we'll provide the flagship product

00:28:29.660 | and then the other series that is trying to get the best

00:28:33.940 | of every possible technology at that time.

00:28:36.860 | And it's really focused on enabling the Android ecosystem.

00:28:41.500 | So I'll give an example.

00:28:42.900 | So you asked me the question, how to compete with Google.

00:28:45.380 | It's not about competing with Google.

00:28:46.580 | We're the number one enabler of the Google Android ecosystem.

00:28:51.580 | And the largest, largest,

00:28:54.660 | the number one customer there is actually Samsung.

00:28:58.180 | And if you look what happened to Samsung,

00:29:00.700 | Samsung, I always said,

00:29:05.420 | since I began my relationship with them,

00:29:08.780 | because they always had their own chip.

00:29:10.420 | They always had their own chip.

00:29:12.100 | And if you'll just look at what happened right now

00:29:14.780 | with the Galaxy S22 that just launched,

00:29:17.900 | they used to balance their business about 50% Qualcomm.

00:29:21.580 | They will get the most advanced markets

00:29:23.580 | like the United States and China and Japan and Korea,

00:29:26.980 | they will sign a Qualcomm.

00:29:28.700 | And then they'll have their own chip for the markets

00:29:31.260 | that they would, will be like more emerging markets,

00:29:33.980 | open markets, markets that they have a control

00:29:35.900 | on the channel because they sell a lot of appliances

00:29:38.380 | and other things.

00:29:39.780 | If you look what happened right now, GS22,

00:29:42.340 | 75% is Qualcomm.

00:29:46.420 | And then the next large OEMs in Android ecosystem

00:29:51.420 | are the Chinese ones.

00:29:52.860 | Companies like Xiaomi, one of the fastest growing.

00:29:56.580 | It was number one in Europe at some point last year,

00:30:00.260 | then followed by OPPO and OnePlus and Vivo.

00:30:03.700 | So those are some of the largest Qualcomm customers.

00:30:06.620 | And they actually drive the Android ecosystem.

00:30:11.620 | And that's our mobile strategy

00:30:14.180 | and fully aligned with Google and it's working.

00:30:18.700 | And I was, you know, not to get into a lot

00:30:21.340 | of the investor conversation, but we're also happy.

00:30:25.700 | We became a beneficiary of the shifts that we saw

00:30:30.700 | in the marketplace.

00:30:31.900 | Huawei became a smaller OEM as a result of the sanctions.

00:30:36.900 | We saw the rise of a lot of the other OEMs from China,

00:30:41.980 | especially for China domestic market, Xiaomi, OPPO, Vivo.

00:30:45.980 | They moved to the premium category

00:30:47.780 | and they're all doing that with Qualcomm.

00:30:49.420 | So we're actually very fortunate and happy

00:30:52.900 | with the position we are in mobile business.

00:30:55.580 | We do have an Apple relationship.

00:30:57.500 | We provide modem technology to Apple.

00:31:01.820 | It's a multi-year relationship.

00:31:03.700 | Apple has been very public that they are investing

00:31:07.140 | to develop their own modem,

00:31:09.420 | but the Qualcomm strategy has been clear.

00:31:12.500 | We're really focused on Snapdragon.

00:31:15.340 | Our mobile strategy is not defined

00:31:18.420 | by providing a cellular modem to Apple.

00:31:20.820 | Our mobile strategy is this that we just talked about it.

00:31:23.100 | It's about the unique thing of Snapdragon

00:31:25.180 | that has every single technology integrated

00:31:27.900 | into a single SoC.

00:31:29.660 | And that's-- - It provides

00:31:31.100 | a premium experience. - And that's what we're doing

00:31:33.380 | and focusing on the Android ecosystem.

00:31:36.940 | - I don't know if I can ask you this kind of question.

00:31:39.700 | It's like picking your-- - Go ahead.

00:31:40.940 | - Children or something like this,

00:31:42.220 | but what smartphone with a Snapdragon,

00:31:45.620 | you mentioned Samsung Galaxy S22, OnePlus,

00:31:49.220 | those are phones I personally really enjoy.

00:31:52.500 | What phone do you currently use?

00:31:54.340 | Or do you have multiple phones and you just--

00:31:55.700 | - I do have multiple phones, but I do use Galaxy S22.

00:31:59.700 | - That's your favorite one?

00:32:01.020 | All right, well, you heard it here first, folks.

00:32:03.460 | Okay, so excellent.

00:32:04.860 | Can Qualcomm also, let's take a brief step away from mobile

00:32:09.860 | and take on Intel and Apple and other such companies

00:32:13.540 | in the laptop and desktop space?

00:32:15.220 | So the nature of what a computer is seems to be changing.

00:32:18.700 | It's like smartphones merging.

00:32:21.340 | It's all being a smartphone just with the biggest screen

00:32:23.820 | or something like this.

00:32:24.660 | So what does the future of that look like?

00:32:26.780 | - Before I answer that question,

00:32:28.460 | let me just step back a little bit,

00:32:30.460 | because, and I'm sure we can talk more about those things,

00:32:33.620 | but the reality is Qualcomm is changing a lot.

00:32:37.940 | And we use, I know we spend a lot of time

00:32:40.140 | talking about 5G and smartphone and Snapdragon.

00:32:42.780 | And I think that has been what had defined Qualcomm

00:32:45.500 | for many years, but the reality is even consistent

00:32:48.740 | with that 5G conversation,

00:32:50.580 | which is a technology to connect everything,

00:32:53.820 | Qualcomm is also changing.

00:32:56.420 | Our technology that was in many cases designed for phones,

00:33:00.860 | and we said it at the beginning,

00:33:02.900 | connectivity and processing,

00:33:05.420 | is going to virtually every industry.

00:33:07.900 | And as a result, Qualcomm is really changing with it

00:33:12.060 | and expanding to a number of different addressable markets.

00:33:15.780 | Some of those markets is the PC, as you talk about it.

00:33:21.100 | The conversions of mobile and PC.

00:33:24.620 | And the reason I'm excited about this,

00:33:27.020 | because you see a lot of things happening

00:33:28.900 | that bring this right front and center

00:33:31.700 | when you think about the future of technology.

00:33:33.420 | So what we learn with the pandemic

00:33:37.580 | is that the number one use case

00:33:40.060 | of personal computers is communications.

