Cristiano Amon: Qualcomm CEO - Lex Fridman 知识图谱

Lex Fridman (01:31.340)

the most profound question, the biggest question.

Lex Fridman (01:33.260)

Who's the greatest football soccer player of all time?

Lex Fridman (01:36.620)

Look, everybody's gonna say Pele,

Lex Fridman (01:38.540)

and actually I was born during the game

Lex Fridman (01:42.500)

of Brazil and Italy that Pele gave Brazil the championship.

Cristiano Amon (01:47.940)

Actually it was, my dad tells me that the doctor

Lex Fridman (01:52.060)

had a TV on at the delivery room.

Cristiano Amon (01:54.980)

But, so everybody will say Pele,

Lex Fridman (01:56.660)

but I really like Ronaldo.

Cristiano Amon (01:58.600)

The first, not Ronaldinho, the first Ronaldo.

Lex Fridman (02:01.780)

I really like him.

Cristiano Amon (02:02.900)

That's my favorite player.

Lex Fridman (02:04.460)

By the way, not everybody would say Pele.

Lex Fridman (02:07.220)

But we shall leave that on the table

Lex Fridman (02:09.700)

and agree to disagree.

Cristiano Amon (02:11.460)

Brazilians will say Pele.

Lex Fridman (02:12.700)

Yes.

Cristiano Amon (02:14.420)

There's other countries around that region

Lex Fridman (02:17.740)

that may disagree a little bit.

Cristiano Amon (02:19.140)

I'm very aware.

Lex Fridman (02:19.980)

Qualcomm is largely responsible for 5G

Lex Fridman (02:25.300)

and some of the greatest processors

Lex Fridman (02:28.060)

in our smartphones ever built.

Lex Fridman (02:29.780)

So we got communication and computation tech

Lex Fridman (02:33.420)

that impacts probably billions of people.

Lex Fridman (02:36.800)

So if you zoom out, you as a human,

Lex Fridman (02:39.420)

we'll look at humans on Earth in general,

Cristiano Amon (02:42.940)

does it blow your mind that we have these billions

Lex Fridman (02:47.580)

of smartphones communicating and each of them

Lex Fridman (02:50.980)

have the computational power?

Lex Fridman (02:53.260)

You know, you talk about 10 billion transistors.

Cristiano Amon (02:56.100)

That's a million times more than 50 years ago

Lex Fridman (02:59.780)

in the best computers in the world.

Cristiano Amon (03:01.380)

Like if you just zoom out as a human,

Lex Fridman (03:05.260)

does that blow your mind?

Cristiano Amon (03:06.300)

Absolutely.

Lex Fridman (03:07.420)

Look, one of the reasons I think I love this company

Cristiano Amon (03:10.340)

is we know that the technology we develop

Lex Fridman (03:13.660)

can change the world.

Lex Fridman (03:14.500)

And I'll tell you one more thing.

Lex Fridman (03:15.740)

Beyond the amount of processing power

Cristiano Amon (03:18.260)

that you have now in the palm of your hands

Lex Fridman (03:20.260)

and being every one of the world is connected

Cristiano Amon (03:22.580)

with broadband technology,

Lex Fridman (03:24.460)

the smartphone is also mankind largest development platform.

Cristiano Amon (03:28.020)

There's nothing like it.

Lex Fridman (03:29.620)

So you respect both the hardware and the software?

Cristiano Amon (03:31.980)

Both.

Lex Fridman (03:33.020)

Both.

Cristiano Amon (03:33.840)

If aliens were observing Earth over the past 50 to 70 years,

Lex Fridman (03:36.900)

how do you think they would describe

Cristiano Amon (03:38.540)

this particular turmoil, fun things going on

Lex Fridman (03:43.540)

on the surface of this particular little planet?

Cristiano Amon (03:47.900)

We live in interesting times.

Lex Fridman (03:50.820)

In one time, we see incredible development of technology

Cristiano Amon (03:55.460)

for mankind just what happened in the last century.

Lex Fridman (03:59.340)

You know, from 1900 to 2000, it was incredible development.

Cristiano Amon (04:04.420)

Just look, 2000 was 22 years ago,

Lex Fridman (04:07.700)

how far we're coming and where we're going with technology.

Cristiano Amon (04:10.580)

It's incredible.

Lex Fridman (04:11.900)

What do you think they would notice?

Lex Fridman (04:13.540)

So there's road networks, there's all kinds of networks.

Lex Fridman (04:16.540)

There's lights that keep popping up,

Cristiano Amon (04:19.300)

cities springing up, like from an alien perspective,

Lex Fridman (04:21.860)

you're observing.

Cristiano Amon (04:22.700)

Well, what I'm gonna tell you is you have this contrast

Lex Fridman (04:24.900)

of incredible development of technology,

Lex Fridman (04:27.620)

but then you see some of the things

Lex Fridman (04:28.940)

that are happening right now,

Cristiano Amon (04:30.420)

which is probably you would not expect them to happen

Lex Fridman (04:33.660)

on the 21st century, just what happened in Ukraine.

Lex Fridman (04:36.860)

So I think that will be a more puzzling question

Lex Fridman (04:40.300)

for the aliens, I would imagine.

Cristiano Amon (04:42.500)

The new technology is kind of impressive.

Lex Fridman (04:44.900)

Actually, that might not be so puzzling

Cristiano Amon (04:46.460)

because that's just human nature revealing itself

Lex Fridman (04:49.020)

as it has throughout human history.

Cristiano Amon (04:50.620)

That's correct.

Lex Fridman (04:52.780)

Let's talk about wireless communication.

Lex Fridman (04:54.860)

So Qualcomm was instrumental in developing 5G.

Lex Fridman (04:58.540)

Now you were with Qualcomm since the early days,

Cristiano Amon (05:01.100)

the good old 90s with the 2G, but what is 5G,

Lex Fridman (05:05.580)

including sub six gigahertz 5G and millimeter wave 5G?

Lex Fridman (05:10.100)

How does it work?

Lex Fridman (05:10.940)

And maybe the most important question is

Lex Fridman (05:13.340)

how will it change the world in the coming years?

Lex Fridman (05:15.900)

When we set ourselves to develop 5G,

Lex Fridman (05:18.300)

and we look at this, every generation of technology

Lex Fridman (05:21.980)

had a problem to be solved, right?

Lex Fridman (05:24.180)

So you mentioned 2G, 2G challenge,

Lex Fridman (05:26.580)

the challenge of CDMA was can we give every person

Lex Fridman (05:29.340)

on earth a cell phone?

Lex Fridman (05:30.900)

That was, can you get to a technology

Cristiano Amon (05:33.060)

that you can basically allow everyone

Lex Fridman (05:36.100)

to have a mobile phone?

Cristiano Amon (05:37.660)

3G was about the ability to connect that to the internet.

Lex Fridman (05:41.100)

I think 4G was broadband and with 4G was about

Cristiano Amon (05:45.140)

have the ability for you to have a computer

Lex Fridman (05:46.780)

in the palm of your hand.

Cristiano Amon (05:48.020)

We'll just talk about that.

Lex Fridman (05:49.540)

5G, the challenge was a little bit different.

Cristiano Amon (05:52.180)

It's how do we build a technology for a society

Lex Fridman (05:55.140)

that is gonna be 100% connected to the cloud?

Lex Fridman (05:57.980)

How do we provide a technology that is going to be

Lex Fridman (06:00.900)

the last mile connectivity for everything?

Lex Fridman (06:04.260)

So 5G has basically been designed,

Lex Fridman (06:07.980)

eliminate all issues with data congestion,

Cristiano Amon (06:10.300)

whether you are in stadium, we talk about soccer,

Lex Fridman (06:14.500)

you were in a stadium and everyone should be

Cristiano Amon (06:16.900)

ability to have access to broadband.

Lex Fridman (06:19.340)

So deal with congestion.

Cristiano Amon (06:20.900)

Deal with the fact that not only people,

Lex Fridman (06:22.900)

but billions of things need to be connected.

Cristiano Amon (06:25.980)

Create a technology that for the first time in wireless,

Lex Fridman (06:29.780)

you could deliver mission critical services.

Cristiano Amon (06:32.980)

Wireless used to up to 4G is its best effort.

Lex Fridman (06:37.180)

In 5G, it can guarantee that you are connected

Cristiano Amon (06:40.500)

with the cloud.

Lex Fridman (06:41.340)

And then the last point of that is provide this fabric

Cristiano Amon (06:47.260)

that will allow us as a society to look at things

Lex Fridman (06:50.660)

that are not connected and say, that's the exception.

Cristiano Amon (06:53.260)

That's why we made a comparison in the early days of 5G

Lex Fridman (06:57.100)

that that's gonna be like electricity.

Cristiano Amon (06:58.580)

Right now, you don't have a discussion

Lex Fridman (07:00.940)

about what is the use cases for electricity.

Cristiano Amon (07:03.300)

You don't talk about that anymore.

Lex Fridman (07:04.700)

You just assume it's there.

Lex Fridman (07:05.860)

And that's how we think about everything

Lex Fridman (07:08.100)

connected to the cloud.

Cristiano Amon (07:09.420)

That's what 5G is and that's the role of 5G.

Lex Fridman (07:13.100)

So first of all, everything connected to the cloud

Cristiano Amon (07:15.380)

is interesting because the space of everything

Lex Fridman (07:17.540)

is constantly increasing.

Cristiano Amon (07:19.020)

That is correct.

Lex Fridman (07:20.540)

I don't think the refrigerator over there,

Cristiano Amon (07:22.700)

it looks kind of smart,

Lex Fridman (07:23.540)

but I don't think it's connected yet to the cloud.

Lex Fridman (07:27.020)

So this includes internet of things.

Lex Fridman (07:29.500)

What is the full space of everything?

Cristiano Amon (07:31.620)

The full space of everything is,

Lex Fridman (07:33.860)

it's maybe going back to where you start defining Qualcomm.

Cristiano Amon (07:38.500)

Qualcomm is about communications and advanced computers

Lex Fridman (07:41.900)

for low power devices.

Lex Fridman (07:43.820)

And can we make everything smart?

Lex Fridman (07:46.620)

It can range from the robot you have right now on the floor

Cristiano Amon (07:51.140)

to your refrigerator, to a camera,

Lex Fridman (07:54.740)

to machines in manufacturing,

Cristiano Amon (08:00.980)

to retail, et cetera.

Lex Fridman (08:03.500)

I can give you some examples.

Cristiano Amon (08:05.460)

When we think of something as simple

Lex Fridman (08:08.260)

as going to the grocery shop,

Cristiano Amon (08:11.260)

we see technology now with something,

Lex Fridman (08:14.540)

the stuff we've been working with companies like Walmart.

Cristiano Amon (08:17.620)

Electronic shelf labels.

Lex Fridman (08:19.540)

The ability for you to have smart cameras,

Cristiano Amon (08:21.620)

they can look at shelves and the camera is smart enough

Lex Fridman (08:24.380)

to say some product needs to be replenished.

Cristiano Amon (08:27.020)

Ability to see what's trashed.

Lex Fridman (08:28.220)

So it's about really providing processor connectivity,

Cristiano Amon (08:32.580)

artificial intelligence to everything.

Lex Fridman (08:35.300)

And I think that's one of the largest addressable markets

Cristiano Amon (08:40.180)

we have for technology

Lex Fridman (08:41.180)

because you can't really define everything.

Cristiano Amon (08:43.340)

Right, exactly.

Lex Fridman (08:44.260)

It's a nice market

Cristiano Amon (08:45.100)

because it keeps growing potentially exponentially in speed.

Lex Fridman (08:49.660)

What about coverage?

Lex Fridman (08:51.100)

So how are we doing on the everything part?

Lex Fridman (08:53.180)

So there is, like I mentioned, sub six gigahertz 5G

Lex Fridman (08:57.620)

and there's a millimeter wave 5G.

Lex Fridman (09:00.100)

So not all 5G is made the same.

Lex Fridman (09:02.780)

So there's a speed, there's a bandwidth thing.

Lex Fridman (09:05.460)

And then there's coverage.

Lex Fridman (09:06.780)

How many people get to enjoy today

Lex Fridman (09:10.220)

and how does the progress in the next five, 10, 20, 30,

Lex Fridman (09:13.420)

50 years you think looks like in terms of coverage?

Lex Fridman (09:15.820)

Great topic of conversation.

Lex Fridman (09:17.060)

So let's talk about this.

Lex Fridman (09:19.180)

When I meet with regulators across the globe,

Cristiano Amon (09:23.020)

I tell them resistance is futile.

Lex Fridman (09:26.140)

Allocate every spectrum to wireless.

Cristiano Amon (09:29.020)

Every spectrum needs to be allocated to wireless.

Lex Fridman (09:31.660)

The reality is when we start moving from CDMA to OFDMA,

Cristiano Amon (09:37.500)

we knew that this industry has done a lot

Lex Fridman (09:41.820)

to get more bits per Hertz.

