At 66 years old, instead of heading towards retirement, former Cadence CEO and legendary investor Lip Bu Tan decided to take on the hardest job in tech: turning Intel around. Elad Gil and Sarah Guo sit down with Intel CEO Lip Bu Tan to talk about why he took the job and what “saving” Intel actually looks like. Tan explains how his experience in startup culture informed his decisions to drive Intel’s culture towards faster decisions, focus on customer satisfaction, and engineer accountability. He also discusses his strategy to strengthen Intel’s balance sheet by welcoming investments from Jensen Huang’s Nvidia, Softbank, and the US government. Tan also shares his product roadmap that centers the CPU for agentic AI and inference, the collaboration with Elon Musk on Terafab, his investing framework for semiconductors, and his views on how AI is reshaping design and operations at, as he puts it, a ‘legacy spreadsheet’ tech company. Sign up for new podcasts every week. Email feedback to show@no-priors.com Follow us on Twitter: @NoPriorsPod | @Saranormous | @EladGil | @LipBuTan1 | @intel Chapters: 00:00 – Cold Open 01:01 – Lip Bu Tan Introduction 01:24 – Why Lip Bu Took the Reins at Intel 03:00 – Fixing Culture 04:08 – Intel’s 10-Year Vision 07:57 – Working with Elon Musk on Terafab 09:59 – Shifting Supply Chain for Semiconductors 15:34 – Limits to Scaling and Packaging 18:30 – Physical Limits to Engineering and Design 20:33 – Challenges in Semiconductor Investing 26:29 – Lessons from Cadence 28:02 – Scaling and Investment Decisions 32:03 – Rethinking Teams in AI Era 34:31 – Industrial Policy and Funding 37:25 – What Investors Misunderstand About Intel 41:10 – Where Compute Will Live 44:59 – Conclusion

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

No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** No Priors: Artificial Intelligence | Technology | Startups

## Participants

- **Elad Gil** (Conviction)
- **Sarah Guo** (Conviction)
- **Lip Bu Tan** (Intel)
- **Lip Bu Tan** (Intel)

## Transcript

[SPEAKER_03] 9 of the 10 companies I invest, halfway they change their business plan because market have changed. So I like to have an entrepreneur team, not just one person. I always believe in when I was at Cadence and also at Intel, is first of all you crawl and then be humble, listen to customer. And then first step for me is to strengthen my balance sheets, focus on the products, and I really simplify the product, listen to the customer, and then drive the next generation leadership products.

[SPEAKER_03] And then right now the Argentic AI and Influence CPU become highly in demand. And so in some way I'm happy, right now the demand is very high for my CPU. I can be very happy that Jensen Huang, my old time friend, he also put $5 billion in investing and support me. This $5 billion becomes $25 billion now. If you look at it 10 years from now, what will be the winning company? The one that...

[SPEAKER_00] Hi listeners, welcome back to No Priors. Today, Elad and I are here with Lipu Tan, the legendary investor from Walden, then CEO of Cadence, now CEO of Intel.

[SPEAKER_01] We talk about his plan to transform Intel, having the U.S. government as a major shareholder, how to be an amazing semiconductors investor, and whether or not we can make chips in the United States. Welcome, Lipu. Lipu, it's great to see you. We'll start with the obvious question. This is a really hard job to go be CEO of this incredibly important American semis company. Why take the job at all?

[SPEAKER_03] It's a good question. I'm 66, and people that are, well, you should retire rather than take on this hardest job in the industry. And so a couple of reasons. One is this is an iconic company, and it's so important for the semiconductor ecosystem, and also so important for United States. And so I decided, you know, to do one more after Cadence.

[SPEAKER_01] A lot has happened in this past year. What has been the most surprising to you?

[SPEAKER_03] Well, the most surprising that I don't learn from my previous job or even training is one day early morning, President Trump asking me to resign and conflict of interest. And there's no exceptions. And so I convinced myself, first of all, you know, I don't need this job. I do it purely to save Intel. And so take that personal issue out of the way. Mm-hmm. Then I figure out what can I do to be helpful to Intel.

[SPEAKER_03] And so good news is I have a meeting, you know, Thursday morning and then Monday I have the meeting. And then he listened to me like I have a chance to explain myself. You know, I'm born in Malaysia, grown up in Singapore, went to MIT, and I live in US and never lived outside country. And so something that I share and then somehow he listened very well. And then he gave me th...

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

Transcript

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

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.