00:33:43.760 | It is interesting when you think about that,

00:33:46.460 | that's the number one use case on a PC today

00:33:49.380 | is communications.

00:33:50.700 | It's actually funny because in the cellular industry,

00:33:53.580 | actually I'll say, let me step back.

00:33:55.260 | In the telecom industry,

00:33:57.580 | we've been chasing this killer application

00:34:00.900 | of video telephony for decades, right?

00:34:03.740 | I remember back then in the wireline,

00:34:08.060 | even before the internet and IP, ISDN,

00:34:11.420 | you remember those AT&T desk phones of a little screen,

00:34:15.500 | and they said, "You can do video telephony."

00:34:17.220 | We don't watch that in Back to the Future 2.

00:34:21.340 | Then when we started developing 3G,

00:34:23.500 | people said, "What's the application

00:34:24.900 | for having data to cell phone, all video telephony?"

00:34:27.620 | Then we started doing 4G,

00:34:29.380 | and in the beginning people said,

00:34:32.060 | "Well, why do you need all this broadband,

00:34:33.700 | all video telephony?"

00:34:35.460 | But it took a pandemic to make video telephony

00:34:39.140 | the killer application.

00:34:40.620 | And that's now the number one use case on a PC.

00:34:44.900 | So now think about that for a second.

00:34:47.020 | Be personal computers now,

00:34:48.620 | there are technologies that people,

00:34:49.860 | when they were gonna buy a PC,

00:34:50.940 | they didn't care much about it, now they do.

00:34:52.740 | Camera, camera, how good is the camera?

00:34:55.820 | The audio, is that connected?

00:34:57.940 | How good is the connectivity?

00:34:58.940 | Do you have the latest and greatest Wi-Fi and cellular?

00:35:02.020 | What's the battery life?

00:35:03.420 | Because you're gonna be working from anywhere.

00:35:04.980 | Sometimes you're near death, sometimes you're not.

00:35:07.300 | So all those things, what's the portability like?

00:35:09.780 | So those things started to change

00:35:11.820 | how we should think about the PC, but I won't stop there.

00:35:15.420 | Let me talk about another trend.

00:35:17.100 | So, and all come as a result of what we saw the pandemic.

00:35:21.860 | Let's say that you are an engineer,

00:35:24.100 | you do computer aided design.

00:35:25.780 | You have an advanced desktop computer

00:35:30.380 | or workstation in your office,

00:35:33.140 | but you wanna work from home someday.

00:35:35.180 | So you're not gonna move that to your home.

00:35:37.300 | So what do you need to do?

00:35:38.140 | You're gonna have to rely on that,

00:35:40.300 | you're gonna run that on the cloud.

00:35:41.860 | And you're gonna run it on the cloud,

00:35:43.140 | you need high bandwidth,

00:35:44.820 | because you almost want the cloud

00:35:46.700 | to be the same as your computer for that use case.

00:35:50.340 | That's the 5G on demand computing use case.

00:35:53.580 | The use 5G is almost a link between two computers.

00:35:57.180 | But then, CIOs are saying,

00:35:59.620 | well, my workforce is going home for certain days,

00:36:02.300 | I want all the data to be in the cloud.

00:36:04.540 | You look at, for example, Microsoft OneDrive

00:36:07.020 | or the ability to collaborate, you need the bandwidth.

00:36:10.300 | So when you put all of those things together,

00:36:13.820 | you start thinking about what is the next generation PC?

00:36:17.220 | And that's the opportunity for Qualcomm.

00:36:19.060 | I'll just give an example.

00:36:21.100 | Back in Mobile World Congress recently, Lenovo,

00:36:26.100 | they have a line of enterprise laptops called the ThinkPad.

00:36:31.860 | I'm sure you're familiar with it.

00:36:34.020 | So they announced the ThinkPad based on Snapdragon.

00:36:38.220 | With 5G on, 28 hours of battery life.

00:36:42.940 | So that's next generation PC.

00:36:45.740 | - So just a nice screen with extremely high,

00:36:48.580 | nice screen and keyboard,

00:36:50.740 | and extremely high connectivity

00:36:52.300 | to maybe an even more powerful machine in the cloud.

00:36:55.660 | Something more of the data, connecting to the data,

00:36:57.900 | connecting to compute, all that kind of stuff.

00:36:59.540 | - You have the camera capabilities.

00:37:01.500 | And let me go one step more.

00:37:03.180 | Microsoft talking about some of the features

00:37:05.660 | they're doing now using on Windows 11, using Snapdragon.

00:37:10.940 | Remember, we talk about it,

00:37:11.940 | Snapdragon has an AI processor inside there.

00:37:15.540 | So one of the cool features Microsoft's talking about it is,

00:37:19.060 | you can be on a team's call,

00:37:21.060 | and you can make sure your eyes are looking at the camera

00:37:23.820 | a percent of the time.

00:37:25.700 | - Well, that's an interesting,

00:37:27.140 | so they can be talking about that.

00:37:27.980 | - And you do that with AI.

00:37:29.300 | - Yes, that's really tricky to pull off.

00:37:32.140 | For example, the reason I'm a huge stickler

00:37:34.020 | for doing these in person, these conversations in person,

00:37:36.580 | it's really tough to get right, but it's a worthy challenge.

00:37:39.900 | So that's where the metaverse hopes to,

00:37:41.780 | so like, I just, 'cause you said the importance

00:37:43.860 | of this telephony, of humans connecting,

00:37:46.260 | teleporting themselves,

00:37:47.900 | getting that right is really difficult.

00:37:49.900 | There's a lot of people hate Zoom meetings,

00:37:52.060 | but that doesn't mean you can't improve that experience

00:37:55.420 | and get rid of the hate.

00:37:57.180 | A lot of people hate talking to their car too,

00:37:59.060 | because the voice, the natural language processing

00:38:02.020 | is terrible, but when it's not, it's a beautiful thing.

00:38:04.860 | So getting that right is--

00:38:06.100 | - This is an opportunity, this is an opportunity.