Lex Fridman (09:44.020)

But the reality is the massive amount of improvements

Lex Fridman (09:49.020)

that is required in capacity and in speed,

Cristiano Amon (09:53.700)

you need more spectrum.

Lex Fridman (09:55.380)

There's not so much we can rely on more bits per Hertz.

Cristiano Amon (10:00.100)

You just need more spectrum.

Lex Fridman (10:01.620)

And if you look, for example,

Lex Fridman (10:04.300)

what carriers since the 2G era,

Lex Fridman (10:07.780)

they participate in different license and auctions

Lex Fridman (10:10.740)

and every spectrum they accumulated from 2G or 3G or 4G,

Lex Fridman (10:15.740)

all of that, you may be able to get one or two channels max

Cristiano Amon (10:20.980)

of sub six, which is a channel is about 100 megahertz

Lex Fridman (10:24.380)

or 200 megahertz, and that's it.

Lex Fridman (10:26.740)

So we need more spectrum.

Lex Fridman (10:28.740)

So 5G has been designed to work across every spectrum

Cristiano Amon (10:32.340)

from the low frequency bands, that's what we call the sub six,

Lex Fridman (10:36.980)

but you needed more, you needed to go to the millimeter wave.

Lex Fridman (10:40.340)

So that's why 5G is a technology that you can deploy

Lex Fridman (10:43.820)

from 450 megahertz as an example, or 600 or 700,

Cristiano Amon (10:48.820)

all the way to in the 42 gigahertz.

Lex Fridman (10:54.100)

And that's where millimeter wave comes into the picture.

Cristiano Amon (10:57.180)

Now, let's now connect this to your question

Lex Fridman (11:00.620)

about coverage of 5G.

Cristiano Amon (11:03.580)

The easiest thing to do is to deploy 5G

Lex Fridman (11:08.420)

in the new spectrum you can get,

Cristiano Amon (11:10.620)

which is in the sub six, you see bands being auctioned

Lex Fridman (11:14.180)

across the globe into 3.5 gigahertz.

Cristiano Amon (11:17.500)

There's nothing special about the band,

Lex Fridman (11:18.820)

it's just the only one that was available

Cristiano Amon (11:20.260)

because everything else has been useful for 4G.

Lex Fridman (11:22.620)

And you can deploy on that, go into existing cell towers

Lex Fridman (11:26.620)

and just put a new equipment

Lex Fridman (11:27.940)

without having to build new towers.

Lex Fridman (11:29.460)

But when we go to technologies such as millimeter wave,

Lex Fridman (11:32.700)

then you have to build more dense networks.

Cristiano Amon (11:35.260)

You need to build more stations

Lex Fridman (11:37.140)

because a deployment in that case

Cristiano Amon (11:38.700)

look like a wifi deployment,

Lex Fridman (11:40.500)

it's almost like wifi access points.

Cristiano Amon (11:42.900)

When you need to build more stations, you need permits,

Lex Fridman (11:45.940)

you need to build fiber, so it takes more time to densify.

Lex Fridman (11:50.580)

So what you see happening is coverage has been built fast

Lex Fridman (11:54.260)

with sub six across the globe,

Lex Fridman (11:56.620)

but now the United States also have the sub six.

Lex Fridman (11:59.860)

So that gets you to coverage very fast.

Lex Fridman (12:02.940)

But millimeter wave, it's moving.

Lex Fridman (12:05.620)

And if I will say, for example, Verizon,

Cristiano Amon (12:08.780)

United States has had a leadership

Lex Fridman (12:11.220)

in building millimeter wave, it takes time.

Cristiano Amon (12:13.060)

I'll say cities like Chicago, Manhattan

Lex Fridman (12:17.020)

starting to get coverage.

Cristiano Amon (12:18.780)

It will be a process over a number of years

Lex Fridman (12:21.540)

as you build those different access points type networks,

Lex Fridman (12:26.220)

but it's inevitable.

Lex Fridman (12:28.500)

There's not enough spectrum.

Lex Fridman (12:30.020)

So every 5G operators just a matter of time

Lex Fridman (12:33.220)

will have millimeter wave as well.

Cristiano Amon (12:35.020)

Resistance is futile.

Lex Fridman (12:36.740)

Okay, so for millimeter wave,

Cristiano Amon (12:39.300)

we need density of access points.

Lex Fridman (12:42.140)

And what's the biggest resistance for Qualcomm

Lex Fridman (12:47.620)

for human civilization?

Lex Fridman (12:49.660)

Is it politicians, regulators, federal regulators?

Lex Fridman (12:54.500)

Is it individual humans?

Lex Fridman (12:57.700)

Is it not enough money from the consumer perspective?

Lex Fridman (13:00.620)

Like who is the biggest pain in the butt?

Lex Fridman (13:03.340)

From a Qualcomm standpoint, but answering the question

Cristiano Amon (13:05.700)

about what it takes to build all this technology.

Lex Fridman (13:09.420)

I think regulators across the board

Cristiano Amon (13:11.740)

understood the importance of 5G.

Lex Fridman (13:13.660)

I have not met a regulator that said,

Cristiano Amon (13:15.940)

it's really important to be late on 5G.

Lex Fridman (13:18.100)

I don't think anybody wants to be late on 5G.

Lex Fridman (13:20.140)

And as a result, we've seen enormous amount of progress

Lex Fridman (13:22.980)

in getting spectrum allocated to 5G.

Cristiano Amon (13:26.300)

I think the real issue is the time that it takes

Lex Fridman (13:29.380)

to build infrastructure.

Cristiano Amon (13:31.660)

You know, investment in 5G infrastructure,

Lex Fridman (13:34.220)

special millimeter wave is like building roads and ports.

Cristiano Amon (13:37.060)

It's critical infrastructure.

Lex Fridman (13:38.820)

And those things take time.

Cristiano Amon (13:40.060)

Like one of the number one obstacle

Lex Fridman (13:41.660)

you're gonna hear from operators is site permit.

Cristiano Amon (13:45.020)

You know, sometimes they have to negotiate municipality

Lex Fridman (13:47.780)

by municipality about permits to get new cell sites.

Lex Fridman (13:51.740)

But you know, the networks will be densified

Lex Fridman (13:54.220)

and you're gonna need all of that capacity

Cristiano Amon (13:56.740)

for the promise of the fully immersive augmented reality

Lex Fridman (14:01.100)

that will replace phones and everything being connected

Cristiano Amon (14:03.940)

100% of the time.

Lex Fridman (14:05.580)

This would not be a conversation with the CEO

Cristiano Amon (14:07.940)

if I did not ask questions that make you nervous.

Lex Fridman (14:12.980)

Some people raise concerns about there not being enough

Cristiano Amon (14:15.900)

studies about the effects of 5G on the human body.

Lex Fridman (14:19.380)

Is 5G safe?

Cristiano Amon (14:21.380)

Look, I have a very simple answer to this question.

Lex Fridman (14:26.380)

As we build new capabilities, such as 5G,

Cristiano Amon (14:31.380)

power is going down, especially when you think

Lex Fridman (14:34.700)

about reducing the number of base stations,

Cristiano Amon (14:37.940)

the network's becoming more dense.

Lex Fridman (14:40.420)

So as you do that, the power becomes lower.

Cristiano Amon (14:45.420)

If your phone radiated from the phone and from the tower,

Lex Fridman (14:49.420)

as you get closer to the tower,

Cristiano Amon (14:51.220)

you don't need that much power to reach the tower.

Lex Fridman (14:53.460)

So as we move from 4G to 5G,

Cristiano Amon (14:56.860)

I think we see a reduction in the amount of power

Lex Fridman (15:00.100)

is required to close the radio link.

Cristiano Amon (15:02.860)

Now, also you have a number of organizations,

Lex Fridman (15:05.860)

the FCC, for example, has rigorous programs,

Cristiano Amon (15:09.460)

which they do a lot of tests to validate, you know,

Lex Fridman (15:14.460)

the safety of those devices.

Lex Fridman (15:16.780)

And I think we have, has been a model for other countries

Lex Fridman (15:20.300)

to also to adopt the same things.

Cristiano Amon (15:24.060)

Cellular has been around for a number of decades now.

Lex Fridman (15:27.540)

I think smartphone is our most beloved device today.

Lex Fridman (15:32.540)

And I would argue how it's difficult

Lex Fridman (15:35.980)

to answer those questions,

Lex Fridman (15:37.780)

but I'll argue that the data to date

Lex Fridman (15:41.380)

have we seen in 3G and 4G, you know,

Cristiano Amon (15:45.580)

has shown that a lot of the initial concerns

Lex Fridman (15:53.500)

were not valid.

Cristiano Amon (15:55.060)

We look at 5G, even though it's new, it's just less power.

Lex Fridman (15:58.620)

So we look at it from a physics standpoint.

Lex Fridman (16:01.900)

So from a physics, from a biology perspective,

Lex Fridman (16:05.180)

there's a lot of evidence, there's studies

Cristiano Amon (16:08.740)

that show that it's not dangerous, that it is in fact safe.

Lex Fridman (16:13.060)

However, the concern that people have

Cristiano Amon (16:14.640)

is when you scale technology exponentially,

Lex Fridman (16:18.620)

how will that change human civilization?

Cristiano Amon (16:20.740)

I mean, that doesn't apply to 5G,

Lex Fridman (16:22.340)

that applies to every technology.

Cristiano Amon (16:23.980)

How, you said smartphone is the most beloved device,

Lex Fridman (16:27.300)

but love sometimes hurts.

Cristiano Amon (16:29.940)

That's the impact on society we don't know.

Lex Fridman (16:33.380)

And there's a little bit of fear,

Cristiano Amon (16:34.700)

there's both excitement and fear.

Lex Fridman (16:36.740)

It's a great topic of conversation actually.

Lex Fridman (16:39.180)

So let me give you my perspective on this.

Lex Fridman (16:41.160)

And you started to see some things

Cristiano Amon (16:42.500)

actually happening right now.

Lex Fridman (16:43.700)

So let me step back and let's talk about the fact

Cristiano Amon (16:47.140)

that we are in a fully interconnected society.

Lex Fridman (16:51.020)

That when you look of the situation today,

Cristiano Amon (16:56.060)

we talk about smartphones, largest development platform,

Lex Fridman (17:01.700)

so much now of our life, we are connected to the smartphone.

Lex Fridman (17:08.500)

And we are all connected and we're connected.

Lex Fridman (17:11.580)

And then we're building digital twins of everything, right?

Lex Fridman (17:15.460)

So when you look at that picture,

Lex Fridman (17:17.340)

when you look at the picture of this connected society,

Cristiano Amon (17:21.460)

you started to have the following thoughts,

Lex Fridman (17:25.140)

which I think are very healthy,

Cristiano Amon (17:26.780)

which means in the same way that in the physical world,

Lex Fridman (17:30.220)

you're entitled to some rights, you have obligations,

Lex Fridman (17:33.720)

and there's a lot of things that protect your integrity.

Lex Fridman (17:38.720)

I think as a rule, we're gonna see the society evolving.

Lex Fridman (17:43.580)

So those things extend to your digital being

Lex Fridman (17:47.680)

of people and things.

Lex Fridman (17:49.340)

And I think it's just natural.

Lex Fridman (17:50.720)

It's just natural.

Cristiano Amon (17:52.140)

It's just a natural path.

Lex Fridman (17:54.020)

And you started to see things like that.

Cristiano Amon (17:55.540)

For example, the Europeans has done a lot in this area.

Lex Fridman (18:00.020)

I'll say the Europeans probably ahead in the United States

Cristiano Amon (18:03.940)

thinking about privacy laws, digital privacy laws.

Lex Fridman (18:06.940)

Most recently, the DMA, the Digital Markets Act,

Cristiano Amon (18:09.860)

which I think is a great thing.

Lex Fridman (18:11.860)

I think we believe there's incredible thought

Cristiano Amon (18:15.900)

into enable ability to regulate the digital markets

Lex Fridman (18:19.260)

so that there's innovation and competitions

Lex Fridman (18:21.100)

and not a single company can control all the data

Lex Fridman (18:24.860)

and then decide how things are gonna be work

Cristiano Amon (18:28.620)

on the digital realm.

Lex Fridman (18:29.740)

And even if we think about the potential things

Cristiano Amon (18:32.060)

like the metaverse,

Lex Fridman (18:32.900)

as we're connecting physical and digital spaces.

Lex Fridman (18:35.480)

So I think it's a natural evolution.

Lex Fridman (18:37.500)

Of course, regulation and laws always follow technology.

Lex Fridman (18:43.000)

But the fact that we're moving

Lex Fridman (18:45.620)

to an interconnected society, there's no going back.

Cristiano Amon (18:49.440)

We are a fully interconnected society.

Lex Fridman (18:52.040)

But there is opportunity to think about

Lex Fridman (18:55.180)

how the digital twin should,

Lex Fridman (18:58.980)

people and government should think about it

Lex Fridman (19:00.860)

so that we get the best of a technology

Lex Fridman (19:03.380)

without any downside.

