\n<\/p>\n
Lisa Su, chairwoman and CEO of Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), delivers the opening keynote speech at Computex 2024, Taiwan’s premier tech expo, in Taipei on June 3, 2024. (Photo by I-Hwa CHENG \/ AFP) (Photo by I-HWA CHENG\/AFP via Getty Images)<\/span><\/p>\n AFP via Getty Images<\/small><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n Amid all of the ruckus around this year\u2019s commencement, I was pleased to be able to attend the graduation address of Lisa Su, the CEO of AMD, who is herself part of the MIT community, and had some good things to say, about humanity, about AI, and about the future.<\/p>\n Su talked about her arrival at MIT in 1986, a time that, from today\u2019s standpoint, was an analog age, before so much of what we are now accustomed to in terms of technology. But even then, students and faculty were hard at work on ground-breaking projects of their time, and one thing that Su really highlighted in her talk was that experience of hands-on experimentation, of building.<\/p>\n Lisa Su presenting at MIT Graduation, May 28, 2026<\/span><\/p>\n John Werner<\/small><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n \u201cMIT has this incredible way of pushing you further than you thought you could go,\u201d she said. \u201cYou wrestled with the problem. You blew up a circuit or two. And then, somehow \u2026 the thing worked. And suddenly, you realized you could build something real. That\u2019s when I started feeling like an engineer.\u201d<\/p>\n In fact, Su explained, it was this type of work that eventually led her to the semiconductor industry, where she is now a prominent name. She talked about an early MIT project, making X-ray lithography mask blanks in building 39.<\/p>\n \u201cI ran a bunch of experiments,\u201d she said. \u201cMost of them didn\u2019t work the way we expected. So, we adjusted. And tried again. It was the coolest thing ever. For the first time, I wasn\u2019t just learning about technology in a classroom. I was part of a team trying to discover something new. I remember thinking: wow, we can build things this small? Things tiny enough to fit on a die the size of a coin \u2026 but powerful enough to change the world. And that is when I fell in love with semiconductors.\u201d<\/p>\n Another part of Su\u2019s talk that I liked was about a deeply personal process, but one that seems to be sort of a common experience, in some ways. She talked about how a student becomes an expert, slowly, through incremental change. I\u2019ll just use her words:<\/p>\n \u201cLittle by little, I went from a new grad student learning about the field\u2026to someone doing original research and actually contributing something new to the field. And along the way, I started believing in myself. Not the confidence that I would always know the answer. But the confidence that even when I didn\u2019t know the answer yet\u2026I could figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n Part of what I like about this is Su\u2019s economy of words to describe something big, something that takes time, and has nuance, and is an important type of self-discovery.<\/p>\n Confidence. It\u2019s an important part of one\u2019s journey.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I realize now is that MIT was teaching me something much bigger than semiconductor physics,\u201d Su added.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n Here\u2019s how Su referred to the MIT motto: \u201cmens et manus,\u201d or in English, \u201cmind and hand.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201c<\/em>When I was a student, I thought it was just a motto,\u201d she said. \u201cNow I think it captures exactly what makes MIT special. MIT teaches you to think deeply. But it also teaches you to build. To test ideas. To keep going when the first experiment \u2014 or even the fifth experiment \u2014 doesn\u2019t work. And over time, you start believing you can solve problems that once felt impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n Another important part of Su\u2019s address was where she talked about taking that MIT feeling, and bringing it into the work world, a place where personal confidence is often tested. That\u2019s very much the case today, as new grads find themselves wondering what path to take in a stressed and competitive environment. But as Su contrasted the external challenges with the confidence and knowledge that an MIT grad takes with them, I could see how a good education can be a real asset.<\/p>\n \u201cI carried that feeling with me long after I left campus,\u201d Su said. \u201cWhen I joined IBM, I found myself starting all over again. IBM had hundreds of thousands of employees. I was 25 years old, wondering how I could possibly make a difference in a company that big.\u201d<\/p>\n Having said that, Su illustrated another idea that must occur to many of those who immerse themselves in the work of engineering and building.<\/p>\n \u201cI learned something important very quickly: engineering doesn\u2019t care how old you are. It cares whether your ideas work.