00:38:08.340 | Think about it, it starts with the PC,

00:38:10.500 | making the PC giving you a better experience for Teams,

00:38:14.300 | but then it goes right back into this trend

00:38:18.180 | of connecting physical and digital spaces,

00:38:20.500 | and all the work we're doing with the metaverse

00:38:23.180 | and virtual reality, and meta-reality in the future

00:38:25.260 | is why not call somebody or connect with somebody

00:38:28.620 | with a hologram, it's possible.

00:38:30.380 | - And also to mention some increasing amount

00:38:33.820 | of intelligence in our cars.

00:38:36.060 | So semi-autonomous, autonomous cars,

00:38:38.060 | and the interactivity between human and car,

00:38:41.820 | which for me, things are really exciting.

00:38:44.900 | Let me ask you a big question.

00:38:46.100 | So when aliens again, now on the other side,

00:38:49.100 | right, and humans destroy themselves

00:38:50.940 | through nuclear war centuries from now--

00:38:52.780 | - Let's hope not. - Let's hope not.

00:38:54.300 | But in case, you know, let's just hypothetical,

00:38:56.180 | thought experiment, and they write a history

00:38:58.220 | of humanity in the 21st century,

00:39:00.380 | what would they remember Qualcomm in the 21st century

00:39:05.540 | as a company?

00:39:06.380 | Would it be a car company?

00:39:08.100 | Like think of all the crazy pivots

00:39:10.020 | that might happen in the next like 50 years.

00:39:12.940 | 'Cause you're thinking, you said Qualcomm enables

00:39:15.820 | all of these things, with 5G,

00:39:17.420 | and there'll be probably other Gs, it keeps increasing.

00:39:20.900 | So basically connectivity and computation,

00:39:23.620 | and everything becomes connected,

00:39:25.140 | and everything is capable of computation.

00:39:27.700 | Might you become a robotics and car company?

00:39:30.880 | - I will argue we're already an automotive company today,

00:39:36.060 | and, but let me tell what I would like Qualcomm

00:39:39.780 | to be remembered and recognized for.

00:39:42.040 | I think everyone that knows Qualcomm immediately,

00:39:47.040 | you know, connect us, pun intended,

00:39:49.900 | to connectivity and wireless.

00:39:52.020 | But the reality is we're being actually

00:39:54.300 | the company providing intelligence and processing

00:39:57.980 | to everything on the edge,

00:39:59.580 | everything outside the data center that we're doing.

00:40:02.900 | Those billions of devices, they're gonna be connected.

00:40:05.780 | And that's kind of explained when we talk about

00:40:08.740 | the connected intelligent edge,

00:40:10.460 | the beyond phones, cars, PCs, and all of those,

00:40:13.940 | and the broader IOTOs, we talk about everything

00:40:16.460 | will be connected and intelligent.

00:40:18.020 | And that's what we want Qualcomm to be recognized for.

00:40:20.820 | - So by the way, for people who are not familiar,

00:40:23.060 | there's some technical jargon,

00:40:24.820 | but people use the word edge, like edge computing.

00:40:28.460 | It's, by the way, that's probably changing

00:40:30.700 | what that even means, but it's basically everything

00:40:33.000 | that's not a giant thing that's make a lot of noise

00:40:34.980 | in a building somewhere.

00:40:36.220 | So it's mobile devices and the mobile devices

00:40:39.900 | of all kinds, well, a refrigerator is not mobile,

00:40:42.380 | but it would be edge.

00:40:43.660 | So it's like, what's a sandwich, that kind of discussion.

00:40:46.700 | But basically edge computing is the edge

00:40:53.140 | of that expanding space that you mentioned

00:40:56.260 | that Qualcomm is trying to connect

00:40:59.220 | and enable with computation.

00:41:00.660 | - Hugest input to describe what the edge is

00:41:03.940 | and edge computing is.

00:41:05.500 | I think as we think about the evolution of the data center,

00:41:08.460 | you need to bring the computational closer

00:41:12.380 | to where the device is.

00:41:14.020 | Also, when you put the computation together

00:41:16.960 | with the connectivity at the same time,

00:41:19.680 | you're gonna see a lot of advancement

00:41:21.940 | of artificial intelligence happening closer

00:41:25.100 | or at the device.

00:41:26.740 | Look, it's a very, I have a simple way to describe it.

00:41:29.460 | Remember in the beginning of this conversation,

00:41:31.900 | we talk about in the 4G era,

00:41:34.660 | broadband and mobile computing evolved side by side.

00:41:38.900 | If you're gonna have broadband,

00:41:39.980 | you might as well have a computer in the palm of your hand.

00:41:41.900 | So we needed to invest in those two technologies.

00:41:45.140 | In 5G, AI develops side by side.

00:41:49.820 | You're connected to the cloud 100% of the time.

00:41:52.460 | You have a high bandwidth and you have now

00:41:54.380 | a smart and intelligent thing

00:41:55.860 | that can make decision in real time,

00:41:58.140 | provide context information to the cloud

00:42:00.700 | to make the models more accurate

00:42:02.420 | and as well compare and contrast with the cloud.

00:42:05.180 | So there's gonna be an exponential development AI

00:42:08.500 | happening with all the edge devices.

00:42:11.820 | The devices that are outside the data center

00:42:14.220 | and computation is gonna go alongside that.

00:42:16.860 | And a great example of that is the car.

00:42:19.580 | The car, we haven't talked much about the car,

00:42:22.860 | but Qualcomm is now, you could argue,

00:42:25.900 | was as much as an automotive company

00:42:27.700 | as a wireless company working 26 global brands.

00:42:31.940 | And it's easy to see, if you look at our mobile heritage

00:42:36.380 | and we talk about form factors, thermal, battery life,

00:42:40.860 | you're not gonna put a server in the trunk of a car,

00:42:43.380 | but you need as much computational capabilities.

00:42:46.740 | And that's what we see Qualcomm providing,

00:42:49.740 | as the car become a connected computer on wheels,

00:42:53.060 | we provide the computational and all the sensors

00:42:56.060 | for you to do assistive driving

00:42:57.660 | for the new digital cockpit experience,

00:42:59.780 | connecting the car to the cloud.

00:43:01.540 | And it's all of that's happening at the end.

00:43:03.940 | - Does Qualcomm want to be the brain

00:43:05.900 | of a lot of autonomous vehicles in the future

00:43:07.780 | of different, you said brands, like Mercedes,

00:43:10.460 | BMW, I don't know, whatever, just whatever car,

00:43:13.300 | cars have the sexy thing they do

00:43:15.740 | and then it defines their brand and so on.