Cristiano Amon (19:05.280)

Yeah, so when you say digital twin,

Lex Fridman (19:06.900)

that's one of the other things you're excited about,

Cristiano Amon (19:08.500)

which is the metaverse,

Lex Fridman (19:09.780)

or basically building worlds in the digital space.

Lex Fridman (19:13.380)

And you have to start to think about

Lex Fridman (19:14.700)

all the basic human rights that transfer

Cristiano Amon (19:18.500)

from our physical meat vehicles

Lex Fridman (19:20.520)

out to the digital copies of ourselves,

Cristiano Amon (19:22.940)

representations of ourselves.

Lex Fridman (19:24.220)

It's really important to think about.

Cristiano Amon (19:25.740)

The thing you mentioned about regulators that has been,

Lex Fridman (19:27.820)

this is me speaking frustrating,

Cristiano Amon (19:29.740)

is like you said, they follow technology.

Lex Fridman (19:32.820)

So sometimes they don't get the technology at all.

Lex Fridman (19:36.940)

So they're very clumsy in writing laws

Lex Fridman (19:40.220)

that censor that technology in interesting ways.

Cristiano Amon (19:43.760)

They mean good, but they can do a lot of unintended damage.

Lex Fridman (19:47.360)

Now, both, it's a dance.

Cristiano Amon (19:49.500)

It's a beautiful dance,

Lex Fridman (19:50.660)

but I just wish governments were better dance partners.

Cristiano Amon (19:54.120)

I just see what they're kind of writing now

Lex Fridman (19:55.860)

about regulating social media and platforms like YouTube,

Cristiano Amon (1:00:00.980)

is just what I'm gonna do in the next two years,

Lex Fridman (1:00:02.760)

but what do I want to do?

Lex Fridman (1:00:04.260)

Where do I wanna go?

Lex Fridman (1:00:05.960)

And I think it's important for people,

Cristiano Amon (1:00:08.480)

especially young people,

Lex Fridman (1:00:10.780)

is to really have a dream and go pursue it.

Cristiano Amon (1:00:15.140)

I mean, have a dream does not go back to bed to sleep.

Lex Fridman (1:00:17.560)

It's really what do you want to accomplish

Lex Fridman (1:00:20.720)

and then what it's gonna take to do that.

Lex Fridman (1:00:22.300)

And then believe in yourself.

Cristiano Amon (1:00:24.200)

Like I said, I joined Qualcomm as an engineer

Lex Fridman (1:00:28.440)

and I didn't have any plans when I joined to be CEO,

Lex Fridman (1:00:33.140)

but I do want, as an engineer,

Lex Fridman (1:00:34.680)

what I wanted to do, where I wanna contribute,

Lex Fridman (1:00:38.240)

what I wanted to work on,

Lex Fridman (1:00:39.320)

and then keep evolving from that point in time.

Cristiano Amon (1:00:43.800)

The other thing is, this is an advice,

Lex Fridman (1:00:46.200)

it's more of like career advice that I got early in my career

Cristiano Amon (1:00:51.360)

was extremely helpful for me

Lex Fridman (1:00:54.020)

and I will give that advice

Cristiano Amon (1:00:55.160)

to everyone that is interested.

Lex Fridman (1:00:58.740)

Spend time understanding what are the things you're good at

Lex Fridman (1:01:02.540)

and what are the things you're not.

Lex Fridman (1:01:04.280)

Like what is the real border between your area of competence

Lex Fridman (1:01:08.680)

and your area of incompetence?

Lex Fridman (1:01:10.580)

And once you see that,

Cristiano Amon (1:01:12.320)

once you see that you know exactly what you have to work on

Lex Fridman (1:01:15.680)

and you can say, that's where I wanna go next,

Cristiano Amon (1:01:18.880)

this is the gap, I need to do it.

Lex Fridman (1:01:21.160)

And it's faster when you can identify yourself

Cristiano Amon (1:01:24.760)

before other people can tell you.

Lex Fridman (1:01:27.240)

Then it leads to automatically the next step.

Cristiano Amon (1:01:31.480)

Surround yourself, the people that are very good

Lex Fridman (1:01:34.080)

at the things that you're not.

Lex Fridman (1:01:35.480)

So you have to be radically honest

Lex Fridman (1:01:38.780)

about the things that you're not good at,

Lex Fridman (1:01:41.120)

but given what you're passionate about,

Lex Fridman (1:01:42.960)

you need to get good at,

Cristiano Amon (1:01:44.160)

or you would like to get good at,

Lex Fridman (1:01:45.720)

and surround yourself by those people.

Lex Fridman (1:01:47.680)

How often did the plans you make actually work out?

Lex Fridman (1:01:50.640)

So you said it's important to make plans.

Cristiano Amon (1:01:52.520)

You didn't say anything about

Lex Fridman (1:01:54.480)

it's important to execute on those plans.

Cristiano Amon (1:01:56.240)

More than 50% success rate.

Lex Fridman (1:01:58.600)

Try to keep it above 50.

Cristiano Amon (1:01:59.960)

Try to keep it above 50.

Lex Fridman (1:02:01.840)

What was the whole, why did you end up in Japan?

Cristiano Amon (1:02:05.440)

I've been fortunate enough to work in cellular and wireless

Lex Fridman (1:02:09.560)

my entire career.

Lex Fridman (1:02:10.720)

So I always liked communications.

Lex Fridman (1:02:13.880)

When I entered engineering school,

Cristiano Amon (1:02:15.680)

my dad was electrical engineer,

Lex Fridman (1:02:17.320)

but he worked with the utility company.

Cristiano Amon (1:02:19.120)

He wanted me to graduate

Lex Fridman (1:02:21.480)

in traditional electrical engineering,

Cristiano Amon (1:02:23.040)

like energy generation, distribution.

Lex Fridman (1:02:27.920)

But I like electronics communication,

Lex Fridman (1:02:29.520)

so I ended up doing both.

Lex Fridman (1:02:31.720)

And I always liked communication.

Cristiano Amon (1:02:35.280)

I was fascinated by wireless communication.

Lex Fridman (1:02:37.160)

So my first job at a college,

Cristiano Amon (1:02:38.680)

I started working for a Japanese company down in Brazil,

Lex Fridman (1:02:42.000)

was NEC, and within about a year in,

Cristiano Amon (1:02:44.240)

they transferred me to Tokyo.

Lex Fridman (1:02:46.560)

They asked me to go to their headquarters,

Lex Fridman (1:02:48.060)

and it was the first time I left Brazil.

Lex Fridman (1:02:51.440)

A little bit different from Brazil.

Cristiano Amon (1:02:53.400)

Culturally. Very different.

Lex Fridman (1:02:54.920)

It is in the other side of the planet.

Lex Fridman (1:02:58.080)

And that's how I started.

Lex Fridman (1:03:00.540)

You said your father's an electrical engineer.

Lex Fridman (1:03:03.840)

Do you think what you're doing now makes your father proud?

Lex Fridman (1:03:07.580)

I think he's very proud.

Cristiano Amon (1:03:08.680)

I think especially, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:03:12.580)

he tells me that I'm still the same person

Cristiano Amon (1:03:15.760)

that never changed.

Lex Fridman (1:03:17.480)

Does he give you advice?

Lex Fridman (1:03:19.160)

Does he criticize what you're doing?

Lex Fridman (1:03:20.720)

Tell you how to improve?

Cristiano Amon (1:03:22.360)

My mom and dad still give me advice today.

Lex Fridman (1:03:24.080)

I'm very fortunate for that.

Lex Fridman (1:03:25.280)

But he's proud.

Lex Fridman (1:03:29.560)

I'm also proud because there are very few Brazilians

Cristiano Amon (1:03:33.720)

that have achieved a position as CEO

Lex Fridman (1:03:36.320)

of a company the size of Qualcomm.

Lex Fridman (1:03:39.360)

And I do know that also I carry a burden,

Lex Fridman (1:03:43.260)

especially for the Latino community,

Cristiano Amon (1:03:47.720)

to be an inspiration for them

Lex Fridman (1:03:49.220)

and make sure I set a good example.

Lex Fridman (1:03:51.940)

So not just your mom and dad,

Lex Fridman (1:03:54.380)

but the culture, the people that were originally your home.

Lex Fridman (1:04:01.540)

Do you, you know, life is finite.

Lex Fridman (1:04:04.780)

Do you think about your own mortality?

Cristiano Amon (1:04:07.860)

Look, I'm a devout Christian,

Lex Fridman (1:04:10.980)

and so I'm a big believer that there's,

Cristiano Amon (1:04:15.460)

this is just a transition.

Lex Fridman (1:04:18.700)

But don't spend a lot of time thinking about that.

Cristiano Amon (1:04:22.140)

I am somebody good, better, and different

Lex Fridman (1:04:25.820)

that try as much as possible to leave the present,

Lex Fridman (1:04:29.340)

and that's what I do.

Lex Fridman (1:04:31.660)

And try to make the present better

Cristiano Amon (1:04:33.240)

on this place here on Earth.

Lex Fridman (1:04:35.860)

Absolutely.

Lex Fridman (1:04:36.700)

And that some of these technologies,

Lex Fridman (1:04:38.060)

some of these ideas are kind of a different kind

Cristiano Amon (1:04:40.980)

of immortality as well,

Lex Fridman (1:04:42.540)

because they propagate through time

Lex Fridman (1:04:44.500)

and have impact on people in the best possible way.

Lex Fridman (1:04:47.700)

So technology can be scary,

Cristiano Amon (1:04:49.880)

technology can be destructive,

Lex Fridman (1:04:51.280)

but it seems like in the end it can do a lot of good.

Cristiano Amon (1:04:56.460)

More good, there's more good than bad.

Lex Fridman (1:04:59.300)

What do you think is the meaning of this whole thing?

Cristiano Amon (1:05:01.100)

I asked you about aliens observing us.

Lex Fridman (1:05:03.620)

What's the meaning of life?

Lex Fridman (1:05:05.640)

Cristiano, what's the meaning of life?

Lex Fridman (1:05:09.640)

Easy questions.

Cristiano Amon (1:05:10.920)

That's not an easy question at all.

Lex Fridman (1:05:13.120)

I think that's a question,

Cristiano Amon (1:05:15.240)

at least for me, you have to answer individually.

Lex Fridman (1:05:18.720)

But I do believe we're all here for a purpose.

Cristiano Amon (1:05:24.440)

In my prayers I always ask that I stay on track

Lex Fridman (1:05:28.960)

to whatever my purpose is,

Lex Fridman (1:05:30.960)

but I do believe we're here for a purpose,

Lex Fridman (1:05:33.160)

and we need to do the best we can

Cristiano Amon (1:05:34.840)

during the time we have on this Earth.

Lex Fridman (1:05:36.920)

So that means create beautiful things for you

Lex Fridman (1:05:41.040)

as an engineer?

Lex Fridman (1:05:42.000)

Yes, and create beautiful things, yes.

Lex Fridman (1:05:44.640)

What about love?

Lex Fridman (1:05:46.280)

What's the role of love in the human condition?

Cristiano Amon (1:05:49.960)

Love's very important,

Lex Fridman (1:05:50.960)

and it's an essential part of being human.

Cristiano Amon (1:05:54.740)

It comes in the package.

Lex Fridman (1:05:56.880)

And I think if you look at the situation,

Cristiano Amon (1:06:00.100)

what's happening right now,

Lex Fridman (1:06:01.480)

I think if you look at the situation

Cristiano Amon (1:06:03.680)

with some of the underprivileged communities,

Lex Fridman (1:06:06.280)

you look at the homeless situation,

Cristiano Amon (1:06:08.180)

I think we all need more love.

Lex Fridman (1:06:10.200)

Yeah, and I think people that build incredible technology

Cristiano Amon (1:06:12.680)

sometimes forget the love part.

Lex Fridman (1:06:14.880)

Those are all, it's all integrated.

Cristiano Amon (1:06:17.280)

There's no, thinking about humanity is really important

Lex Fridman (1:06:21.720)

when you build tools that empower that humanity.

Cristiano Amon (1:06:24.980)

Because there's, I think, at least I personally believe

Lex Fridman (1:06:27.360)

we're all capable of both evil and good.

Lex Fridman (1:06:30.200)

And we have to build technology, build societies,

Lex Fridman (1:06:33.400)

build governments, build communities

Cristiano Amon (1:06:35.200)

that inspire us to connect with the good part

Lex Fridman (1:06:40.000)

within all of us.

Cristiano Amon (1:06:40.940)

I'm a big believer that technology is, at the end,

Lex Fridman (1:06:43.760)

the force for good.

Lex Fridman (1:06:44.720)

And if you just look, you know,

Lex Fridman (1:06:47.560)

not trying to move away from a deep discussion

Cristiano Amon (1:06:50.880)

to a more specific, technical one.

Lex Fridman (1:06:54.180)

But we started a conversation talking about smartphones.

Lex Fridman (1:06:58.640)

And smartphones really, the first time

Lex Fridman (1:07:03.240)

that you could say that everybody in the world

Cristiano Amon (1:07:05.240)

was able to connect to the internet

Lex Fridman (1:07:06.960)

and connect to each other.

