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AMD's Hector Ruiz To Trade Processors for Pigskins? Posted by Michael on 13 Sep 2007 - 02:17
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On Monday September 10th the day of the big AMD launch event in San Francisco I had the pleasure to speak briefly with Hector Ruiz at a little event AMD put together before the launch; it was a great chance for me to find out more about him, and tell you guys about him.
I wasn't expecting him to be there and wasn't told he would be there until about 10 minutes after I arrived, so I was a bit unprepared and a little nervous, but when he arrived and was done shaking everyone's hand I saw him standing alone by the Window and I took the initiative and started to talk to him, the first thing that came to my mind was Football. Why Football? Because in a little bio I put together on him a month ago, I learned he loves Football and would love to be a college football coach. Here is where the title for this post comes in, he said if he was ever offered the chance to coach a college football team he would leave AMD. Especially if it was the Texas Longhorns, the room busted into laughter as Hector added no college would ever offer him that type of position. (I see a lot of Oklahoma Fans who love AMD switching to Intel now.)
When he said that it made me see him in a different light, he wasn't just the CEO of AMD anymore he was a regular guy and who I could relate with, because when you think about it we all in one way or another want to be something we aren't be it a football coach or an astronaut, we all have dreams that may be unrealistic, but no matter how unrealistic or unlikely that dream will come true, we dream none the less!
He also explained why he would want to be a coach, he basically said that as a coach he feels he could help mold the future so to speak, he would try to bring the best out of the individual he is coaching so that they can be more than just a football player but a great person as well, and it didn't look as if he was just saying this to make himself look good you could see in his eyes it's what he truly meant.
So what is Hector Ruiz like in person? He's a soft spoken guy who really knows his stuff and has a passion for the company he runs. I just wish he had a bit of Steve Ballmer in him, not too much just a little bit, because Steve Ballmer can give you a headache if you get too much of him but a small dose can get you energized and excited about what he is talking about.
Hector Definitely knows the product AMD delivers to its customers, there is no doubt in my mind about that, and from talking to him and hearing him answer questions other people had for him he really cares about AMD and all of its products and projects.
I have met some CEOs that don't really know the product their company delivers but Hector knows the product AMD delivers, Hector knows the technology behind it as well.
Other things that were discussed with Hector was the Intel Lawsuit, and while much wasn't said about it he said he was pretty confident AMD would win, from what he had seen.
Another thing that was brought up was AMD's 50x15 initiative; this is an initiative to bring computers and internet to 3rd world countries. The question as to why these computers ran Linux instead of Windows was brought up, and while he asked that he not be quoted on what he said about what was asked you could tell that this initiative was close to his heart and something he is proud about.
After meeting him I think he is more than what I had originally thought. I mean he no longer is just the CEO for AMD but he is a sports fan an average guy. I also noticed that he has a great vision for the future of AMD, however no one is going to know what that future is unless AMD gets him out there to spread the AMD gospel so to speak, sponsor a Major trade show and get him to give the keynote, if more companies could see where Hector envisions computing and how he plans to get AMD to deliver that vision he has, everyone would be using AMD chips in my opinion, even when the benchmarks don't match up to the competition. If AMD advertised that message more people would know about them. Right now people hear AMD and they think "oh those are the computers you get when you can't afford an Intel." AMD has to change that mind set and I think Hector is perfect to change that mind set AMD just has to get the gospel out.
Granted Hector has done more than 20 keynotes over the past 5 years, but those just seem to be business oriented keynotes, nothing of real interest to the average person, nothing that makes you just go WOW. His keynote at VM World was pretty good but not the greatest, my all time favorite keynote from Hector Ruiz was the one he gave in 2003 at TechX NY, people loved that Keynote, I was there and people were talking, there was a buzz of excitement in the air, people were saying I can't wait to hear what he says next year. Finally TechX 2004 came around and people were hoping to hear from Hector again, but it was not to be, instead Paul S. Otellini CEO of Intel introduced the Intel Viiv, and then TechX NY was eliminated and Viiv, well the Intel Viiv bombed.
Oh and a piece of advice to Hector, during the event he was asked how does AMD plan to promote itself, and while Hector said we don't plan to run an "AMD INSIDE" campaign (an obvious jab at Intel) but that they were going to basically leave it up to their partners to promote their products. While he didn't say AMD wasn't going to promote themselves, and I am pretty sure there will be some sort of campaign to promote AMD and its future products and Hector didn't mean it the way it sounded. I just hope they don't put much faith in OEMs to promote the full power of AMD products. Because correct me if I am wrong, Microsoft seems to be relying solely on OEMs and their Partners to promote Windows Vista, and as well all know Vista sales are horrible. So my advice to Hector and AMD is, promote the product show us what it can do, make us crave AMD and ATI, don't wait for the OEMs to say you can do this with our system and oh by the way it has an "AMD chip inside".
Get Hector out there; have him demo the new HP Blackbird 002 and show people the power of AMD. A lot of sites are showing specs for the Blackbird 002 and most only say it has Intel Core 2 Duo processors, people are excited about this new machine from HP but very few know they can get an AMD processor on it instead of an Intel one.
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So what is Hector Ruiz like in person? He's a soft spoken guy who really knows his stuff and has a passion for the company he runs. I just wish he had a bit of Steve Ballmer in him, not too much just a little bit, because Steve Ballmer can give you a headache if you get too much of him but a small dose can get you energized and excited about what he is talking about.
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