00:43:18.500 | And then there's the brain

00:43:19.820 | that doesn't need to have branding, suppose.

00:43:22.460 | So does Qualcomm see that

00:43:23.860 | or will I be able to buy a Qualcomm car?

00:43:26.460 | Like literally it'll be Qualcomm.

00:43:27.300 | - No, you're not gonna be able to buy a Qualcomm car,

00:43:29.300 | but we're ready on our way to become the brains of the car.

00:43:34.300 | The way you should think

00:43:36.740 | about Qualcomm automotive strategy is,

00:43:39.460 | the car companies realize

00:43:42.140 | they need to become technology companies.

00:43:44.140 | You just look, for example, of the market cap

00:43:47.140 | of some of the new electrical comers

00:43:50.780 | and compare them with the legacy car companies.

00:43:55.700 | - Which one is that?

00:43:56.540 | I heard of, is it--

00:43:58.140 | - Well, let's just use an example.

00:43:58.980 | - One of them lives in Austin.

00:44:00.660 | - Let's say Rivian, right?

00:44:02.220 | Rivian.

00:44:03.060 | - Oh, that one too, yes.

00:44:03.900 | - You know, the car companies are not going away.

00:44:05.700 | It's actually a mistake not to bet in the car companies.

00:44:09.660 | The car companies need a technology partner

00:44:12.660 | that will provide the digital chassis for them

00:44:16.700 | and that's what we're doing.

00:44:18.140 | So if you look at Qualcomm,

00:44:19.260 | we talk about a Snapdragon digital chassis.

00:44:22.340 | So we want to be the preferred technology partner

00:44:27.340 | of the car companies and I think it's working.

00:44:30.700 | Strategy is working right now.

00:44:32.020 | - So basically helping the car companies

00:44:34.700 | accelerate into becoming technology companies.

00:44:37.700 | - Connecting the car to the cloud,

00:44:39.380 | redesign the interior of the digital cockpit experience

00:44:42.900 | and provide the computation and sensor capabilities

00:44:45.540 | for autonomy and assisted driving.

00:44:48.260 | - On the topic of robots,

00:44:49.620 | when millions or billions of robots

00:44:51.340 | roam the earth in the future among us humans,

00:44:54.340 | and I am, for one, concerned in a small percentage,

00:44:59.340 | but largely I'm excited about that future,

00:45:02.200 | will Qualcomm be the thing that powers their brain?

00:45:07.200 | - We have in our IoT business,

00:45:10.820 | which has been one of the fastest growing business for us,

00:45:13.860 | a number of robotics engagement.

00:45:16.860 | So I'll give you some example.

00:45:18.980 | If you look of the Amazon Astro,

00:45:23.180 | you familiar with that?

00:45:24.220 | There's two Snapdragon in there.

00:45:27.820 | - There is?

00:45:29.700 | This is really exciting.

00:45:30.520 | They're supposed to ship it to me.

00:45:31.460 | Where is it?

00:45:32.340 | Okay, but anyway, that's really cool.

00:45:33.860 | I didn't know it was Snapdragons.

00:45:35.100 | - Yeah, we're working with robotics in industrial,

00:45:39.720 | of course drones.

00:45:41.300 | We're getting more and more traction for robotics.

00:45:44.900 | - Sorry to interrupt.

00:45:45.740 | Industrial robotics too, you said?

00:45:47.300 | - Industrial, especially when you think about

00:45:50.380 | what's gonna happen with the factory of the future,

00:45:55.780 | the industrial side of the future,

00:45:57.060 | the warehouse of the future,

00:45:58.200 | when you bring 5G, for example, to it,

00:46:01.540 | and you have a number of different use cases,

00:46:04.540 | and then you see a lot of robotics application.

00:46:09.140 | And of course drones.

00:46:11.820 | And the most famous, I will consider that a robot,

00:46:16.500 | the most famous robot in the world right now,

00:46:19.960 | it's powered by a Snapdragon,

00:46:21.300 | which is the Mars Ingenuity Helicopter.

00:46:24.500 | The whole helicopter, the cameras and everything,

00:46:27.380 | is powered by a Snapdragon.

00:46:28.780 | And talking about exciting thing for an engineer,

00:46:32.780 | the same Snapdragon that goes to a phone,

00:46:35.140 | and it can go to a Galaxy phone, for example,

00:46:37.220 | Samsung, the same, not a special one,

00:46:39.900 | went all the way to Mars.

00:46:41.360 | - Is exploring other planets, looking for alien life,

00:46:45.020 | and maybe gets to meet 'em.

00:46:46.120 | Wouldn't that be interesting,

00:46:47.100 | if a Snapdragon is the thing that first sees an alien?

00:46:49.740 | It's like, what the hell?

00:46:50.640 | We did not program this in the computer vision.

00:46:52.340 | - I want to use the example to go back

00:46:53.980 | to the conversation we had about quality.

00:46:57.140 | As an engineer, you need to make sure it works.

00:46:59.580 | Can you imagine if it gets over there on Mars

00:47:01.260 | and it doesn't work?

00:47:02.100 | - Listen, this is very stressful.

00:47:04.060 | What NASA, what SpaceX, what all those companies are doing

00:47:07.020 | is extremely stressful.

00:47:08.100 | The room for mistakes is tiny.

00:47:10.580 | But that's super exciting for an engineer, once again.

00:47:13.280 | There's been a global semiconductor chip shortage.

00:47:17.340 | So from your perspective, just it'd be interesting

00:47:19.720 | to get your expert analysis of the situation.

00:47:23.380 | What do you think are the main reasons,

00:47:24.780 | and how is Qualcomm being affected, and how can it help?

00:47:28.580 | In this, in the future, things like it.

00:47:31.380 | - Okay, that's a big topic of conversation.

00:47:36.780 | And we only have five minutes.

00:47:38.060 | - So I'll try to be as objective as I can.

00:47:41.900 | So first, let's talk about what caused it.

00:47:43.780 | And you hear a lot of different things.

00:47:46.460 | I will try to put it within the right context.

00:47:48.840 | The first thing that caused it, really,

00:47:51.320 | is the acceleration of digital transformation

00:47:54.900 | of pretty much everything in every industry.