Lex Fridman (1:07:07.880)

And I think what that empowerment that that provided,

Lex Fridman (1:07:11.400)

it's an incredible force for good.

Cristiano Amon (1:07:14.400)

Well, the company you lead, the technology you've created,

Lex Fridman (1:07:18.660)

one of them that I'm especially excited about,

Cristiano Amon (1:07:21.120)

which is Snapdragon, the whole line of processors there.

Lex Fridman (1:07:23.840)

Currently, I would say at about 10 billion transistors.

Cristiano Amon (1:07:27.600)

If you think about the human brain,

Lex Fridman (1:07:29.200)

it's about 100 billion neurons.

Lex Fridman (1:07:31.560)

So I think 11 Samsung Galaxy S22s

Lex Fridman (1:07:36.440)

are already smarter than me.

Lex Fridman (1:07:37.720)

And that's being nice to me.

Lex Fridman (1:07:41.040)

I'm really honored that you spent

Cristiano Amon (1:07:42.240)

your extremely valuable time with me,

Lex Fridman (1:07:44.680)

even though you said Pele is the favorite player.

Cristiano Amon (1:07:48.040)

Beyond all of that, I think you're an incredible person,

Lex Fridman (1:07:51.360)

incredible leader, and you lead

Cristiano Amon (1:07:53.240)

an incredible engineering company.

Lex Fridman (1:07:54.860)

So thank you for doing that.

Cristiano Amon (1:07:55.980)

Oh, thank you so much.

Lex Fridman (1:07:56.820)

Thanks for the kind words.

Cristiano Amon (1:07:58.020)

Really a pleasure having this conversation.

Lex Fridman (1:07:59.920)

I really had a lot of fun doing it.

Lex Fridman (1:08:01.340)

And thank you for having me in your podcast.

Lex Fridman (1:08:04.800)

Thanks for listening to this conversation

Cristiano Amon (1:08:06.280)

with Christiano Aman.

Lex Fridman (1:08:07.960)

To support this podcast, please check out

Cristiano Amon (1:08:09.640)

our sponsors in the description.

Lex Fridman (1:08:11.760)

And now, let me leave you with some words

Cristiano Amon (1:08:13.920)

from Stephen Hawking.

Lex Fridman (1:08:15.960)

For millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals.

Cristiano Amon (1:08:20.420)

Then something happened, which unleashed

Lex Fridman (1:08:22.480)

the power of our imagination.

Cristiano Amon (1:08:24.760)

We learned to talk, and we learned to listen.

Lex Fridman (1:08:28.120)

Speech has allowed the communication of ideas,

Cristiano Amon (1:08:31.360)

enabling human beings to work together

Lex Fridman (1:08:33.440)

to build the impossible.

Cristiano Amon (1:08:35.400)

Mankind's greatest achievements have come about by talking,

Lex Fridman (1:08:40.080)

and its greatest failures by not talking.

Cristiano Amon (1:08:44.160)

It doesn't have to be like this.

Lex Fridman (1:08:46.040)

Our greatest hopes could become reality in the future.

Cristiano Amon (1:08:49.280)

With the technology at our disposal,

Lex Fridman (1:08:51.280)

the possibilities are unbounded.

Cristiano Amon (1:08:54.200)

All we need to do is make sure we keep talking.

Lex Fridman (1:08:58.440)

Thank you for listening, and hope to see you next time.

Lex Fridman (20:00.380)

and it's just really, really clumsy.

Lex Fridman (20:02.460)

They don't understand how machine learning works.

Cristiano Amon (20:04.620)

I recommend their systems work.

Lex Fridman (20:06.260)

And I just wish they kind of caught up a little more

Cristiano Amon (20:08.960)

because it's really important to be great at regulation,

Lex Fridman (20:12.900)

but also it's important to let companies flourish

Lex Fridman (20:15.540)

and embrace this new wave of technology.

Lex Fridman (20:17.500)

That weird dance, I am more and more learning

Cristiano Amon (20:20.420)

looking at public policy,

Lex Fridman (20:22.620)

how much positive government can do

Lex Fridman (20:25.620)

and how much clumsy negative it can do,

Lex Fridman (20:28.060)

unintentionally, just out of sheer incompetence

Cristiano Amon (20:31.240)

or lack of curiosity about tech.

Lex Fridman (20:34.180)

That's my rant about regulators.

Cristiano Amon (20:36.900)

I think it's a valid point.

Lex Fridman (20:39.280)

As I said before, I think the Europeans

Cristiano Amon (20:41.300)

probably have a very good framework,

Lex Fridman (20:43.460)

but the way I'll think about it,

Cristiano Amon (20:46.220)

we depend on having the ability to innovate.

Lex Fridman (20:50.260)

We depend on the free markets.

Cristiano Amon (20:51.580)

We depend on the ability to create technology

Lex Fridman (20:56.700)

that will be disruptive.

Lex Fridman (20:59.300)

But at the same time, I think the tech companies

Lex Fridman (21:01.140)

probably should spend time helping governments understand,

Cristiano Amon (21:04.860)

helping understand ahead of time

Lex Fridman (21:06.980)

so that they can be better prepared.

Cristiano Amon (21:09.980)

Let's talk about one of my favorite topics, Snapdragon.

Lex Fridman (21:14.840)

So Snapdragon is a system on a chip.

Cristiano Amon (21:17.380)

This processor has probably powered billions of smartphones

Lex Fridman (21:21.420)

over its pretty long history now,

Cristiano Amon (21:23.940)

a decade and a half maybe.

Lex Fridman (21:26.120)

So it's constantly iterating.

Cristiano Amon (21:27.320)

There's constantly just like a turmoil of beautiful

Lex Fridman (21:29.540)

innovations happening.

Lex Fridman (21:30.660)

So last year it was Snapdragon 888 was the main one

Lex Fridman (21:34.220)

with the five nanometer,

Lex Fridman (21:35.700)

and this year it's Snapdragon 8Gen1.

Lex Fridman (21:40.100)

It's a new naming scheme.

Cristiano Amon (21:41.700)

Okay, what's the sexiest, most beautiful idea

Lex Fridman (21:44.820)

or concept to you about Snapdragon?

Cristiano Amon (21:47.060)

Start there.

Lex Fridman (21:47.980)

The way I would describe it,

Lex Fridman (21:49.100)

and I think the reason we have been successful with it,

Lex Fridman (21:53.340)

is to really understand how to build a platform,

Cristiano Amon (21:59.380)

a single chip, like a single chip,

Lex Fridman (22:02.780)

that will have every single capability

Cristiano Amon (22:06.300)

if you wanna make this smartphone

Lex Fridman (22:08.860)

in the palm of your hand,

Cristiano Amon (22:11.360)

something that has all of your computing needs.

Lex Fridman (22:13.540)

And it was the ability to get,

Cristiano Amon (22:15.220)

from an engineering standpoint,

Lex Fridman (22:17.340)

ability to get into a single chip

Cristiano Amon (22:20.140)

of not only all possible connectivity technology,

Lex Fridman (22:24.260)

from cellular to wifi to Bluetooth

Cristiano Amon (22:26.700)

to every single constellation of satellites

Lex Fridman (22:29.980)

for position location.

Lex Fridman (22:31.540)

But at the same time,

Lex Fridman (22:33.580)

a very power efficient single thread and multi threaded CPU.

Cristiano Amon (22:39.540)

A GPU for all of your graphic demands,

Lex Fridman (22:44.500)

gaming, fastest growing segment for gaming,

Cristiano Amon (22:47.620)

is mobile gaming.

Lex Fridman (22:50.100)

An artificial intelligence processor,

Cristiano Amon (22:52.180)

which we call the neuro processor unit.

Lex Fridman (22:55.140)

And then a video engine,

Lex Fridman (22:58.040)

and a multimedia engine for every single application,

Lex Fridman (23:01.660)

audio, everything.

Lex Fridman (23:03.780)

So it's a single chip

Lex Fridman (23:06.460)

that has every single computing technology

Cristiano Amon (23:09.380)

you need in the phone.

Lex Fridman (23:10.620)

And what's exciting about it is what we already knew.

Cristiano Amon (23:14.340)

For example, when you think about camera or computer vision,

Lex Fridman (23:17.340)

you see that the advancements in the technology

Cristiano Amon (23:20.720)

now happens in the smartphone first

Lex Fridman (23:25.120)

versus additional camera.

Lex Fridman (23:26.360)

So the beauty about the Snapdragon is

Lex Fridman (23:29.160)

we always have this thing within Qualcomm.

Cristiano Amon (23:33.000)

The phone, it's small.

Lex Fridman (23:35.840)

You have to be able to hold it.

Cristiano Amon (23:37.240)

You're gonna touch your face so you cannot be hot.

Lex Fridman (23:40.600)

You have to manage thermals.

Cristiano Amon (23:43.240)

You expect to have a full day of battery life.

Lex Fridman (23:47.660)

But then you want it to not be sending data

Cristiano Amon (23:51.000)

into 10 or 100 megabits.

Lex Fridman (23:53.900)

You want gigabits.

Cristiano Amon (23:55.480)

You want it to be able to have eight core processors.

Lex Fridman (23:58.760)

You want to have a GPU with ray tracing.

Cristiano Amon (24:01.400)

You want to have all of the things

Lex Fridman (24:03.280)

that you can only get into sometimes a desktop PC.

Lex Fridman (24:08.520)

And to do all of that in your phone

Lex Fridman (24:11.340)

and be able to be in the leadership position

Cristiano Amon (24:14.140)

generation after generation is an incredible thing.

Lex Fridman (24:17.000)

And we're very proud of that at Qualcomm.

Cristiano Amon (24:18.980)

Yeah, so you have to do the WiFi, 5G, all of the...

Lex Fridman (24:22.320)

And you have to be good to everyone of those technologies.

Lex Fridman (24:24.960)

And pack it all in.

Lex Fridman (24:26.280)

And there's also pressure to make the thing

Cristiano Amon (24:28.760)

faster and faster and faster.

Lex Fridman (24:30.680)

And then there's more and more applications

Cristiano Amon (24:32.440)

you're supposed to be effortlessly using.

Lex Fridman (24:34.800)

And then you mentioned the NPU, GPU, CPU.

Cristiano Amon (24:37.560)

They have to also dance together somehow.

Lex Fridman (24:40.440)

They have to communicate well, share memory or not,

Cristiano Amon (24:42.800)

depending on what the application is.

Lex Fridman (24:44.400)

And your battery has to last all day.

Lex Fridman (24:48.240)

So think about that.

Lex Fridman (24:49.080)

From a company like Qualcomm, we have to be good

Cristiano Amon (24:51.840)

in each and every one of those technologies.

Lex Fridman (24:53.760)

We can't just say, oh, we're a CPU company

Cristiano Amon (24:55.400)

or a GPU company or we're AI company.

Lex Fridman (24:57.920)

We have to do everything.

Lex Fridman (24:59.840)

What does it take to design a great processor?

Lex Fridman (25:02.920)

So design this system on a chip that you mentioned.

Cristiano Amon (25:06.160)

Is there some insight you can provide

Lex Fridman (25:08.120)

in this chaos of engineers, designers, leaders,

Cristiano Amon (25:15.520)

the people that think about how much

Lex Fridman (25:16.840)

this is all gonna cost, the whole mess of it?

Cristiano Amon (25:19.760)

I'm, of course, very partial about it.

Lex Fridman (25:21.760)

I've been in this company for probably more than 26 years.

Lex Fridman (25:25.000)

But I will argue that there are a couple things

Lex Fridman (25:28.500)

that are ingredients for success.

Lex Fridman (25:31.880)

So we talk about the fact that they have

Lex Fridman (25:33.400)

all those different technologies.

Cristiano Amon (25:34.640)

They evolve at their own pace.

Lex Fridman (25:36.240)

And you have to be good in each one of them.

Lex Fridman (25:38.880)

And you need to then to make them working together.

Lex Fridman (25:41.040)

So you need to have an engineering organization

Cristiano Amon (25:44.900)

that's with an incredible collaboration culture

Lex Fridman (25:50.560)

because everybody has to be working.

Cristiano Amon (25:52.600)

The train's gonna leave the station.

Lex Fridman (25:54.280)

Every cart needs to be there when it leaves the station.

Cristiano Amon (25:57.720)

It needs to leave on time,

Lex Fridman (25:58.720)

especially in the phone business.

Cristiano Amon (26:00.280)

You can't change Christmas.

Lex Fridman (26:02.220)

You cannot change Black Friday.

Cristiano Amon (26:04.060)

You cannot change all of the selling seasons.

Lex Fridman (26:06.480)

So the phones are gonna launch on time.

Lex Fridman (26:08.960)

And every technology needs to be there.

Lex Fridman (26:10.280)

The engineer needs to work as one.

Lex Fridman (26:12.760)

And we do have that at Qualcomm.

Lex Fridman (26:14.620)

The other thing, you have to have incredible discipline

Cristiano Amon (26:18.440)

because those are very complex systems.

