Every entrepreneur faces this dilemma: You have a critical role to fill, and there’s a candidate who shows real potential. But they haven’t done this exact job before. Their resume doesn’t check every box. The safe choice would be to keep looking for someone with a perfect track record. What if playing it safe is actually the riskier move?
Lisa Su, CEO of AMD, built one of tech’s most remarkable turnarounds by taking risks on people. Under her leadership, AMD grew from $4 billion to over $23 billion in revenue, with shares rising from $2 to $200. When evaluating candidates, Su looks past flawless credentials to find those who volunteer for the hardest problems.
In a revealing conversation you can watch below, Su describes how her own career shaped this philosophy. She started as a device physicist, and someone took a chance promoting her to run a business, then eventually a company. That experience of being given ambitious challenges before she was “ready” became her template for developing others.
Su’s approach centers on giving people difficult problems even when success isn’t guaranteed. When AMD was competing with just 8,000 employees against competitors ten times larger, this became a recruiting advantage: join us because you’ll work on exciting technology and actually learn how to do it.
Su looks for people who say, “Let me take that and see what I can do” when facing a difficult problem. People who run toward difficulty rather than away from it. Most importantly, she watches for those who can think across disciplines and stitch solutions together.
For entrepreneurs navigating today’s hiring environment, this insight cuts through a common trap. Even with larger candidate pools to choose from, waiting for that perfect resume can mean passing over high-potential people who could become exceptional contributors. Skills can be taught; personality fit and willingness to tackle new challenges cannot.
The competitive advantage goes to leaders who can identify potential that others miss and create environments where talented people achieve beyond expectations. As Su puts it, the best leaders help teams “do 150% of their expectations.”
Watch Su’s full interview below to learn more about her leadership philosophy, AMD’s AI strategy, and her vision for how technology will transform healthcare and quality of life over the next decade.