00:47:59.180 | Every industry's been digitally transformed.

00:48:01.380 | And as such, the amount of semiconductors

00:48:04.940 | that are required is much larger.

00:48:07.420 | Just to give you a practical example,

00:48:09.020 | if you think about the automotive as an example,

00:48:11.660 | the cars that are, there's cars that are launch,

00:48:15.100 | a new model launching today.

00:48:17.180 | The new model launching today most likely has 10x

00:48:20.700 | the amount of chips of the prior model.

00:48:23.940 | And the amount of people working on this coming in next,

00:48:26.620 | probably 10x that one.

00:48:28.460 | So you see the amount of silicon,

00:48:30.140 | and then billions of things become smart.

00:48:32.580 | More and more data goes to the cloud.

00:48:34.420 | The data center grows.

00:48:35.820 | So the floor for semiconductor consumptions went up by a lot.

00:48:40.500 | Then you have things that aggravated this.

00:48:43.180 | The pandemic aggravated this.

00:48:45.100 | There is a couple of trends from the pandemic.

00:48:47.820 | The enterprise transformation of the home.

00:48:50.100 | The home became an enterprise,

00:48:51.540 | massive amounts of upgrades on broadband and IoT.

00:48:56.540 | The office has changed to the way we work now,

00:49:02.700 | including the ability to support collaboration tools

00:49:05.300 | and video.

00:49:06.820 | Then you have the higher demand for products

00:49:11.820 | during the pandemic because people wanted to be connected.

00:49:17.700 | People bought new phones and new tablets

00:49:19.340 | and new computers, new gaming.

00:49:22.140 | So all of those things came on top of that

00:49:24.820 | as the aggravated issue, but they're not the main issue.

00:49:28.580 | The main issue is it's actually a long-term growth

00:49:33.580 | of digital.

00:49:35.180 | - So what I'm hearing you say is the pandemic

00:49:38.340 | was not the cause.

00:49:39.500 | It was an aggravation.

00:49:40.780 | - It was an aggravation.

00:49:41.620 | - So is there a way we can support as a human civilization

00:49:46.620 | in terms of manufacture, in terms of supply,

00:49:51.380 | the kind of growth that you're talking about

00:49:53.860 | in devices and so on?

00:49:55.620 | Is there high-level ideas you can say

00:49:58.060 | of what that's required there?

00:49:59.940 | - Yes, and I think that's the second part of the answer.

00:50:02.500 | So what's happening now?

00:50:03.860 | How are we gonna get out of this?

00:50:05.540 | So we see a lot of capacity investments

00:50:10.140 | put into place by the industry.

00:50:12.860 | We had invested a lot of our suppliers.

00:50:15.700 | A lot of the suppliers had made plans

00:50:19.500 | about increasing the capacity.

00:50:22.100 | The industry is planning to double

00:50:24.380 | its total semiconductor manufacturing capacity

00:50:27.180 | within the next five years, an example.

00:50:30.140 | So that's already happening.

00:50:31.460 | And then you see things which are actually good.

00:50:33.900 | They're good.

00:50:35.300 | The initiative such as the United States CHIPS Act,

00:50:38.100 | and now the European CHIPS Act.

00:50:40.620 | The United States CHIPS Act's about $52 billion.

00:50:43.740 | The Europeans about 43.

00:50:45.900 | Their goal combined is to get at least 50%

00:50:49.900 | of the consumption with manufacturing installed

00:50:54.340 | within the US and European geographies.

00:50:56.980 | And that's also very good.

00:50:58.260 | That's yet another incentive

00:51:01.100 | for more manufacturing capacity to be built

00:51:03.900 | and to be built with a geographic distributed way,

00:51:08.220 | which that's how you plan supply chain.

00:51:09.860 | So those I think are good things.

00:51:12.340 | So if anything we learn through the crisis

00:51:15.940 | is that semiconductor is important.

00:51:19.380 | Semiconductor companies are important

00:51:21.260 | and we need to invest in semiconductors.

00:51:23.780 | - Returning to the grilling of the CEO

00:51:26.060 | with the hard questions.

00:51:28.100 | This is almost from my own education of the space.

00:51:30.540 | You mentioned regulators.

00:51:32.140 | Qualcomm paid out and received payment

00:51:34.260 | of billions of dollars in settlement and fines.

00:51:36.980 | There seems to be a lot of huge lawsuits in this space.

00:51:40.580 | How do you explain that?

00:51:42.220 | Does this get in the way of innovation or does it promote it?

00:51:46.820 | - I will rephrase it by saying there used to be

00:51:49.420 | a lot of lawsuits in this space.

00:51:52.860 | In addition of what we do in semiconductors,

00:51:57.260 | our processors and our modems, the Snapdragon platform,

00:52:01.020 | we also have a licensing business,

00:52:04.660 | which has been a part of the company since the beginning.

00:52:08.100 | As the largest inventors of the essential technology

00:52:13.100 | in 2G, CDMA, 3G, 4G and 5G,

00:52:18.380 | and Qualcomm contribute that to the standards.

00:52:21.820 | So we always had this model that rather than

00:52:25.380 | invent the technology and be the only one

00:52:27.020 | producing the products, we license

00:52:28.740 | so everyone can produce it.

00:52:30.860 | And as such, we receive intellectual property

00:52:35.060 | for the standard essential patents.

00:52:38.380 | As part of our past dispute with Apple,

00:52:44.460 | that's behind us now.

00:52:46.220 | - You're friends now.

00:52:47.300 | - They're my customers.

00:52:50.220 | - And as part of that, I think the licensing model

00:52:54.580 | got tested in, I think, in every geography.

00:52:58.580 | And we succeeded in every single geography

00:53:02.100 | to validate the pro-competitiveness of this model.

00:53:06.780 | I think the fair, reasonable,

00:53:09.540 | non-discriminatory aspect of this model.

00:53:12.260 | And I would argue that besides being

00:53:14.900 | the most successful licensing business to date

00:53:18.420 | in the industry, probably the one that's been

00:53:21.140 | battle-tested and is most stable

00:53:23.340 | because there's not a single jurisdiction

00:53:25.860 | that we have not had to validate that model.

00:53:29.060 | So it's part of our past, and what it creates

00:53:32.180 | is probably create a lot of stability

00:53:34.220 | in our licensing business.