Lex Fridman (26:22.680)

So in one way, you have to design with quality

Cristiano Amon (26:28.320)

because in many cases, we're gonna be ramping production.

Lex Fridman (26:32.080)

And even before we have the silicon back

Lex Fridman (26:34.760)

and you have to rely on our simulation models

Lex Fridman (26:38.400)

and you have to rely on the fact

Cristiano Amon (26:41.480)

that you design for commercial applications.

Lex Fridman (26:45.060)

That takes a while to build.

Lex Fridman (26:48.200)

And it's probably been the history

Lex Fridman (26:52.120)

of a semiconductor business at Qualcomm.

Lex Fridman (26:54.140)

So you mean like the framework

Lex Fridman (26:55.480)

of how many people can use simulation software

Lex Fridman (26:57.680)

and all that kind of stuff to build the thing

Lex Fridman (26:59.960)

with a hard deadline that you might not even get back

Cristiano Amon (27:02.840)

from like manufacturer before.

Lex Fridman (27:06.760)

You're not allowed to have any mistakes.

Cristiano Amon (27:08.200)

No wonder our name is quality communications.

Lex Fridman (27:11.080)

Oh, I never even thought about the qual part.

Cristiano Amon (27:13.440)

Quality.

Lex Fridman (27:14.600)

So quality and there's a bar that's high

Lex Fridman (27:17.400)

and you're not allowed to mess up.

Lex Fridman (27:19.040)

I mean, to me as an engineer, that's exciting.

Cristiano Amon (27:21.000)

Hard deadlines, no room for mistakes.

Lex Fridman (27:25.800)

I love it.

Cristiano Amon (27:26.640)

Super stressful, but I love it.

Lex Fridman (27:27.960)

So there's a couple of other small companies

Cristiano Amon (27:33.760)

called Google and Apple.

Lex Fridman (27:36.200)

So Google is now using its own chip for the Pixel 6.

Cristiano Amon (27:39.440)

Apple using its own.

Lex Fridman (27:41.560)

How does Qualcomm out compete Google and Apple?

Lex Fridman (27:45.680)

How does it beat them?

Lex Fridman (27:46.840)

We don't have to out compete Google.

Cristiano Amon (27:48.520)

Actually, if you look at our mobile strategy today,

Lex Fridman (27:51.240)

and then one thing I was very clear when I became CEO,

Cristiano Amon (27:53.640)

I think there's a lot of confusion in the market.

Lex Fridman (27:55.240)

Our mobile strategy is very clear.

Cristiano Amon (27:58.080)

We are focused of making Snapdragon synonymous

Lex Fridman (28:02.000)

with premium Android experience.

Cristiano Amon (28:04.840)

That's what Snapdragon is.

Lex Fridman (28:06.160)

Android, the phone of the people.

Cristiano Amon (28:08.400)

Yes.

Lex Fridman (28:10.680)

I just have a love for Android.

Cristiano Amon (28:12.120)

I'm constantly talking trash to iPhone people.

Lex Fridman (28:13.920)

Sorry, go ahead.

Cristiano Amon (28:14.760)

Premium Android experiences.

Lex Fridman (28:16.640)

So we do produce Snapdragon in multiple tier

Cristiano Amon (28:20.680)

for every price point, but every year,

Lex Fridman (28:23.640)

you mentioned the HN1,

Lex Fridman (28:26.120)

and every year we'll provide the flagship product.

Lex Fridman (28:29.720)

And then the other series that is trying to get the best

Cristiano Amon (28:33.960)

of every possible technology at that time.

Lex Fridman (28:36.680)

And it's really focused on enabling the Android ecosystem.

Lex Fridman (28:41.520)

So I'll give an example.

Lex Fridman (28:42.920)

So you asked me the question, how to compete with Google.

Cristiano Amon (28:45.400)

It's not about competing with Google.

Lex Fridman (28:46.640)

We're the number one enabler

Cristiano Amon (28:48.600)

of the Google Android ecosystem.

Lex Fridman (28:51.840)

And the largest, the number one customer there

Cristiano Amon (28:56.320)

is actually Samsung.

Lex Fridman (28:58.200)

And if you look what happened to Samsung,

Cristiano Amon (29:00.760)

Samsung, I always said,

Lex Fridman (29:05.440)

since I began my relationship with them,

Cristiano Amon (29:08.800)

that cause they always had their own chip.

Lex Fridman (29:10.440)

They always had their own chip.

Lex Fridman (29:12.120)

And if you'll just look at what happened right now

Lex Fridman (29:14.800)

with the Galaxy S22 that just launched,

Cristiano Amon (29:17.960)

they used to balance their business about 50% Qualcomm.

Lex Fridman (29:21.600)

They will get the most advanced markets

Cristiano Amon (29:23.640)

like the United States and China and Japan and Korea,

Lex Fridman (29:27.000)

they will assign to Qualcomm.

Lex Fridman (29:28.440)

And then they'll have their own chip for the markets

Lex Fridman (29:31.320)

that they would be like more emerging markets,

Cristiano Amon (29:34.040)

open markets, markets that they have a control

Lex Fridman (29:35.920)

on the channel because they sell a lot of appliances

Lex Fridman (29:38.440)

and other things.

Lex Fridman (29:39.840)

If you look what happened right now, GS22,

Cristiano Amon (29:42.360)

75% is Qualcomm.

Lex Fridman (29:46.480)

And then the next large OEMs and Android ecosystem

Cristiano Amon (29:51.680)

are the Chinese ones.

Lex Fridman (29:52.920)

Companies like Xiaomi, one of the fastest growing.

Cristiano Amon (29:56.600)

It was number one in Europe at some point last year,

Lex Fridman (30:00.320)

then followed by Oppo and OnePlus and Vivo.

Lex Fridman (30:03.720)

So those are some of the largest Qualcomm customers.

Lex Fridman (30:06.640)

And they actually drive the Android ecosystem.

Lex Fridman (30:12.640)

And that's our mobile strategy

Lex Fridman (30:14.200)

and fully aligned with Google and it's working.

Lex Fridman (30:18.720)

And not to get into a lot of the investor conversation,

Lex Fridman (30:24.000)

but we're also happy we became a beneficiary

Cristiano Amon (30:29.440)

of the shifts that we saw in the marketplace.

Lex Fridman (30:31.920)

As Huawei became a smaller OEM

Cristiano Amon (30:35.120)

as a result of the sanctions,

Lex Fridman (30:37.400)

we saw the rise of a lot of the other OEMs from China,

Cristiano Amon (30:42.200)

especially for China domestic market, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo.

Lex Fridman (30:46.160)

They moved to the premium category

Lex Fridman (30:47.960)

and they're all doing that with Qualcomm.

Lex Fridman (30:49.600)

So we're actually very fortunate and happy

Cristiano Amon (30:53.120)

with the position we are in mobile business.

Lex Fridman (30:55.760)

We do have an Apple relationship.

Cristiano Amon (30:57.680)

We provide modem technology to Apple.

Lex Fridman (31:02.480)

It's a multi year relationship.

Cristiano Amon (31:03.720)

Apple has been very public that they are investing

Lex Fridman (31:07.160)

to develop their own modem.

Lex Fridman (31:09.480)

But the Qualcomm strategy has been clear.

Lex Fridman (31:12.840)

We're really focused on Snapdragon.

Cristiano Amon (31:16.360)

Our mobile strategy is not defined

Lex Fridman (31:18.480)

by providing a cellular modem to Apple.

Cristiano Amon (31:20.840)

Our mobile strategy is this that we just talked about it.

Lex Fridman (31:23.120)

It's about the unique thing of Snapdragon

Cristiano Amon (31:25.200)

that has every single technology

Lex Fridman (31:27.360)

integrated into a single SOC.

Lex Fridman (31:29.700)

And provides a premium experience.

Lex Fridman (31:32.160)

And that's what we're doing

Lex Fridman (31:33.400)

and focusing on the Android ecosystem.

Lex Fridman (31:37.000)

I don't know if I can ask you this kind of question.

Cristiano Amon (31:39.720)

It's like picking your children or something like this.

Lex Fridman (31:42.240)

But what smartphone with a Snapdragon?

Cristiano Amon (31:45.640)

You mentioned Samsung Galaxy S22, OnePlus.

Lex Fridman (31:49.240)

Those are phones I personally really enjoy.

Lex Fridman (31:52.560)

What phone do you currently use?

Lex Fridman (31:54.380)

Or do you have multiple phones?

Cristiano Amon (31:55.720)

I do have multiple phones but I do use Galaxy S22.

Lex Fridman (31:59.720)

That's your favorite one?

Cristiano Amon (32:01.020)

All right, well you heard it here first folks.

Lex Fridman (32:03.440)

Okay, so excellent.

Cristiano Amon (32:04.860)

Can Qualcomm also, let's take a brief step away from mobile.

Lex Fridman (32:09.920)

And take on Intel and Apple and other such companies

Cristiano Amon (32:13.560)

in the laptop and desktop space.

Lex Fridman (32:15.240)

So the nature of what a computer is seems to be changing.

Cristiano Amon (32:18.700)

It's like smartphones like merging.

Lex Fridman (32:21.320)

It's all being a smartphone just with the biggest screen

Cristiano Amon (32:23.840)

or something like this.

Lex Fridman (32:24.680)

So what does the future of that look like?

Cristiano Amon (32:26.740)

Before I answer that question,

Lex Fridman (32:28.400)

let me just step back a little bit.

Cristiano Amon (32:30.440)

Because, and I'm sure we can talk more about those things.

Lex Fridman (32:33.560)

But the reality is Qualcomm is changing a lot.

Lex Fridman (32:37.920)

And we use, I know we spend a lot of time

Lex Fridman (32:40.120)

talking about 5G and smartphone and Snapdragon.

Lex Fridman (32:42.760)

And I think that has been what had defined Qualcomm

Lex Fridman (32:45.480)

for many years.

Lex Fridman (32:46.320)

But the reality is, even consistent

Lex Fridman (32:48.720)

with that 5G conversation, which is a technology

Cristiano Amon (32:51.580)

to connect everything, Qualcomm is also changing.

Lex Fridman (32:56.400)

Our technology that was in many cases designed for phones.

Lex Fridman (33:00.820)

And we said at the beginning, connectivity and processing.

Lex Fridman (33:05.360)

It's going to virtually every industry.

Lex Fridman (33:07.880)

And as a result, Qualcomm is really changing with it

Lex Fridman (33:12.040)

and expanding to a number of different addressable markets.

Cristiano Amon (33:15.760)

Some of those markets is the PC, as you talk about it.

Lex Fridman (33:21.060)

The conversions of mobile and PC.

Lex Fridman (33:24.580)

And the reason I'm excited about this,

Lex Fridman (33:27.000)

because you see a lot of things happening

Cristiano Amon (33:28.840)

that bring this right front and center

Lex Fridman (33:31.680)

when you think about the future technology.

Lex Fridman (33:33.440)

So what we learn with the pandemic

Lex Fridman (33:37.560)

is that the number one use case of personal computers

Cristiano Amon (33:42.020)

is communications.

Lex Fridman (33:45.040)

It is interesting when you think about that.

Cristiano Amon (33:46.480)

That's the number one use case on a PC today

Lex Fridman (33:49.400)

is communications.

Cristiano Amon (33:50.720)

It's actually funny because in the cellular industry,

Lex Fridman (33:53.600)

actually I'll say, let me step back.

Cristiano Amon (33:55.240)

In the telecom industry, we've been chasing

Lex Fridman (33:59.240)

this killer application of video telephony for decades.

Cristiano Amon (34:03.720)

I remember back then in the wire line,

Lex Fridman (34:08.060)

even before the internet and IP, ISDN,

Cristiano Amon (34:11.440)

you remember those AT&T desk phones with a little screen

Lex Fridman (34:15.480)

and they said, you can do video telephony.

Cristiano Amon (34:17.200)

We don't watch that in Back to the Future 2.

Lex Fridman (34:21.340)

Then when we started developing 3G,

Cristiano Amon (34:23.520)

people said, what's the application for having data

Lex Fridman (34:25.680)

to a cell phone?

Cristiano Amon (34:26.520)

All video telephony.

Lex Fridman (34:27.600)

Then we started doing 4G.

Lex Fridman (34:30.320)

And in the beginning, people said,

Lex Fridman (34:32.120)

well, why do you need all of this broadband?

Cristiano Amon (34:33.700)

All video telephony.

Lex Fridman (34:35.440)

But it took a pandemic to make video telephony

Cristiano Amon (34:39.120)

the killer application.

Lex Fridman (34:40.600)

And that's now the number one use case on a PC.

Lex Fridman (34:44.860)

So now think about that for a second.

Lex Fridman (34:47.280)

Personal computers now, they're technologies

Cristiano Amon (34:49.440)

that people when they were gonna buy a PC,

Lex Fridman (34:50.900)

they didn't care much about it.

Cristiano Amon (34:51.880)

Now they do, camera.