\u201d<\/p>\n I think that\u2019s a good reminder for the work world, too. Any old rules that did exist are largely obsolete now. Age isn\u2019t the metric. Nor, to a certain degree, is coding skill, or rote knowledge of networking systems, or all of that acumen that served a professional well in, say, the 1980s. We\u2019re in another time now.<\/p>\n So I thought students could take something away from what Su had to say about tenacity.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n \u201cOne of my mentors told me something that I\u2019ve never forgotten:\u201d Su said. \u201cRun toward the hardest problems. At the time, I didn\u2019t fully understand what that meant. But over time, I realized this was the best advice I ever received. Hard problems teach you what you’re capable of.\u201d<\/p>\n I want to include a lot of Su\u2019s actual words here, because I think she really did a good job of describing the career arc and the context of what she saw at AMD. First, there was the idea of a risk taken:<\/p>\n \u201cAMD had enormous potential, but the company had been through some tough years,\u201d she said. \u201cSome of my mentors thought taking the job was risky. But for me, this was my dream job. This was what I\u2019d been training for all those years. The opportunity to work at the bleeding edge of technology on problems that really mattered.\u201d<\/p>\n So again, there\u2019s that confidence built on experience, along with the desire to do groundbreaking important work.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s how Su described the core initiative and how it bloomed:<\/p>\n \u201cWe made a long-term bet that high-performance computing would be the most important technology of the future. We gave our talented team the room to think big. Over the next several years, we built technology to enable the most powerful computers in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n Again, this isn\u2019t a long narrative: it shows you just the key aspects of making that bet and having it pay off. In today\u2019s attention economy, being able to tell a story like this is a true skill.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n Here\u2019s one more brief part of Su\u2019s address where she talks about taking that individual confidence, and putting together a team that will explore big spaces together.<\/p>\n \u201cThrough all of it, I used every skill that MIT ever taught me \u2026 And then some,\u201d she said. \u201cI call it \u2018the engineer\u2019s instinct\u2019 – the ability to face what seemed like an unsolvable problem, break it down, and methodically work through it step by step. But, at AMD, I learned something else. The engineer\u2019s instinct is even more powerful when it becomes shared by a team, and the greatest satisfaction of my career has been bringing people together to do something more than any of us thought was possible.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/section>\n And then, of course, Su brought us up to today, where new grads are confronting a world that\u2019s changing at a dizzying pace.<\/p>\n \u201cOver the last few decades, we\u2019ve experienced several major technology shifts,\u201d Su said, adding:<\/p>\n \u201cThe internet changed how we communicate.<\/p>\n Mobile computing changed how we live.<\/p>\n Cloud computing changed how we work.\u201d<\/p>\n And:<\/p>\n \u201cNow we are at the beginning of the AI wave. To me, AI is different from those earlier technology waves. It is not just a tool that can help us do things faster. It is deeper than that. It has the potential to accelerate discovery in every field and help us solve problems we have never been able to solve before.\u201d<\/p>\n Su invokes the value and the role of people in such a world:<\/p>\n \u201cTechnology itself does not decide what the future looks like,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople do. For all the promise of AI, it cannot decide which problems are worth solving. It cannot make the hard judgment calls with imperfect information. It cannot take responsibility for the outcome. These are our responsibilities. And they matter more now than ever.\u201d<\/p>\n The Luck of the Bold<\/p>\n I want to close with something that Su said toward the end of her commencement address, which, of course, you can watch in its entirety on YouTube.<\/u><\/a> It\u2019s about fortune, and persistence, and that delicate math that drives human destiny.<\/p>\n \u201cOver time, I\u2019ve come to believe that the best people find ways to make their luck,\u201d Su said. \u201cLuck is not just being in the right place at the right time. It is taking the risk to work on something hard. It is challenging yourself. Choosing problems at the edge of what you know. Surrounding yourself with people who make you better. And believing that, yes \u2026 you can change the world. So be ambitious about the problems you choose. Run toward the hardest ones. And trust your engineer\u2019s instinct. That is how you make your luck.\u201d<\/p>\n If you weren\u2019t there, watch the video. Some of these ideas may help you to make your way through uncertain times.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n<\/div>\nPersonal Development<\/h2>\n
Staying the Course<\/h2>\n
Into the Fray<\/h2>\n
Tackling the Future<\/h2>\n
The Individual and the Team<\/h2>\n
In the Days of AI<\/h2>\n