00:53:35.240 | But having said that, the growth of the company

00:53:38.300 | is in the semiconductor space.

00:53:40.260 | - And the semiconductor, so licensing is,

00:53:43.300 | you come up with a pretty good idea,

00:53:44.860 | you have a bunch of smart people coming up with cool ideas,

00:53:48.140 | and then once you come up with that idea,

00:53:49.940 | you sell that idea to others that get to use it.

00:53:52.380 | That's essentially what a license--

00:53:53.940 | - The license revenue we have is for the,

00:53:58.100 | what we call the SCP, Standard Essential Patents,

00:54:02.180 | that are part of the 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G standards.

00:54:07.180 | So if you want to build anything with 5G,

00:54:10.860 | you need to get a license from Qualcomm

00:54:13.500 | because it uses Qualcomm essential technologies

00:54:16.900 | as part of the standard.

00:54:17.940 | And a slightly different model,

00:54:19.580 | or a lot different model with the semiconductor

00:54:22.100 | is you design, you inject a bunch of fascinating ideas,

00:54:25.820 | how to build the Snapdragon,

00:54:27.020 | and then there's, because it's a fabulous company,

00:54:29.820 | you have somebody build the chip,

00:54:33.580 | and then it goes into a phone with the branding

00:54:35.460 | and all that kind of stuff.

00:54:36.740 | And that has less kind of players involved,

00:54:40.100 | it's not a license.

00:54:40.940 | - We sell the product in the,

00:54:43.300 | we don't license semiconductor technology,

00:54:45.420 | we build products and we sell products.

00:54:47.620 | - This is your first year as a CEO.

00:54:51.620 | - No, not one year yet.

00:54:52.940 | - Not one year yet.

00:54:54.060 | Let's hope, it'll be in June, it'll be one year.

00:54:58.300 | Okay, this is a company that's involved

00:55:03.300 | with a lot of fascinating technologies

00:55:06.220 | and it's touching the lives of billions of people.

00:55:09.540 | A lot of complicated stuff,

00:55:11.220 | like you said, licensing technologies,

00:55:13.460 | you have to collaborate with manufacturers,

00:55:17.420 | you have to then work with however many,

00:55:19.660 | you said, car companies and all these clients and so on,

00:55:23.460 | and you have to, with tech companies, Apple and so on.

00:55:28.460 | What's that like?

00:55:30.460 | What lessons have you learned about leadership

00:55:33.060 | and maybe about yourself as a human being

00:55:35.100 | from this first, almost a year,

00:55:38.300 | soon to be a year as a CEO of this incredible,

00:55:41.380 | this complex, this large company?

00:55:43.540 | - That's a loaded question.

00:55:44.580 | Let me answer in reverse order.

00:55:47.060 | First thing that I learned,

00:55:49.540 | and I think it's probably common across CEOs,

00:55:53.540 | especially in our industry is,

00:55:55.820 | it will be great if I had more time.

00:55:58.300 | I think there's, especially because we grow

00:56:01.940 | in so many areas and there's so many things to learn,

00:56:04.260 | so many relationships to build,

00:56:07.620 | time to spend with a number of different technologies,

00:56:11.740 | but it kind of reflects really the size

00:56:14.140 | of the opportunity that exists for Qualcomm.

00:56:16.220 | Qualcomm, it is really growing

00:56:17.900 | in a number of different directions all at the same time.

00:56:22.100 | And so it did got busier,

00:56:25.900 | and part of this is because I'm spending a lot of time

00:56:29.860 | understanding the new industries we're going in

00:56:32.780 | and building relationships.

00:56:35.660 | Second thing, which is a lot to do

00:56:37.420 | with how I think about things

00:56:39.380 | and a little bit of my personality.

00:56:41.620 | At the end of the day,

00:56:43.380 | business partnerships really done by people.

00:56:46.980 | And I think the importance of having trusted relationships

00:56:51.420 | for the long-term is extremely important.

00:56:54.900 | And I've been dedicated to do that as CEO.

00:56:57.420 | We're not a company that plays for the short-term, we don't.

00:57:01.900 | And when we build new partnerships,

00:57:03.820 | we expect that to be for decades.

00:57:06.020 | And so I spend time doing that

00:57:09.460 | and I think that's important for Qualcomm.

00:57:11.300 | The other part of your question is,

00:57:15.100 | we do have a lot of opportunities in all those different areas.

00:57:18.940 | What we like, and I've been fortunate enough

00:57:21.580 | to become CEO at a time,

00:57:23.820 | that a lot of the trends are pointing toward technology.

00:57:27.180 | We talk about some of them.

00:57:28.220 | We talk about merger of physical and digital spaces.

00:57:31.300 | We talk about the transformation of the automobile.

00:57:33.500 | We talk about the merge of computing and mobile,

00:57:38.500 | the enterprise transformation of the home.

00:57:40.580 | There are many of those trends.

00:57:42.420 | And those trends create opportunities for Qualcomm

00:57:46.180 | to be providing technology first.

00:57:50.820 | And as such, we're in a hurry.

00:57:53.660 | So I'm in a little bit of a hurry

00:57:55.420 | because I think the opportunity is incredible

00:57:57.700 | for technology, but having fun and enjoying the job.

00:58:02.620 | - Is there a burden because of so much

00:58:04.740 | what you said is partnerships and,

00:58:07.780 | almost like friendships,

00:58:09.780 | connections with other human beings.

00:58:12.260 | Me as an introvert that has a lot of social anxiety,

00:58:15.580 | that seems extremely stressful.

00:58:17.140 | So is there that burden on your shoulders?

00:58:19.300 | You have to wake up every day

00:58:21.140 | and talk to friends you've had for many years.

00:58:25.900 | It can be, you know, and then convince them

00:58:28.620 | and make partnerships with them, talk with them,

00:58:32.120 | describe to them the future, sell them an idea,

00:58:34.860 | and then yourself grow because you don't know

00:58:36.860 | what the heck the future is gonna be like.

00:58:38.460 | And you have to project both confidence and humility,

00:58:40.940 | all those kinds of things.

00:58:42.180 | Is that exhausting?

00:58:43.180 | - It is exhausting, but it's something I do like to do.

00:58:48.620 | And it's not only with partners,

00:58:50.220 | really it's also internally to your employees.