Lex Fridman (34:53.880)

Camera, how good is the camera?

Lex Fridman (34:55.760)

The audio, is that connected?

Lex Fridman (34:57.900)

How good is the connectivity?

Lex Fridman (34:58.920)

Do you have the latest and greatest wifi and cellular?

Lex Fridman (35:01.960)

What's the battery life?

Cristiano Amon (35:03.360)

Because you're gonna be working from anywhere.

Lex Fridman (35:04.940)

Sometimes you know that, sometimes you're not.

Lex Fridman (35:07.260)

So all those things, what's the portability like?

Lex Fridman (35:09.720)

So those things started to change

Lex Fridman (35:11.640)

how we should think about the PC.

Lex Fridman (35:13.720)

But I won't stop there.

Cristiano Amon (35:15.360)

Let me talk about another trend.

Lex Fridman (35:17.080)

So, and all come as a result of what we saw the pandemic.

Cristiano Amon (35:21.800)

Let's say that you are,

Lex Fridman (35:23.440)

you're an engineer, you do computer aided design.

Cristiano Amon (35:25.720)

You have an advanced desktop computer

Lex Fridman (35:30.340)

or workstation in your office.

Lex Fridman (35:33.080)

But you wanna work from home someday.

Lex Fridman (35:35.160)

So you're not gonna move that to your home.

Lex Fridman (35:37.240)

So what do you need to do?

Lex Fridman (35:38.120)

You're gonna have to rely on that.

Cristiano Amon (35:40.280)

You're gonna run that on the cloud.

Lex Fridman (35:41.840)

And you're gonna run it on the cloud.

Cristiano Amon (35:43.120)

You need high bandwidth

Lex Fridman (35:44.800)

because you almost wanted the cloud

Cristiano Amon (35:46.720)

to be the same as your computer for that use case.

Lex Fridman (35:50.360)

That's the 5G on demand computing use case.

Cristiano Amon (35:53.600)

The use 5G is almost a link between two computers.

Lex Fridman (35:57.220)

But then, you know, CIOs are saying,

Cristiano Amon (35:59.640)

well, my workforce is going home for certain days.

Lex Fridman (36:02.320)

I want all the data to be in the cloud.

Cristiano Amon (36:04.560)

You look at, for example, Microsoft OneDrive

Lex Fridman (36:07.040)

or the ability to collaborate, you need the bandwidth.

Lex Fridman (36:10.320)

So when you put all of those things together,

Lex Fridman (36:13.840)

you start thinking about what is the next generation PC?

Lex Fridman (36:17.240)

And that's the opportunity for Qualcomm.

Lex Fridman (36:19.120)

I'll just give an example.

Cristiano Amon (36:21.120)

Back in Mobile World Congress recently, Lenovo,

Lex Fridman (36:26.880)

they have a line of enterprise laptops called the ThinkPad.

Cristiano Amon (36:32.560)

I'm sure you're familiar with it.

Lex Fridman (36:34.040)

So they announced the ThinkPad based on Snapdragon.

Cristiano Amon (36:38.280)

With 5G on, 28 hours of battery life.

Lex Fridman (36:42.960)

So that's next generation.

Cristiano Amon (36:45.800)

It's just a nice screen with extremely high, nice screen

Lex Fridman (36:49.160)

and keyboard, and extremely high connectivity

Cristiano Amon (36:52.360)

to maybe an even more, like a more powerful machine

Lex Fridman (36:54.920)

in the cloud.

Cristiano Amon (36:55.760)

Something more, the data, connecting to the data,

Lex Fridman (36:57.920)

connecting to compute, all that kind of stuff.

Cristiano Amon (36:59.600)

You have the camera capabilities,

Lex Fridman (37:01.560)

and let me go one step more.

Cristiano Amon (37:03.240)

Microsoft talking about some of the other features

Lex Fridman (37:05.720)

they're doing now using, on Windows 11, using Snapdragon.

Cristiano Amon (37:10.980)

Remember, we talk about it,

Lex Fridman (37:12.000)

Snapdragon has an AI processor inside there.

Lex Fridman (37:15.620)

So one of the cool features Microsoft's talking about it is

Lex Fridman (37:19.120)

you can be on a Teams call, and you can make sure

Cristiano Amon (37:22.000)

your eyes are looking at the camera 100% of the time.

Lex Fridman (37:25.760)

Well, that's an interesting,

Lex Fridman (37:27.160)

so they can be talking about that.

Lex Fridman (37:28.000)

And you do that with AI.

Cristiano Amon (37:29.320)

Yes, that's really tricky to pull off.

Lex Fridman (37:32.160)

For example, the reason I'm a huge stickler

Cristiano Amon (37:34.080)

for doing these in person, these conversations in person,

Lex Fridman (37:36.640)

it's really tough to get right.

Lex Fridman (37:38.280)

But it's a worthy challenge.

Lex Fridman (37:39.960)

So that's where the metaverse hopes to,

Lex Fridman (37:41.820)

so like, I just, because you said the importance

Lex Fridman (37:43.900)

of this telephony of humans connecting,

Cristiano Amon (37:46.320)

teleporting themselves, getting that right

Lex Fridman (37:48.760)

is really difficult.

Cristiano Amon (37:49.920)

There's a lot of people hate Zoom meetings,

Lex Fridman (37:52.120)

but that doesn't mean you can't improve that experience

Lex Fridman (37:55.480)

and get rid of the hate.

Lex Fridman (37:57.240)

A lot of people hate talking to their car too,

Cristiano Amon (37:59.120)

because the voice, the natural language processing

Lex Fridman (38:02.060)

is terrible, but when it's not, it's a beautiful thing.

Lex Fridman (38:04.920)

So getting that right is.

Lex Fridman (38:06.120)

This is an opportunity, this is an opportunity.

Cristiano Amon (38:08.400)

Think about it, it starts with the PC,

Lex Fridman (38:10.520)

making the PC giving you a better experience for teams,

Lex Fridman (38:14.320)

but then it goes right back into this trend

Lex Fridman (38:18.200)

of connecting physical and digital spaces.

Lex Fridman (38:20.520)

And all the work we're doing with the metaverse

Lex Fridman (38:23.240)

and virtual reality and metareality in the future

Cristiano Amon (38:25.280)

is why not call somebody or connect with somebody

Lex Fridman (38:28.680)

with a hologram, it's possible.

Lex Fridman (38:30.420)

And also to mention some increasing amount

Lex Fridman (38:33.840)

of intelligence in our cars.

Lex Fridman (38:36.080)

So semi autonomous, autonomous cars,

Lex Fridman (38:38.080)

and the interactivity between human and car,

Cristiano Amon (38:41.840)

which for me, things are really exciting.

Lex Fridman (38:44.920)

Let me ask you a big question.

Lex Fridman (38:46.080)

So when aliens again now on the other side, right,

Lex Fridman (38:49.600)

and humans destroy themselves through nuclear war

Cristiano Amon (38:51.720)

centuries from now.

Lex Fridman (38:52.760)

Let's hope not.

Cristiano Amon (38:53.600)

Let's hope not.

Lex Fridman (38:54.420)

But in case, you know, let's just hypothetical

Cristiano Amon (38:56.200)

thought experiment.

Lex Fridman (38:57.040)

And they write a history of humanity in the 21st century.

Lex Fridman (39:01.720)

What would they remember Qualcomm in the 21st century

Lex Fridman (39:05.560)

as a company?

Lex Fridman (39:06.400)

Would it be a car company?

Lex Fridman (39:08.160)

Like think of all the crazy pivots that might happen

Cristiano Amon (39:10.720)

in the next like 50 years.

Lex Fridman (39:13.240)

Because you're thinking, you said Qualcomm enables

Cristiano Amon (39:15.840)

all of these things with 5G and there'll be probably

Lex Fridman (39:18.680)

other Gs, it keeps increasing.

Lex Fridman (39:20.920)

So basically connectivity and computation

Lex Fridman (39:23.640)

and everything becomes connected and everything

Cristiano Amon (39:25.800)

is capable of computation.

Lex Fridman (39:27.720)

Might you become a robotics and car company?

Cristiano Amon (39:30.920)

I will argue we're already an automotive company today.

Lex Fridman (39:36.600)

But let me tell you what I would like Qualcomm to be,

Cristiano Amon (39:40.420)

remember and recognize for.

Lex Fridman (39:43.040)

I think everyone that knows Qualcomm immediately,

Cristiano Amon (39:47.040)

you know, connect us, pun intended,

Lex Fridman (39:49.920)

to connectivity and wireless.

Lex Fridman (39:52.040)

But the reality is we're being actually the company

Lex Fridman (39:54.840)

providing intelligence and processing to everything

Cristiano Amon (39:58.760)

on the edge, everything outside the data center

Lex Fridman (40:01.960)

that we're doing.

Cristiano Amon (40:02.920)

Those billions of devices that are gonna be connected.

Lex Fridman (40:05.820)

And that's kind of explained when we talk about

Cristiano Amon (40:08.780)

the connected intelligent edge, the beyond phones,

Lex Fridman (40:11.580)

cars, species, and all of those.

Lex Fridman (40:13.960)

And the broader IOTs, we talk about everything

Lex Fridman (40:16.520)

will be connected and intelligent.

Lex Fridman (40:18.040)

And that's what we want Qualcomm to be recognized for.

Lex Fridman (40:20.880)

So by the way, for people who are not familiar,

Cristiano Amon (40:23.120)

there's some technical jargon.

Lex Fridman (40:25.000)

People use the word edge, like edge computing.

Cristiano Amon (40:28.520)

It's, by the way, that's probably changing

Lex Fridman (40:30.720)

what that even means.

Lex Fridman (40:31.960)

But it's basically everything that's not a giant thing

Lex Fridman (40:34.040)

that's making a lot of noise in a building somewhere.

Lex Fridman (40:36.280)

So it's mobile devices and the mobile devices

Lex Fridman (40:39.940)

of all kinds, well, a refrigerator's not mobile,

Lex Fridman (40:42.440)

but it would be edge.

Lex Fridman (40:43.720)

So it's like what's a sandwich, that kind of discussion.

Lex Fridman (40:48.640)

But basically edge computing is the edge

Lex Fridman (40:53.160)

of that expanding space that you mentioned

Cristiano Amon (40:56.300)

that Qualcomm is trying to connect

Lex Fridman (40:59.240)

and enable with computation.

Cristiano Amon (41:00.680)

Here's a simple way to describe what the edge is

Lex Fridman (41:04.000)

and edge computing is.

Cristiano Amon (41:05.520)

I think as we think about the evolution of the data center,

Lex Fridman (41:09.560)

you need to bring the computational closer

Cristiano Amon (41:12.400)

to where the device is.

Lex Fridman (41:14.040)

Also, when you put the computation together

Cristiano Amon (41:17.000)

with the connectivity at the same time,

Lex Fridman (41:19.720)

you're gonna see a lot of advancement

Cristiano Amon (41:22.000)

of artificial intelligence happening closer

Lex Fridman (41:25.120)

or at the device.

Cristiano Amon (41:26.760)

Look, it's a very, I have a simple way to describe it.

Lex Fridman (41:29.480)

Remember in the beginning of this conversation,

Cristiano Amon (41:31.940)

we talk about in the 4G era, broadband

Lex Fridman (41:35.720)

and mobile computing evolved side by side.

Cristiano Amon (41:38.920)

If you're gonna have broadband,

Lex Fridman (41:40.000)

you might as well have a computer in the palm of your hand.

Lex Fridman (41:41.920)

So we needed to invest in those two technologies.

Lex Fridman (41:45.160)

In 5G, AI develops side by side.

Cristiano Amon (41:49.840)

You're connected to the cloud 100% of the time.

Lex Fridman (41:52.480)

You have a high bandwidth and you have now

Cristiano Amon (41:54.400)

a smart and intelligent thing that can make decision

Lex Fridman (41:56.880)

in real time, provide context information to the cloud

Cristiano Amon (42:00.720)

to make the models more accurate

Lex Fridman (42:02.480)

and as well compare and contrast to the cloud.

Lex Fridman (42:05.240)

So there's gonna be an exponential development of AI

Lex Fridman (42:08.520)

happening with all the edge devices,

Cristiano Amon (42:11.840)

the devices that are outside the data center

Lex Fridman (42:14.240)

and computation is gonna go alongside that.

Lex Fridman (42:16.880)

And a great example of that is the car.

Lex Fridman (42:19.600)

The car, we haven't talked much about the car,

Lex Fridman (42:22.880)

but Qualcomm is now, you could argue was as much

Lex Fridman (42:26.600)

as an automotive company as wireless company,

Cristiano Amon (42:28.680)

working 26 global brands.

Lex Fridman (42:32.000)

And it's easy to see, if you look at our mobile heritage

Lex Fridman (42:36.440)

and we talk about form factors, thermal, battery life,

Lex Fridman (42:40.900)

you're not gonna put a server in a trunk of a car,

Lex Fridman (42:43.440)

but you need as much computational capabilities.

