SAN FRANCISCO: Tan Lip-Bu could also be one of the highly effective know-how executives you have by no means heard of.
As he steps into one of many highest-profile jobs on the planet – CEO of troubled, storied chipmaker Intel – his efficiency can be on full show.
Tan, named Intel CEO on Wednesday (Mar 12), faces an unlimited problem in turning across the operations of an organization that put the “silicon” in Silicon Valley.
Whereas little recognized to the general public, his benefit is that nearly each considered one of Intel’s former and potential clients is aware of him and has finished enterprise with him, both shopping for one of many many startups he backed or utilizing software program from an organization he ran.
Tan rubs shoulders with the likes of Lisa Su from Superior Micro Gadgets and Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, two AI chip leaders who, in line with Reuters reviews, had been pitched to put money into Intel.
His efforts are additionally prone to be intently watched by US President Donald Trump, who is raring for Intel to rebound.
Tan “can leverage his expertise and particularly his business connections, whereas additionally pursuing excellence inside Intel”, stated unbiased analyst Jack Gold. “Hopefully the board will keep out of his method as he makes wanted modifications.”
To proper the semiconductor business’s largest ship, Tan, 65, could use underdog methods that helped him flip round smaller corporations that later turned massive.
EARLY START
Born in Malaysia, raised in Singapore and now a naturalised American citizen, Tan studied physics at Nanyang Technological College in Singapore.
He later went to the US for his early life of superior training, learning nuclear engineering on the Massachusetts Institute of Expertise.
He then moved to California for enterprise faculty and based enterprise capital agency Walden Worldwide in 1987. That agency, named for the pond the place author Henry David Thoreau sought an unconventional life, made unconventional bets.
Walden Worldwide is reported to have managed cumulative capital commitments of $2.8 billion.
INVOLVEMENT WITH STARTUPS
Tan centered on semiconductors, cloud infrastructure, knowledge administration and safety, in addition to synthetic intelligence.
He believed that comparatively small groups of startup engineers with good chip design concepts might efficiently compete in opposition to incumbent chip giants, and he poured cash into a whole bunch of startups.
For instance, he took a stake in Annapurna Labs, a startup later bought by Amazon.com for US$370 million that has change into the guts of its in-house chip division. Amazon says it now deploys extra of its personal central processors than it does these from Intel.
He additionally invested in Nuvia, which Qualcomm purchased for US$1.4 billion in 2021, making it a central a part of its push to compete with Intel within the laptop computer and PC chip markets.
Tan stays actively concerned with startups that might both change into rivals or acquisition targets for Intel.
Earlier this week, as an illustration, he invested in AI photonic startup Celestial AI, which is backed by Intel rival Superior Micro Gadgets.