00:58:52.940 | So I think to get alignment on the vision

00:58:55.380 | and faith in the vision and execute.

00:58:57.620 | And at the end of the day, we're very fortunate.

00:58:59.060 | We have a lot of smart people.

00:59:00.140 | So people, if they're aligned with the vision,

00:59:02.060 | they know what to do.

00:59:03.380 | And then of course, as CEO,

00:59:05.260 | you have to convince your investors

00:59:06.780 | that that's the right idea as well.

00:59:09.900 | - If you can put on your wise sage hat,

00:59:13.940 | do you have advice for young people

00:59:16.060 | in high school and college?

00:59:17.700 | You, yourself, started from the humble beginnings in Brazil,

00:59:23.280 | maybe a bit of a wild, risky decision to go to Japan,

00:59:28.860 | and now are at the head of one of the biggest,

00:59:30.820 | most successful, most impactful companies in the world.

00:59:34.100 | Given that story, can you give advice to young people today

00:59:37.980 | that they can have a career

00:59:41.180 | or just the life they can be proud of?

00:59:43.080 | - I think the first thing,

00:59:45.420 | and of course all of those answers are gonna relate

00:59:49.300 | to my own experience, right?

00:59:52.140 | The first thing is, it always worked for me to have a plan.

00:59:57.140 | Even if the plan is just what I'm gonna do

01:00:01.820 | in the next two years, but what do I want to do?

01:00:04.260 | Where do I wanna go?

01:00:05.980 | And I think it's important for people,

01:00:08.500 | especially young people,

01:00:09.800 | is to really have a dream and go pursue it.

01:00:15.140 | I mean, have dreams, not go back to bed to sleep.

01:00:17.580 | It's really what do you want to accomplish

01:00:20.740 | and then what it's gonna take to do that.

01:00:22.340 | And then believe in yourself.

01:00:24.220 | Like I said, I joined Qualcomm as an engineer.

01:00:28.500 | And I didn't have any plans when I joined to be CEO,

01:00:33.180 | but I do want to, as an engineer, what do I want to do?

01:00:35.820 | Where do I wanna contribute?

01:00:38.300 | What do I wanna work on?

01:00:39.380 | And then keep evolving from that point in time.

01:00:43.860 | The other thing is, this isn't advice,

01:00:46.260 | it's more of like career advice

01:00:48.500 | that I got early in my career was extremely helpful for me.

01:00:53.500 | And I will give that advice to everyone that is interested.

01:00:57.900 | Spend time understanding what are the things you're good at

01:01:02.580 | and what are the things you're not?

01:01:04.300 | Like what is that real border between your area

01:01:07.620 | of competence and your area of incompetence?

01:01:10.620 | And once you see that, once you see that,

01:01:13.260 | you know exactly what you have to work on

01:01:15.740 | and you can say, if that's what I wanna go next,

01:01:18.920 | this is the gap I need to do it.

01:01:21.180 | And it's faster when you can identify yourself

01:01:24.780 | before other people can tell you.

01:01:27.260 | Then it leads to automatically the next step.

01:01:31.460 | Surround yourself, the people that are very good

01:01:34.100 | at the things that you're not.

01:01:35.500 | - So you have to be radically honest

01:01:38.780 | about the things that you're not good at,

01:01:41.140 | but given what you're passionate about,

01:01:42.980 | you need to get good at, or you would like to get good at

01:01:45.700 | and surround yourself by those people.

01:01:47.660 | How often did the plans you make actually work out?

01:01:50.620 | So you said it's important to make plans.

01:01:52.460 | You didn't say anything about it's important

01:01:55.100 | to execute on those plans.

01:01:55.940 | - More than 50% success rate.

01:01:58.580 | - Try to keep it above 50.

01:01:59.900 | - Try to keep it above 50.

01:02:01.820 | - What was the whole, why did you end up in Japan?

01:02:05.140 | - You know, I've been fortunate enough

01:02:06.900 | to work in cellular and wireless my entire career.

01:02:10.700 | So I always liked communications.

01:02:13.820 | When I entered engineering school,

01:02:15.640 | my dad was an electrical engineer,

01:02:17.260 | but he worked with the utility company.

01:02:19.080 | He wanted me to graduate in traditional electrical engineering

01:02:23.020 | like energy generation, distribution,

01:02:26.000 | but I like electronics communication,

01:02:29.480 | so I ended up doing both.

01:02:31.680 | And I always liked communication,

01:02:35.260 | was fascinated by wireless communication.

01:02:37.140 | So my first job out of college,

01:02:38.620 | I started working for a Japanese company down in Brazil.

01:02:41.940 | It was NEC, and within about a year in,

01:02:44.220 | they transferred me to Tokyo,

01:02:46.580 | asked me to go to their headquarters,

01:02:48.020 | and it was the first time I left Brazil.

01:02:51.100 | - A little bit different from Brazil, culturally.

01:02:53.420 | - Very different.

01:02:54.940 | It's in the other side of the planet,

01:02:57.140 | and that's how it started.

01:03:00.540 | - You said your father's an electrical engineer.

01:03:02.940 | Do you think what you're doing now makes your father proud?

01:03:07.580 | - I think he's very proud.

01:03:08.660 | I think especially, you know,

01:03:11.420 | he tells me that, you know,

01:03:14.580 | I'm still the same person, never change.

01:03:16.620 | - Does he give you advice?

01:03:19.220 | Does he criticize what you're doing?

01:03:20.780 | Tell you how to improve?

01:03:22.380 | - My mom and dad still give me advice today.

01:03:24.100 | I'm very fortunate for that.

01:03:25.500 | But he's proud, also proud,

01:03:30.260 | because there are very few Brazilians

01:03:32.260 | that have achieved a position as CEO

01:03:36.380 | of a company the size of Qualcomm.

01:03:39.420 | And I do know that also I carry a burden,

01:03:45.180 | especially for the Latino community,

01:03:47.740 | to be an inspiration for them

01:03:49.220 | and make sure I set a good example.

01:03:51.980 | - So not just your mom and dad,

01:03:54.380 | but the culture, the people that were originally your home.

01:03:59.380 | Do you, you know, life is finite.

01:04:03.840 | Do you think about your own mortality?