Lex Fridman (42:46.520)

And that's we see Qualcomm providing,

Cristiano Amon (42:49.760)

as the car become a connected computer on wheels,

Lex Fridman (42:53.120)

we provide the computational and all the sensors

Cristiano Amon (42:56.120)

for you to do assisted driving

Lex Fridman (42:57.680)

for the new digital cockpit experience

Cristiano Amon (42:59.800)

connecting the car to the cloud

Lex Fridman (43:01.560)

and it's all of that's happening at the edge.

Cristiano Amon (43:03.960)

Does Qualcomm want to be the brain

Lex Fridman (43:05.920)

of a lot of autonomous vehicles in the future

Cristiano Amon (43:07.800)

of different, you said brands, like Mercedes,

Lex Fridman (43:10.480)

BMW, I don't know, whatever, just whatever car.

Cristiano Amon (43:13.320)

Cars have the sexy thing they do

Lex Fridman (43:15.760)

and then it defines their brand and so on.

Lex Fridman (43:18.520)

And then there's the brain

Lex Fridman (43:19.840)

that doesn't need to have branding supposedly.

Lex Fridman (43:22.480)

So does Qualcomm see that

Lex Fridman (43:23.860)

or will I be able to buy a Qualcomm car?

Cristiano Amon (43:26.480)

Like literally it'll be Qualcomm.

Lex Fridman (43:27.480)

No, you're not gonna be able to buy a Qualcomm car,

Lex Fridman (43:29.280)

but we are ready on our way to become the brains of the car.

Lex Fridman (43:35.920)

The way you should think about Qualcomm automotive strategy

Cristiano Amon (43:38.640)

is the car companies realize

Lex Fridman (43:42.160)

they need to become technology companies.

Cristiano Amon (43:44.160)

You just look, for example, of the market cap

Lex Fridman (43:47.120)

of some of the new electrical commerce

Lex Fridman (43:50.760)

and compare them with the legacy car companies.

Lex Fridman (43:55.680)

Which one is that?

Cristiano Amon (43:56.520)

I heard of, one of them lives in Austin.

Lex Fridman (44:00.640)

Let's say Rivian, right?

Cristiano Amon (44:02.200)

Rivian.

Lex Fridman (44:03.040)

Oh, that one too, yes.

Cristiano Amon (44:03.880)

You know, the car companies are not going away.

Lex Fridman (44:05.680)

It's actually a mistake not to bet in the car companies.

Cristiano Amon (44:09.640)

The car companies need a technology partner.

Lex Fridman (44:12.640)

They will provide the digital chassis for them.

Lex Fridman (44:16.680)

And that's what we're doing.

Lex Fridman (44:18.120)

So if you look at Qualcomm,

Cristiano Amon (44:19.240)

we talk about a Snapdragon digital chassis.

Lex Fridman (44:22.320)

So we want to be the preferred technology partner

Cristiano Amon (44:27.680)

of the car companies, and I think it's working.

Lex Fridman (44:30.680)

Strategy is working right now.

Lex Fridman (44:32.000)

So basically helping the car companies

Lex Fridman (44:34.680)

accelerate into becoming technology companies.

Cristiano Amon (44:37.680)

Connecting the car to the cloud,

Lex Fridman (44:39.380)

redesign the interior of the digital cockpit experience,

Lex Fridman (44:42.920)

and provide the computation and sensor capabilities

Lex Fridman (44:45.520)

for autonomy and assisted driving.

Cristiano Amon (44:48.280)

On the topic of robots, when millions or billions

Lex Fridman (44:50.800)

of robots roam the earth in the future among us humans,

Lex Fridman (44:54.320)

and I am for one concerned in a small percentage,

Lex Fridman (44:59.560)

but largely I'm excited about that future,

Lex Fridman (45:02.200)

will Qualcomm be the thing that powers their brain?

Lex Fridman (45:08.520)

We have in our IoT business,

Cristiano Amon (45:10.840)

which has been one of the fastest growing business for us,

Lex Fridman (45:13.860)

a number of robotics engagement.

Lex Fridman (45:16.860)

So I'll give you some example.

Lex Fridman (45:18.980)

If you look of the Amazon Astro,

Lex Fridman (45:23.180)

you familiar with that?

Lex Fridman (45:24.220)

There's two Snapdragon in there.

Lex Fridman (45:28.860)

There is?

Lex Fridman (45:29.700)

This is really exciting.

Cristiano Amon (45:30.540)

They're supposed to ship it to me.

Lex Fridman (45:31.460)

Where is it?

Cristiano Amon (45:32.340)

Okay, but anyway, that's really cool.

Lex Fridman (45:33.880)

I didn't know it was Snapdragon.

Cristiano Amon (45:35.100)

Yeah, we're working with robotics in industrial.

Lex Fridman (45:39.720)

Of course, drones.

Cristiano Amon (45:41.300)

We're getting more and more traction for robotics.

Lex Fridman (45:44.900)

Sorry to interrupt.

Lex Fridman (45:45.740)

Industrial robotics, too, you said?

Lex Fridman (45:47.260)

Industrial, especially when you think about

Cristiano Amon (45:51.940)

what's gonna happen with the factory of the future,

Lex Fridman (45:55.760)

the industrial side of the future,

Cristiano Amon (45:57.060)

the warehouse of the future,

Lex Fridman (45:58.200)

when you bring 5G, for example, to it,

Lex Fridman (46:01.520)

and you have a number of different use cases,

Lex Fridman (46:04.540)

and then you see a lot of robotics application.

Lex Fridman (46:09.120)

And of course, drones.

Lex Fridman (46:11.820)

And the most famous, I will consider that a robot,

Cristiano Amon (46:16.500)

the most famous robot in the world right now,

Lex Fridman (46:19.960)

it's powered by Snapdragon,

Cristiano Amon (46:21.300)

which is the Mars Ingenuity helicopter.

Lex Fridman (46:24.500)

The whole helicopter, the cameras and everything,

Cristiano Amon (46:27.360)

it's powered by Snapdragon.

Lex Fridman (46:28.780)

And talking about exciting thing for an engineer,

Cristiano Amon (46:32.780)

the same Snapdragon that goes to a phone,

Lex Fridman (46:35.140)

and it can go to a Galaxy phone, for example, Samsung,

Cristiano Amon (46:37.740)

the same, not a special one, went all the way to Mars.

Lex Fridman (46:42.260)

Is exploring other planets, looking for alien life,

Lex Fridman (46:45.020)

and maybe gets to meet them.

Lex Fridman (46:46.120)

Wouldn't that be interesting,

Lex Fridman (46:47.100)

if a Snapdragon is the thing that first sees an alien?

Lex Fridman (46:49.720)

It's like, what the hell?

Cristiano Amon (46:50.640)

We did not program this in the computer vision.

Lex Fridman (46:52.340)

I once used the example to go back

Cristiano Amon (46:53.980)

to the conversation we had about quality.

Lex Fridman (46:57.140)

As an engineer, you need to make sure it works.

Lex Fridman (46:59.580)

Can you imagine if it gets over there on Mars

Lex Fridman (47:01.260)

and it doesn't work?

Cristiano Amon (47:02.100)

Listen, this is very stressful.

Lex Fridman (47:04.060)

What NASA, what SpaceX, what all those companies are doing

Cristiano Amon (47:07.020)

is extremely stressful.

Lex Fridman (47:08.100)

The room for mistakes is tiny.

Lex Fridman (47:10.580)

But that's super exciting for an engineer, once again.

Lex Fridman (47:14.920)

There's been a global semiconductor chip shortage.

Lex Fridman (47:17.340)

So from your perspective, just it'd be interesting

Lex Fridman (47:19.720)

to get your expert analysis of the situation.

Lex Fridman (47:23.380)

What do you think are the main reasons

Lex Fridman (47:24.780)

and how has Qualcomm been affected and how can it help?

Cristiano Amon (47:28.580)

In this, in the future, things like it.

Lex Fridman (47:31.380)

Okay, that's a big topic of conversation.

Lex Fridman (47:36.380)

And we only have five minutes.

Lex Fridman (47:38.060)

So I'll try to be as objective as I can.

Lex Fridman (47:41.880)

So first, let's talk about what caused it.

Lex Fridman (47:43.780)

And you hear a lot of different things.

Cristiano Amon (47:46.460)

I will try to put it within the right context.

Lex Fridman (47:48.820)

The first thing that caused it, really,

Cristiano Amon (47:51.320)

is the acceleration of digital transformation

Lex Fridman (47:54.900)

of pretty much everything in every industry.

Cristiano Amon (47:59.180)

Every industry has been digitally transformed.

Lex Fridman (48:01.340)

And as such, the amount of semiconductors

Cristiano Amon (48:04.940)

that are required is much larger.

Lex Fridman (48:07.420)

Just to give you a practical example,

Cristiano Amon (48:09.020)

if you think about the automotive as an example,

Lex Fridman (48:11.660)

the cars that are, there's cars that are launched,

Cristiano Amon (48:15.100)

a new model launching today.

Lex Fridman (48:17.180)

The new model launching today most likely has 10X

Cristiano Amon (48:20.700)

the amount of chips of the prior model.

Lex Fridman (48:23.940)

And the model that people are working on

Cristiano Amon (48:25.700)

that's coming in next, probably 10X that one.

Lex Fridman (48:28.460)

So you see the amount of silicon

Lex Fridman (48:30.140)

and then billions of things become smart.

Lex Fridman (48:32.580)

More and more data goes to the cloud.

Cristiano Amon (48:34.420)

The data center grows.

Lex Fridman (48:35.820)

So the floor for semiconductor consumptions went up by a lot.

Cristiano Amon (48:40.500)

Then you have things that aggravated this.

Lex Fridman (48:43.180)

The pandemic aggravated this.

Cristiano Amon (48:45.100)

There is a couple of trends from the pandemic.

Lex Fridman (48:47.820)

The enterprise transformation of the home.

Cristiano Amon (48:50.100)

The home became an enterprise.

Lex Fridman (48:51.540)

Massive amounts of upgrades on broadband and IoT.

Cristiano Amon (48:57.540)

The office has changed to the way we work now,

Lex Fridman (49:02.700)

including the ability to support collaboration tools

Lex Fridman (49:05.300)

and video.

Lex Fridman (49:06.780)

Then you have the higher demand for products

Cristiano Amon (49:14.140)

during the pandemic because people wanted to be connected.

Lex Fridman (49:17.700)

People bought new phones and new tablets

Lex Fridman (49:19.340)

and new computers, new gaming.

Lex Fridman (49:22.140)

So all of those things came on top of that

Cristiano Amon (49:24.780)

as the aggravated issue, but they're not the main issue.

Lex Fridman (49:28.580)

The main issue is it's actually a long term growth

Cristiano Amon (49:34.020)

of digital.

Lex Fridman (49:35.180)

So what I'm hearing you say is the pandemic

Cristiano Amon (49:38.380)

was not the cause, it was an aggravation.

Lex Fridman (49:40.780)

It was an aggravation.

Lex Fridman (49:41.620)

So is there a way we can support as a human civilization

Lex Fridman (49:48.260)

in terms of manufacture, in terms of supply,

Cristiano Amon (49:51.420)

the kind of growth that you're talking about

Lex Fridman (49:53.900)

in devices and so on?

Cristiano Amon (49:55.620)

Is there high level ideas you can say

Lex Fridman (49:58.060)

of what that's required there?

Cristiano Amon (49:59.940)

Yes, and I think that's the second part of the answer.

Lex Fridman (50:02.500)

So what's happening now?

Lex Fridman (50:03.860)

How are we gonna get out of this?

Lex Fridman (50:05.540)

So we see a lot of capacity investments

Cristiano Amon (50:10.140)

put into place by the industry.

Lex Fridman (50:12.900)

We had invested a lot with our suppliers.

Cristiano Amon (50:15.740)

A lot of the suppliers had made plans

Lex Fridman (50:19.500)

about increasing the capacity.

Cristiano Amon (50:22.140)

The industry is planning to double

Lex Fridman (50:24.380)

its total semiconductor manufacturing capacity

Cristiano Amon (50:27.180)

within the next five years, an example.

Lex Fridman (50:30.140)

So that's already happening.

Lex Fridman (50:31.460)

And then you see things which are actually good.

Lex Fridman (50:33.900)

They're good.

Cristiano Amon (50:35.300)

The initiative such as the United States CHIPS Act

Lex Fridman (50:38.140)

and now the European CHIPS Act.

Cristiano Amon (50:40.620)

The United States CHIPS Act's about $52 billion.

Lex Fridman (50:43.700)

The European's about 43.

Cristiano Amon (50:45.900)

Their goal combined is to get at least 50%

Lex Fridman (50:49.900)

of the consumption with manufacturing installed

Cristiano Amon (50:54.340)

within the US and European geographies.

Lex Fridman (50:57.260)

And that's also very good.

Cristiano Amon (50:58.340)

That's yet another incentive for more manufacturing capacity

Lex Fridman (51:03.180)

to be built and to be built

Cristiano Amon (51:05.300)

with a geographic distributed way,

Lex Fridman (51:08.300)

which that's how you plan supply chain.

Lex Fridman (51:09.980)

So those I think are good things.

Lex Fridman (51:12.420)

So if anything we learn through the crisis

Cristiano Amon (51:16.060)

is that semiconductor is important.

Lex Fridman (51:19.420)

Semiconductor companies are important

Lex Fridman (51:21.380)

and we need to invest in semiconductors.

Lex Fridman (51:23.860)

We're turning to the grilling of the CEO

Cristiano Amon (51:26.140)

with the hard questions.

Lex Fridman (51:28.140)

This is almost from my own education of the space.

Cristiano Amon (51:30.580)

You mentioned regulators.

Lex Fridman (51:32.220)

Qualcomm paid out and received payment

Cristiano Amon (51:34.300)

of billions of dollars in settlement and fines.

Lex Fridman (51:38.060)

There seems to be a lot of huge lawsuits in this space.

Lex Fridman (51:40.620)

How do you explain that?

Lex Fridman (51:42.260)

Does this get in the way of innovation

Lex Fridman (51:45.260)

or does it promote it?

Lex Fridman (51:46.860)

I will rephrase it by saying there used to be a lot

Cristiano Amon (51:50.620)

of lawsuits in this space.

Lex Fridman (51:51.940)

In addition of what we do in semiconductors,

Cristiano Amon (51:56.940)

our processors and our modems, the Snapdragon platform,

Lex Fridman (52:02.780)

we also have a licensing business,

Cristiano Amon (52:04.660)

which has been a part of the company since the beginning.

Lex Fridman (52:08.060)

As the largest inventors of the essential technology

Cristiano Amon (52:14.020)

in 2G, CDMA, 3G, 4G and 5G,

Lex Fridman (52:19.620)

and Qualcomm contribute that to the standards.

Lex Fridman (52:21.820)

So we always had this model that rather than invent

Lex Fridman (52:25.740)

the technology and be the only one producing the products,

Cristiano Amon (52:27.980)

we license so everyone can produce it.

Lex Fridman (52:31.940)

And as such, we receive intellectual property

Cristiano Amon (52:35.940)

for the standard essential patents.

Lex Fridman (52:40.580)

As part of our past dispute with Apple,

Cristiano Amon (52:44.420)

that's behind us now.

Lex Fridman (52:46.220)

Your friends now.

Cristiano Amon (52:47.260)

They're my customers.

Lex Fridman (52:49.620)

And as part of that, I think the licensing model

Cristiano Amon (52:54.580)

got tested, I think, in every geography.

Lex Fridman (52:58.580)

And we succeeded in every single geography

Cristiano Amon (53:02.100)

to validate the pro competitiveness of this model.

Lex Fridman (53:06.780)

I think the fair, reasonable,

Cristiano Amon (53:09.540)

non discriminatory aspect of this model.

Lex Fridman (53:12.260)

And I would argue that besides being the most successful

Cristiano Amon (53:16.420)

licensing business to date in the industry,

Lex Fridman (53:19.860)

probably the one that's been battle tested

Lex Fridman (53:21.980)

and is most stable because there's not a single

Lex Fridman (53:25.020)

jurisdiction that we have not had to validate that model.

Lex Fridman (53:29.060)

So it's part of our past and what it creates

Lex Fridman (53:32.180)

is probably create a lot of stability

Cristiano Amon (53:34.220)

in our licensing business.

Lex Fridman (53:35.220)

But having said that, the growth of the company

Cristiano Amon (53:38.300)

is in the semiconductor space.

Lex Fridman (53:40.260)

And the semiconductor, so licensing is,

Cristiano Amon (53:43.300)

you come up with a pretty good idea,

Lex Fridman (53:44.860)

you have a bunch of smart people coming up with cool ideas,

Lex Fridman (53:48.100)

and then once you come up with that idea,

Lex Fridman (53:49.900)

you sell that idea to others, they get to use it.

Cristiano Amon (53:52.340)

That's essentially what a license.

Lex Fridman (53:53.900)

The license revenue we have is for the,

Lex Fridman (53:58.060)

what we call the SCP, standard essential patents,

Lex Fridman (54:02.180)

that are part of the 2G, 3G, 4G, and 5G standards.

Lex Fridman (54:07.620)

So if you want to build anything with 5G,

Lex Fridman (54:10.860)

you need to get a license from Qualcomm

Cristiano Amon (54:13.500)

because it uses Qualcomm essential technology

Lex Fridman (54:16.860)

as part of the standard.

Lex Fridman (54:17.940)

And a slightly different model,

Lex Fridman (54:19.580)

or a lot different model with the semiconductor

Cristiano Amon (54:22.100)

is you design, you inject a bunch of fascinating ideas,

Lex Fridman (54:25.820)

how to build the Snapdragon, and then there's,

Cristiano Amon (54:28.220)

because it's a fabulous company,

Lex Fridman (54:29.820)

you have somebody build the chip

Lex Fridman (54:33.580)

and then goes into a phone with the branding

Lex Fridman (54:35.460)

and all that kind of stuff.

Lex Fridman (54:36.740)

And that has less kind of players involved,

Lex Fridman (54:40.100)

it's not a license.

Cristiano Amon (54:40.940)

We sell the product.

Lex Fridman (54:42.340)

We don't license semiconductor technology,

Cristiano Amon (54:45.420)

we build products and we sell products.

Lex Fridman (54:49.460)

This is your first year as a CEO.

Cristiano Amon (54:51.620)

Not one year yet.

Lex Fridman (54:52.940)

Not one year yet.

Cristiano Amon (54:56.100)

Let's hope it'll be in June, it'll be one year.

Lex Fridman (54:58.300)

Okay.

Cristiano Amon (55:00.100)

This is a company that's involved

Lex Fridman (55:04.060)

with a lot of fascinating technologies

Lex Fridman (55:06.220)

and it's touching the lives of billions of people.

Lex Fridman (55:09.540)

A lot of complicated stuff.

Cristiano Amon (55:11.260)

Like I said, licensing technologies.

Lex Fridman (55:13.460)

You have to collaborate with manufacturers.

Cristiano Amon (55:17.460)

You have to then work with, however many you said,

Lex Fridman (55:20.020)

car companies and all these clients and so on.

Lex Fridman (55:23.460)

And you have to, with tech companies, Apple and so on.

Lex Fridman (55:29.500)

What's that like?

Lex Fridman (55:30.460)

What lessons have you learned about leadership

Lex Fridman (55:33.060)

and maybe about yourself as a human being

Cristiano Amon (55:35.100)

from this first, almost a year, soon to be a year

Lex Fridman (55:39.460)

as a CEO of this incredible, this complex,

Lex Fridman (55:42.060)

this large company?

Lex Fridman (55:43.500)

That's a loaded question.

Cristiano Amon (55:44.540)

Let me answer in reverse order.

Lex Fridman (55:47.820)

First thing that I learned, and I think it's probably common

Cristiano Amon (55:52.380)

across CEOs, especially in our industry,

Lex Fridman (55:55.380)

is it will be great if I had more time.

Cristiano Amon (55:59.300)

I think there's, especially because we grow

Lex Fridman (56:01.860)

in so many areas and there's so many things to learn,

Lex Fridman (56:04.180)

so many relationships to build, time to spend

Lex Fridman (56:08.420)

with a number of different technologies.

Lex Fridman (56:11.700)

But it kind of reflects really the size

Lex Fridman (56:14.100)

of the opportunity that exists for Qualcomm.

Cristiano Amon (56:16.180)

Qualcomm, it is really growing in a number

Lex Fridman (56:19.060)

of different directions all at the same time.

Lex Fridman (56:22.060)

And so it did got busier.

Lex Fridman (56:25.860)

And part of this is because I'm spending a lot of time

Cristiano Amon (56:29.820)

understanding the new industries we're going in

Lex Fridman (56:32.740)

and building relationships.

Cristiano Amon (56:35.620)

Second thing, which is a lot to do

Lex Fridman (56:37.380)

with how I think about things

Lex Fridman (56:39.340)

and a little bit of my personality.

Lex Fridman (56:41.580)

At the end of the day, business partnerships

Cristiano Amon (56:44.460)

are really done by people.

Lex Fridman (56:46.940)

And I think the importance of having trusted relationships

Cristiano Amon (56:51.380)

for the long term is extremely important.

Lex Fridman (56:54.860)

And I've been dedicated to do that as CEO.

Cristiano Amon (56:57.380)

We're not a company that plays for the short term.

Lex Fridman (57:01.020)

We don't.

Lex Fridman (57:01.860)

And when we build new partnerships,

Lex Fridman (57:03.780)

we expect that to be for decades.

Lex Fridman (57:05.980)

And so I spend time doing that

Lex Fridman (57:09.420)

and think that's important for Qualcomm.

Cristiano Amon (57:11.260)

The other part of your question is,

Lex Fridman (57:15.100)

we do have a lot of opportunities in all different areas.

Lex Fridman (57:18.900)

What we like, and I've been fortunate enough

Lex Fridman (57:21.540)

to become CEO at a time,

Cristiano Amon (57:23.780)

that a lot of the trends are pointing to our technology.

Lex Fridman (57:27.180)

We talk about some of them.

Cristiano Amon (57:28.220)

We talk about merger of physical and digital spaces.

Lex Fridman (57:31.300)

We talk about the transformation of the automobile.

Cristiano Amon (57:33.500)

We talk about the merge of computing and mobile,

Lex Fridman (57:38.820)

the enterprise transformation of the home.

Cristiano Amon (57:40.580)

There are many of those trends.

Lex Fridman (57:42.380)

And those trends create opportunities for Qualcomm

Cristiano Amon (57:46.140)

to be providing technology first.

Lex Fridman (57:50.820)

And as such, we're in a hurry.

Lex Fridman (57:53.660)

So I'm in a little bit of a hurry

Lex Fridman (57:55.420)

because I think the opportunity is incredible

Cristiano Amon (57:57.700)

for technology, but having fun and enjoying the job.

Lex Fridman (58:02.620)

Is there a burden because of so much

Cristiano Amon (58:04.780)

of what you said is partnerships

Lex Fridman (58:07.300)

and almost like friendships,

Lex Fridman (58:09.820)

connections with other human beings?

Lex Fridman (58:12.300)

Me as an introvert that has a lot of social anxiety,

Cristiano Amon (58:15.620)

that seems extremely stressful.

Lex Fridman (58:17.180)

So is there that burden on your shoulders?

Cristiano Amon (58:19.340)

You have to wake up every day

Lex Fridman (58:21.180)

and talk to friends you've had for many years.

Cristiano Amon (58:25.940)

It can be, and then convince them

Lex Fridman (58:28.660)

and make partnerships with them,

Cristiano Amon (58:31.060)

talk with them, describe to them the future,

Lex Fridman (58:33.700)

sell them an idea, and then yourself grow

Cristiano Amon (58:36.100)

because you don't know what the heck

Lex Fridman (58:37.360)

the future is gonna be like.

Lex Fridman (58:38.500)

And you have to project both confidence and humility,

Lex Fridman (58:41.000)

all those kinds of things.

Lex Fridman (58:42.220)

Is that exhausting?

Lex Fridman (58:45.100)

It is exhausting, but it's something I do like to do.

Lex Fridman (58:48.680)

And it's not only with partners, really.

Lex Fridman (58:50.540)

It's also internally to your employees, I think,

Cristiano Amon (58:54.100)

to get alignment on the vision

Lex Fridman (58:55.440)

and faith in the vision and execute.

Lex Fridman (58:57.680)

And at the end of the day, we're very fortunate.

Lex Fridman (58:59.100)

We have a lot of smart people.

Lex Fridman (59:00.200)

So people, if they're aligned with the vision,

Lex Fridman (59:02.100)

they know what to do.

Lex Fridman (59:03.460)

And then, of course, as CEO,

Lex Fridman (59:05.300)

you have to convince your investors

Cristiano Amon (59:06.860)

that that's the right idea as well.

Lex Fridman (59:09.940)

If you can put on your wise sage hat,

Lex Fridman (59:13.980)

do you have a device for young people

Lex Fridman (59:16.100)

in high school and college?

Cristiano Amon (59:18.540)

You yourself started from the humble beginnings in Brazil,

Lex Fridman (59:24.780)

maybe a bit of a wild, risky decision to go to Japan,

Lex Fridman (59:28.860)

and now are the head of one of the biggest,

Lex Fridman (59:30.820)

most successful, most impactful companies in the world.

Cristiano Amon (59:34.100)

Given that story, can you give advice to young people today

Lex Fridman (59:37.980)

that they can have a career

Lex Fridman (59:41.180)

or just a life they can be proud of?

Lex Fridman (59:43.980)

I think the first thing,

Lex Fridman (59:45.420)

and of course, all of those answers

Lex Fridman (59:47.740)

are gonna relate to my own experience, right?

Cristiano Amon (59:52.140)

The first thing is it always worked for me

Lex Fridman (59:56.940)

to have a plan, even if the plan