01:04:06.700 | - Look, I'm a devout Christian,

01:04:10.940 | and so I'm a big believer that there's,

01:04:15.480 | this is just a transition.

01:04:16.900 | But don't spend a lot of time thinking about that.

01:04:21.320 | I am somebody good, better, and different

01:04:25.800 | that try as much as possible to leave the present,

01:04:29.360 | and that's what I do.

01:04:30.400 | - And try to make the present better on this place here.

01:04:35.000 | - Absolutely, absolutely.

01:04:36.520 | - And that some of these technologies,

01:04:38.040 | some of these ideas are kind of,

01:04:40.200 | a different kind of immortality as well,

01:04:42.520 | 'cause they propagate through time

01:04:44.480 | and have impact on people in the best possible way.

01:04:47.680 | So technology can be scary,

01:04:49.880 | technology can be destructive,

01:04:51.280 | but it seems like in the end,

01:04:53.600 | it can be, it can do a lot of good.

01:04:56.480 | - More good, there's more good than bad.

01:04:59.280 | - What do you think is the meaning of this whole thing?

01:05:01.120 | I asked you about aliens observing us.

01:05:03.600 | What's the meaning of life?

01:05:05.620 | Cristiano, what's the meaning of life?

01:05:09.640 | Easy questions.

01:05:10.920 | - That's not an easy question at all.

01:05:13.120 | I think that's a question, at least for me,

01:05:15.760 | you have to answer individually.

01:05:17.620 | But I do believe we're all here for a purpose.

01:05:21.840 | In my prayers, I always ask that I stay on track

01:05:28.920 | to whatever my purpose is,

01:05:30.960 | but I do believe we're here for a purpose

01:05:33.160 | and we need to do the best we can

01:05:34.840 | during the time we have on this Earth.

01:05:36.920 | - So that means create beautiful things for you

01:05:41.040 | as an engineer? - Do the right thing, yes,

01:05:42.600 | and create beautiful things, yes.

01:05:44.640 | - What about love?

01:05:46.280 | What's the role of love in the human condition?

01:05:48.780 | - Love's very important,

01:05:50.960 | and it's an essential part of being human.

01:05:54.760 | It comes in the package.

01:05:56.880 | And I think if you look at the situation,

01:06:00.100 | what's happening right now,

01:06:01.480 | I think you look at the situation

01:06:03.720 | with some of the underprivileged communities,

01:06:06.320 | you look at the homeless situation,

01:06:08.200 | I think we all need more love.

01:06:10.240 | Yeah, and I think people that build incredible technology

01:06:12.720 | sometimes forget the love part.

01:06:14.640 | Like, those are all, it's all integrated.

01:06:17.320 | There's no, thinking about humanity is really important

01:06:21.760 | when you build tools that empower that humanity.

01:06:25.020 | 'Cause there's, I think, at least I personally believe

01:06:27.400 | we're all capable of both evil and good.

01:06:30.240 | And we have to build technology, build societies,

01:06:33.440 | build governments, build communities

01:06:35.240 | that inspire us to connect with the good part

01:06:40.040 | within all of us.

01:06:41.000 | - I'm a big believer that technology is, at the end,

01:06:43.840 | the force for good.

01:06:44.760 | And if you just look, you know,

01:06:47.600 | not trying to move away from a deep discussion

01:06:50.920 | to a more specific, technical one,

01:06:54.200 | but if we start a conversation talking about smartphones,

01:06:58.680 | and smartphones, really, the first time

01:07:03.280 | that you could say that everybody in the world

01:07:05.280 | was able to connect to the internet

01:07:07.000 | and connect to each other.

01:07:07.920 | And I think what, that empowerment that that provided,

01:07:11.400 | it's an incredible force for good.

01:07:13.280 | - Well, the company you lead, the technology you've created,

01:07:18.680 | one of them that I'm especially excited about,

01:07:21.160 | which is Snapdragon, the whole line of processors there.

01:07:23.880 | Currently, I would say at about 10 billion transistors.

01:07:27.640 | If you think about the human brain,

01:07:29.240 | it's about 100 billion neurons.

01:07:31.600 | So I think 11 Samsung Galaxy S22s

01:07:36.480 | are already smarter than me.

01:07:37.760 | And that's being nice to me.

01:07:41.080 | I'm really honored that you spent

01:07:42.280 | your extremely valuable time with me.

01:07:44.720 | Even though you said Pele is the favorite player,

01:07:48.080 | beyond all of that, I think you're an incredible person,

01:07:51.360 | an incredible leader, and you lead

01:07:53.240 | an incredible engineering company.

01:07:54.880 | So thank you for doing that.

01:07:56.000 | - Oh, thank you so much.

01:07:56.840 | Thank you for the kind words.

01:07:58.040 | Really a pleasure having this conversation.

01:07:59.920 | I really had a lot of fun doing it.

01:08:01.360 | And thank you for having me on your podcast.

01:08:03.920 | - Thanks for listening to this conversation

01:08:06.320 | with Cristiano Amon.

01:08:08.000 | To support this podcast,

01:08:09.200 | please check out our sponsors in the description.

01:08:11.800 | And now let me leave you with some words

01:08:13.960 | from Stephen Hawking.

01:08:15.920 | "For millions of years,

01:08:17.560 | "mankind lived just like the animals.

01:08:20.400 | "Then something happened,

01:08:21.800 | "which unleashed the power of our imagination.

01:08:24.720 | "We learned to talk and we learned to listen.

01:08:28.080 | "Speech has allowed the communication of ideas,

01:08:31.320 | "enabling human beings to work together

01:08:33.400 | "to build the impossible.

01:08:35.360 | "Mankind's greatest achievements

01:08:37.600 | "have come about by talking,

01:08:40.040 | "and its greatest failures by not talking.

01:08:43.120 | "It doesn't have to be like this.

01:08:46.000 | "Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future.

01:08:49.240 | "With the technology at our disposal,

01:08:51.240 | "the possibilities are unbounded.

01:08:54.160 | "All we need to do is make sure we keep talking."

01:08:58.520 | Thank you for listening.

01:08:59.520 | I'd hope to see you next time.

01:09:01.120 | (upbeat music)

01:09:03.720 | (upbeat music)

01:09:06.320 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

Cristiano Amon: Qualcomm CEO | Lex Fridman Podcast #280

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